I would have to say the earliest personal ones that I remember affecting me directly were both the summer of '69. I was not yet 7 years old... and within a month of each other, I remember sitting at my grandma's house, watching "Over the Rainbow" playing again and again on TV. I was VERY upset (hey, I was a kid!) that nobody had told me "The Wizard of Oz" was playing on television. Then my mother quietly said (as nicely as she could) that Judy Garland, who had played Dorothy, had died earlier that day. I remember sitting there, stunned, trying to comprehend that "Dorothy had died." My mother and grandmother tried to explain a little bit about drug overdoses and alcohol abuse... and I kept watching my favorite song from my favorite movie playing on TV all day long. I was so sad. I had no idea that at a bar in NYC that same evening, as a direct result of Judy Garland's death and police brutality, an emotional riot would break out that would throw the door wide open, once and for all, on the Gay Rights movement. Something that wouldn't affect me directly until years later. But, boy, did it affect ALL of us who can speak and live and love even remotely openly today. If Judy only knew.
The other event, only about a month later (as I recall), was when I was AGAIN sitting at Grandma's house... watching (on her stunning 16-inch Black & White set with rabbit ears!) this funny looking man in a white space suit, bouncing around on a white, rocky surface. They tried to tell me how important this was. We were watching the first transmitted footage of a human being walking on the moon. I remember watching their faces, and thinking how cool the world was. That anything and everything was possible.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 12/26/05 at 11:45 AM
