Looking Back, Looking Ahead, part 2.....

...in my life circa 1968...

1) The horrible photo of the shooting of a VietCong officer by a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. One more stake in the heart of continuing the Vietnam War.

2) The beginning of the Boeing 747 era; maiden flight February 8.

3) Walter Cronkite's CBS documentary on his time in Vietnam ends with a commentary by Cronkite saying, "But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."

4) LBJ decides not to seek re-election, March 31.

5) Martin Luther King, Jr. lost.
6) Robert F. Kennedy lost.

7) Hey Broadway, here comes "Hair"!!, April 29

8) One more reason to buy bon-bons---"One Life to Live" premieres on ABC, July 15.

9) Republicans go Nixon early August, Democrats go Humphrey late August, and chaos hits the streets of Chicago. Well, it wasn't Hubert's fault.

10) Summer Olympics held in Mexico City, two U.S. track medalists offer the black power salute on the medal stand.

11) A young lady named Peggy Fleming enters the American psyche on the ice of Grenoble, France at the Winter Games. 40 years later, she's still hot. Wow..... :)

12) "Oliver!", the film version of the London musical, hits U.S. theaters. About 8 years later, I premiere on the stage of Beaverdam Elementary School as "Mr. Brownlow" in our award-winning stage presentation of said musical.

13) December 24 - Apollo Program: U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole. The crew also reads from Genesis. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

14) Imagine astronauts reading from Genesis Christmas Eve, 2007. Barry Lynn would be so mad he'd probably propel himself to the moon.

AND....

I turned one. My brother turned ten. I started walking, which meant falling face first onto the wood floor wasn't far behind. Let's just say I couldn't keep a "stiff upper lip" very much my first few years. :)

The Packers won Super Bowl II (which means my future favorites, the Raiders, lost), and Lombardi said so long.

The Tigers won the World Series, defeating the great Bob Gibson in game seven.

I'm older than.....

--Cuba Gooding, Jr.
--Mary Lou Retton (NOTE!--she had surgery quietly in May, 1984 just days before my dad went in for his brain surgery at the same hospital here in Richmond. Two months later, she wins gold.)
--LL Cool J
--Lisa Marie Presley
--Gary Coleman
--Jeri Ryan (and her Star Trek alter-ego)
--Kenny Chesney (my friend at work LOVES him....wait. She loves ALL country music hunks.)
--Ashley Judd
--Kylie Minogue
--Shannon Sharpe
--Theo Fleury
--Barry Sanders (the best running back I've ever seen play)
--Debra Messing
--Rachael Ray (my daughter's FAVORITE personality. NOT!!!)
--Will Smith (older, but NOT as cool as him, obviously)
--Jesus...oh, sorry. I meant Jim Caviezel.
--Jordan. Sorry. Jill Hennessy. Whew--had she been in the junior class at my high school my senior year, I would have begged her for a date. She would have slapped me and walked away. :) :)
--Kurt Angle

I PASSED THEM ON THE ROAD OF LIFE.....

--Yuri Gagarin
--Helen Keller
--Tommy Armour (the golf clubs with his name were the first I ever used)
--Tallulah Bankhead
--Upton Sinclair
--John Steinbeck

....Lord have mercy, that's only one year?