I was in the third grade when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The principal announced it over the PA (public address) system and her tone was soft and defeated as she shared the news in a gentle way. My teacher, Miss Turk told us to get our things ready. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock but we did as we were told and lined up with our lunch boxes and jackets on that chilly November morning.
The mothers began arriving within minutes, all dressed in floral print house dresses and carrying oversized handbags. Except for my mother, who wore her tight black pants and a shirt with polka dots. My classmates silently got into cars and drove past as we began our walk back home.
Six years later the Apollo 11 moon landing was a big deal in July of 1969. I had turned fourteen that summer and was caught up in my world of friends and events leading up to my freshman year in high school in the fall. Several of us had gathered at the home of a family who had a living room large enough to accommodate twenty people or so. My mother was there as well. The adults sat on the sofa, chairs, and kitchen stools that had all been pushed in closer to the television set; the kids were on the floor and I felt lucky that day to be positioned in front of one of the coffee tables so I had a place to stack my cookies and chips and balance my plastic cup of Kool-Aid as the show began.
It was a show, in my mind at least. I couldn’t fathom going any further than from Los Angeles to Miami at that time, let alone into outer space. It was a show, unlike the “war” show that was on when I got home from school every day. I liked this show because it was more refined; the astronauts were quiet and soft-spoken in comparison to the soldiers and commentators coming at us from Viet Nam.
The astronaut show had begun a year before Kennedy was killed. His speech at William Marsh Rice University in Houston on September 12, 1962 set the stage and introduced the ideas that would change the face of history forever. In less than twenty minutes the American people accepted the challenge, along with the financial burden and the inherent danger and moved forward in a quest for top billing in the race to get to the moon.
It was a video sales letter of sorts, masterfully crafted by speechwriter Ted Sorensen, whom Kennedy referred to as his “intellectual blood bank.” It included a brilliant headline — “This country was conquered by those who moved forward-and so will space.” If you watch the video replay you will see people in the audience physically responding by sitting up straighter in their seats and appearing to listen more attentively.
He gave us a “reason why”, laid out the objections and answered them with the “features and benefits” of what space exploration would entail, and then delivered the line we can remember even if we weren’t alive or aware of what occurred on that day…
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
As I watched the moon landing with my friends and their families on that humid August day in 1969 the news commentators reminded us of what we had purchased all those years before. They showed excerpts of JFK’s speech and moved in close for that most memorable twenty seconds. I could hear a few of the parents softly sobbing and some of the women gave each other a hug. I didn’t understand it then but I was witnessing history that would affect my future. We never know where our life will take us unless we take the time to choose and plan and implement the steps we will take to move us from where we are right now to closer to where we would like to be.
Two years later, almost exactly to the day I would be married. I was sixteen and he had been married before, was the father of two toddlers, and had divorced his first wife almost immediately upon his return from Viet Nam so she could marry someone else and leave her children behind. There was no such thing as joint custody in those days, so his parents, my new in-laws had legally adopted the kids and promised he would always be able to see them. He was twelve years older, smoked at least a pack of Marlboro’s each day, and loved me fiercely.
I understood everyone’s concern. They pictured me as a divorced single mother by twenty-one, with toddlers of my own hoisted on my hip, a cigarette dangling from my lips, and a bad attitude about not finishing high school. But I knew better; this relationship was right for both of us. I hadn’t focused so much on the “until death do us part” until he died eleven years later.
My life is a blessed one and I live each day with no regrets. And my memories are vivid as I think back to the times when I had to make a hard choice. Not to enter the space race against the country only mentioned once in that speech delivered in Houston, but ones just as significant in my own life. Watching the moon landing allowed me to dream of greater things than would have been possible otherwise. Marrying at a young age gave me perspective that might have taken another decade or two to manifest. And those two toddlers, along with their children have become the people closest to me for almost a half century, so far.
I’m Connie Ragen Green, author, publisher, entrepreneur, and collector of life experiences. Find out more at https://ConnieRagenGreen.com.
MOON – 50 days – https://www.fastcompany.com/section/50-days-to-the-moon
https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm – JFK speech – Sept. 12, 1962
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