50 years ago

    Some days it seems like yesterday, others it feels like a geological age.  50 years ago I had just graduated from high school and was taking a few tentative steps toward independence during a summer which featured two of the most talked about events in our history; Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's landing on the moon and its counter culture equivalent, Woodstock.
    Unfortunately for me, I was keeping my head down and working all summer at a local nursery for money for college tuition while assiduously courting a certain local lady who would eventually become the Divine Mrs. M. .  The moon landing registered with me, but only peripherally.   I grew up during the space race and followed Alan Shepherd and John Glenn's exploits in the early 60s.   By the time of Apollo 11, many of us took the achievement for granted, assuming mission control would make sure the astronauts would make it there and back again.  No big deal.  The detail that made me proud was the Lunar Excursion Module or LEM which actually landed on the moon was built by a local company, Grumman Aerospace.
     My relationship to Woodstock was even more tenuous.  I heard about the massive traffic jams in the tiny community in upstate NY where the festival was held, but having never been north of NYC, the Catskills were Terra Incognita to me.  I was about as likely to guest on Apollo 11 as attend 3 days of Peace and Love.  As a clean cut teen who spent 8 years in Catholic school, I was suspicious and a little put off by marijuana puffing hippies and psychedelic rock bands.
     50 years on, I wish I had paid a little more attention to the historic trends rocking America, but in the small town world I grew up in, it took more self awareness than I possessed to do that.   All I can say is I was there at the time.