Nasa

I love the Beatles song A Day in the Life when it starts of “I heard the news today…” It was the song that went through my head when I heard the news that Neil Armstrong had died. I am unsure what my childhood would have been like without the events that not only changed me, but the events that changed the world and it got me thinking…

Where were you when you heard the phrase, “the Eagle has landed?” I know on that day July 20, 1969, I was glued to our old RCA TV and it was a bigger than life. My family and I watched as the small capsule slowly descended and the large four legs gently touched the moon’s surface.  I remember my mother saying breathe! I think I held my breath until I heard, “The Eagle has landed.”

Neil Armstrong later would step out onto the ladder and eventually put his foot down on the surface of the moon and say, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”  To this day when I watch old replays of this historic event, I get a little choked up. Nothing this big has ever happened in my lifetime, and nothing this big has happened since. We were on a different surface in the universe and man was walking on that surface.

I was sad to hear Neil Armstrong had passed away and I am grateful he lived a good life and was a household name. When I heard the news, my spouse looked at me and said, “This is a big deal for our age group. It changes the face of the memory of our youth.”  We both agreed that his death reminded us of our own aging process.

Neil Armstrong was 38 year old when he walked on the moon.  He always had an interest in flying and received his pilot license before his driver license at age 16. He started to work on a BA in aeronautical engineering at Purdue University and eventually his masters in aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California. He flew 78 combat missions in Korea and conducted test flights of over 50 types of experimental aircraft before he flew into space in 1966 on the Gemini 8 Mission.

Armstrong was indeed a sky pilot and with his passing, we baby boomers are gifted enough to remember what it was like to sit in front of our TV’s to watch history in the making. I know one day we will put a man in mars and we may hear the same words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”  For today, Neil Armstrong will remain the greatest sky pilot for being the very first man to walk on the surface of the moon.

The world bids farewell to this sky pilot and hope he is walking the surface of any planet in any universe he chooses. For me, I have spent the past few days remembering my youth and talking with people who said they knew exactly where they were, how old they were and what they were doing the day Neil stepped onto the moon forever changing our history. Over and out Neil…

Do you remember the moon landing? What are your memories?

By Allan warren CC-BY-SA-3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

They just don’t make female comedians like they used to. Oh yeah I think Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey,  and Kathy Griffin are all funny and they make me laugh. However, when I was young a growing up, comedy was different. Female comedians had to be funny to make it in a man’s world of comedy and there were a handful of female comedians that could make you laugh and yesterday we lost one, and it got me thinking…

Sadly, all the great people I grew up with are starting to fade away and die. It’s all good, they say all the good ones die young, but not in the case of Phyllis Diller. She was 95 and I heard she was still funny. Today we mourn the loss of one of the greatest female comedians. Diller was a household name.

She based her comedy routine on being an everyday mundane housewife.  She wore ridicules outfits and a hair doo that looked like she stuck her finger in a light socket.  She had a “husband” named “Fang” that she made fun of and she talked about the everyday life of a housewife. The twist was, she made it funny and she had an infectious laugh that would stick in your head like glue. Even better she used that trademark laugh to laugh at her own jokes.

She could get away with one-liners that would go over most people’s head today.  One-liners like “I don’t like to cook; I can make a TV dinner taste like radio,” or “I put on a peekaboo blouse. Fang took a peek and booed.” You have to admit, this is funny. She pulled off what so many people cannot do today, make you laugh without a swear word. She was good clean fun. To me, she was right up there with other great comedians such as Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin, Gracie Allen and Gilda Radner.

Diller’s career spanned over 50 years and included specials with Bob Hope, Ed Sullivan Show, and she hosted a TV talent show called “Show Street”. She then went to star in a comedy “The Pruitts of Southampton” but it was soon renamed  ”The Phyllis Diller Show”. In 1968 she did a comedy-variety series called “The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show.” She was witty, she was outrageous she was the homemaker gone mad.  That is what she had her audience believe, and the audience believed it till the day she died.

I remember seeing her on the show Laugh In and she always held this cigarette in a slender cigarette holder, said one-liners, and did her signature laugh and yelled “sock it to me.” For a while, Diller showed up everywhere on TV. She was just funny to watch and other comedians worked hard to imitate her.

I personally will miss Phyllis Diller. It is that ever reminder that the greats are going, and we are left to try to create new greats, but for me, so many of these great people, simple cannot be replaced, just remembered.

Taken from footage from Youtube

I have tuned into the Olympics daily. I enjoy some of the summer games. My favorite is swimming and diving. I have always liked to watch the water sports when it came time to the Olympics.  I have to say it has been interesting watching Michael Phelps making history with all his gold medals and it got me thinking…

Phelps certainly may have established his name as a gold medal swimmer, but many of us who are in our 50′s, will never forget gold medal winner Mark Spitz. He won seven gold medals in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

If you have not heard of him, say hello to Mark Spitz. He was a USA swimmer who not only took seven gold medals in 1972, he broke 7 world records that same year. He shattered record after record and was then, what Michael Phelps is today and that is a champion.

Several things stick out in my head about Mark Spitz. When I was about 13 years old, all the girls I went to school with had a crush on him.  I mean they HAD A BIG CRUSH on him. I didn’t care what he looked like in his skimpy bikini bathing suit but many of my friends purchased his poster and had it on their bedroom wall. His posters with his seven gold medals were everywhere. He was on the cover of every magazine and newspaper. He was Everything and everywhere.

The other thing I recall was he everywhere on TV. He did commercials, and even started an acting career. The good news, his acting career did not last. A great swimmer, yes, and actor, not! I still recall when he had an appearance on a TV show called Emergency and he played the role of a man who accidentally shot his wife. I was not impressed with his acting and as a young teen knew the only reason he was on TV was he had the gold.  Still, he was an awesome swimmer and deserved all the limelight he received.

I think what really sticks out in my mind with Mark Spitz was that he won his final competition and within just a few hours of winning, a group of Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes.  Spitz was hurried out of the country under heavy security and survived the ordeal. What I knew was that even as a young teen, I would never forget watching the TV in shock that this was happening. I think during those hours, we all were glued to the TV devastated that a terrorist act was happening at the Olympics.

That tragic event did not take away the glory Spitz earned for him and in 1999; Spitz was ranked number 33 on ESPN’s Sports Century 50 Greatest Athletes. More impressive, he was the only aquatic athlete to make this list.

Once out of the limelight, Mark Spitz started a real-estate company that was successful. He is a motivational speaker and still travels and speaks. What we need to remember is that he made history as an aquatic athlete. He won seven medals, broke seven records at the age of twenty-two, and deserves a place in memory lane.