18 August 1957
Not too many things happened on this date in history.
If you do a Google search of this date, you might find that some lady named Betty Dodd won the LPGA Colonial Golf Open, or a gentleman named Juan-Manuel Fangio won his last car race, or that another lady, by the name of Amelia Wershoven threw a baseball 252’ 4”, setting a world record.
As I said, not much.
The one story you won’t read is:
(Albany, GA) Born today in the hospital at Turner Air Force Base, the fourth son, and the fifth child, of George and Jytte Colgan. His parents have named him Quentin in the Irish tradition. Quentin’s father is 32 and was born in Brooklyn, NY. He is a Gunnery Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. His mother, 30, was born Jytte Sorenson in Fredericia, Denmark. She works as a nurse.
Quentin joins brothers Timothy, Kevin, Sean, and sister, Maureen.
‘Twas probably the most important event of the day.
Yeah.
Fifty.
Five decades.
50.
Five-oh-my-gawd.
I have lived a long time.
Of course—and I can almost hear all the “old folks” snickering—fifty is a short time to some people. Not to me.
I can remember a lot from the last fifty years.
I was blessed (cursed?) with a pretty good memory. I can’t remember my Pop-Pop’s face, but I can remember the cannon I played on down the street from his house—in the winter of 1960.
I can remember—barely—the original Mercury flights. My father would drag me out of bed to watch both lift-offs and splashdowns. Same with the Gemini flights.
I do not remember the Cuban Missile Crisis per se, but I clearly recall the night I had to stay at the day care center waaay past the usual time because Camp Pendleton was in complete lockdown. My father was on ready alert and couldn’t leave, and my mother could not get aboard the base to pick me up. When I finally did get home, instead of grace, we said an entire Rosary.
I can remember the Latin Mass.
I still remember my first crush. Her name was Kimberly, and she lived down the street from me. As it turns out, she recently Googled my name and we have been corresponding for the last few weeks. Cool!
Of course, I remember the day President Kennedy was assassinated. I think most people my age would. I was in first grade. We were in line ready to go into class when Mother Matthew, the principal, comes running up and starts shouting, “The President has been shot! The President is dead!” I remember trying to be stoic. I sat numb through the rest of the day. I went home, went straight to my bed, laid face down and cried myself to sleep.
I remember too, when Ruby shot Oswald.
I vividly remember my parent’s divorce in ’67. Back then divorce was something good Catholic families just didn’t do.
I recall the first time I saw color TV—wow! I recall that we didn’t get one until 1973.
I remember 1968. There’s a lot to remember about 1968. Tet, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Chicago, Nixon-Humphrey-Wallace.
The moon landing was a strange event for me. Nobody I knew cared a whit that history was going to be made. I watched it alone.
Of course, who could forget Vietnam? (Apparently, President Bush and his cronies did—but that’s another story.)
I feel that surviving five decades gives me some kind of right to be an old fart if I choose. At least, I feel closer to “curmudgeon” status. Of course, there’s always the risk of boring the younger crowd with those interminable I-remember-when stories.
The resiliency of the human body fascinates me. Think about it. How many cars are left from that year? And they’re made from iron!
When I think of all the damage that has happened to this body, I am amazed everything still works. Talk about an intelligent design!
That design, coupled with the advances in modern science, makes me wonder, will I still be blogging fifty years from now? Will I still be engaged in this quixotic quest to enlighten and inform?
Absolutely!
“Come Sancho, there are more windmills to slay!”