Friday, December 20, 2013

Christmas as I remember

News Flash update: Lydia Cornell will be signing autographs in person on January 4 & 5, 2014 at The Hollywood Show at the Loews Hollywood -- with her "Too Close for Comfort" costars Jim Bullock and Deborah Van Valkenburgh (Sara, Monroe and Jackie together!) 

Christmas 1968

This holiday season Lydia asked me to do a little Christmas\Holiday message since she's currently wrapped up on set filming a movie. I know I personally used to love Christmas as a kid and when Christmas time approaches each year I often find myself wandering in my mind back to earlier times and the happy memories of Christmas morning awaking to nothing but presents and food and tasty treats and fun all day long. Man what could be better?  So for me I think the best Christmas message I can think of is one I remember that I heard on Christmas eve, 45 long years ago. A message that I, and almost everyone alive on the planet at that time also saw and heard.
Click Me!

1968 was a pretty hard year all around. Vietnam was starting to take people we knew, Robert Kennedy was murdered as was Doctor Martin Luther King. There were the massive riots that followed and things were just feeling pretty low that Christmas in the country in general. I know in my own family I could see the toll it had taken on my mother, as we lived in an area that was near the riots. And although our parents generally considered themselves republican they loved Jack and Bobby Kennedy, and when Bobby was shot it was a depressing blow. For me it meant having to stare at 3 days of nothing but a flag draped coffin being driven down the street or mourned over in state. I'd remembered from a boy seeing the same sight for his brother and this didn't do a lot for my enjoyment that year either.

But then that evening while watching TV they once again interrupted the program we were watching to bring us live audio and video from Apollo VIII, now in orbit around the moon.  Suddenly Bill Anders started reading from Genesis, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth", while simultaneously showing us live video feed of the surface of the moon. When Anders began to read my mother who was in the kitchen doing the dishes came into the room with her dish towel in hand and stood there watching with me and the rest of the family. When he said "let there be light" they panned the camera off to the earth, and there we were. Staring back at ourselves.

Understand, until that time we'd not seen the earth from space. There were no photos in existence of the earth from deep space showing the full circle of the earth hung there in the blackness of space. We had "artist depictions" which normally showed a pale, pastel blue green planet rather than this bright, vivid glowing "big blue marble" staring back at us, or at least for those of us who had color TV that is which fortunately we did. It was an incredible sight, and gave you goosepimples to see. As Borman finished his message, I remember seeing a small tear in the corner of my mothers eye, and there was a warm glow in the room that I can't really describe, just a sense that I've never felt since. A sense that all was right with the world. God was "in his heaven" as it were. And I was too. Seeing our earth changed us. Time posted one of the best shots taken of the earth coming up from behind the moon and called it "Earthrise". This photo along with the events of that evening helped spark and drive the green revolution of the 70s that has continued to this very day.

Things seemed to change after that. Not rapidly. Slowly at first. But slowly attitudes began to shift. America was moving away from war and towards peace and prosperity. And although the Apollo program died when the war died just 4 years later, it left us with a momentum and a sense of "self" that we'd never had before.

Today we're in a similar state at times it seems with the incessant bad news we're spoon fed 24 hours a day 7 days a week, so I thought for Christmas wouldn't it be nice to go back for a few minutes and relive this milestone event in human history that many of us experienced and fondly remember? And for those who never saw this event first hand I invite you to take a peek into a wonderful Christmas eve I had 45 years ago this Christmas eve.

Enjoy.


Merry Christmas! Happy New Year. 






11 comments:

  1. Nice post Worf. Hope you have a good X-mas.

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  2. Anonymous10:32 AM

    You too Johnny. We've seen a lot of them since the blog started that's for sure. Since I didn't get you anything for Christmas I'll log into World of Tanks Christmas day and let you blast my Panzers turret a few hundred times or so. Merry Christmas! :)

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  3. Anonymous12:04 PM

    Here Johnny, check this out. You'll enjoy this.

    Ruins of Normandy SlideShow

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  4. Very nice vivid pics.Simply fascinates me how we wreak such destruction upon one another for belief/value/control!

    Actually,Worf, when I joined WOT's I didn't know that I was chosen to be a Beat tester for X-Box 360...........the official release is still pending! I have all the German tanks including the 100 ton Maus. I loathe cowards and campers and am always barking into my microphone at them. I often lead the board or am in the top three. Of fifteen enemy tanks I destroyed eight in one game...........unbroken record! Can you play beta testers?

    I really hate artillery......lol!

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  5. Anonymous5:38 PM

    I don't know, X-box beta tester ay? Wow, ..congratulations...I think. lol Not sure if I can play beta testers or not. Probably not. Just got freebee account. I don't play much anyway and I don't have an xbox or any game consoles so you'll easily make fire shoot out of my turrets side hatches. I'll see you on Christmas. Ho ho ho.

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  6. Anonymous5:40 PM

    I'll put it this way, I have to use my keyboard to make my tank move.

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  7. Anonymous5:54 PM

    By the way, on those WWII pictures of Normandy, if you play Call of Duty which I thought you said you did, the WWII version that is, then those streets and buildings should be as familiar to you as the back of your hand. Much of those streets you're seeing are from the CoD map "Carentan". That jeep with the people milling about is the end of the street there in Carentan. Up the street 2 blocks to the right is the center fountain and town square along with the machine gun window on the second floor there. That field with the blown out Panther is the field where the 30 cal in CoD is in Carentan. Some of the pics are from other maps, like Burgundy or some of the others but most of that's Carentan. I recognize it all just from playing those maps so often. I haven't played CoD in a few years, never time for that stuff now but it was fun in the day.

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  8. Worf, there is still good in this world worth celebrating this Christmas season,

    even if the MSM cannot find a way to drive their ratings with it.

    The Inside Story Of How The U.S. Acted To Prevent Another Rwanda

    Merry Christmas


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    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:18 PM

      Merry Christmas to you Clif.

      Delete
  9. Wow! What a great article! Thank you Worf. I love this post. MERRY CHRISTMAS! Back in a bit.. more soon XOXO

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  10. Please listen to my short new WEIRD iTunes show all about DUCK DYNASTY and SEX in Hollywood… Check out the new post and please let me know your thoughts. Also PLEASE download and rate and review and subscribe. In earlier episodes, we discuss the hilarious Stalker crime comedy thriller which is still on going -- check this back in October.. Love you all and MERRY CHRISTMAS!! XOXOXOOX

    ReplyDelete