Events I am glad to have witnessed

Posted on August 6, 2002 in Memory Whimsies

I promised I’d do this.

• My marriage to Lynn
  
• The party at which I met Lynn
  
• The 1991 March against the Gulf War in San Francisco
  
• The landing of the first men on the moon
  
• The safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts
  
• Shaking the hand of George McGovern
  
• The resignation of Richard Nixon
  
• The Watergate Hearings, especially seeing John Dean telling the truth
  
• Touching the grafitti left by Lord Byron at Sounion, Greece
  
• Seeing the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican
  
• Witnessing the struggles of peace activists in Osijek, Croatia and Beograd, Serbia
  
• Talking to Slovenia and Makedonian activists after the fall of Yugoslavia
  
• Seeing the Hale Bopp comet and staying right here on earth.
  
• Meeting Bella Abzug at Pomona College.
  
• Shaking the hand of Geraldine Ferraro
  
• Seeing how people helped each other after the Quake of 89
  
• Al Gore’s statesmanship after the Supreme Court decision that selected George Bush
  
• Seeing Steven Jobs roll by on roller blades
  
• Observing the annual Clampers’ celebration of Emperor Norton Day
  
• Reading Catch 22 for the first time
  
• Seeing Lyndon Johnson come to San Bernardino to operate the elevator he used to run
  
• My first meeting with my niece Uhuru who was born three months prematurely and has survived
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Events I am Glad I Missed

Posted on August 5, 2002 in Memory Whimsies

It’s time for a little gratitude to balance out the woe I’ve been filling this blog with. Here is my personal list of places I could have been and things I could have done that I, thankfully, missed:

• Being in the World Trade Center the morning of September 11, 2001.
  
• Being at the Altamont Concert in 1969.
  
• Being a child prostitute
  
• Contracting AIDS (knock on wood for this one)
  
• Working as a drug smuggler
  
• Being in Vietnam
  
• Becoming addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, heroin, cocaine, etc.
  
• Participating in the race riots at my junior high school during the seventies
  
• Trying LSD or any other hallucinogen
  
• Serving in the military (I’ve gone to war zones, but not carrying a gun)
  
• Shaking RFK’s hand as Sirhan Sirhan shot him
  
• Talking to MLK as James Earl Ray shot him
  
• Sarajevo in 1991-1995
  
• Going to prison (could still happen if Ashcroft gets his way)
  
• Being an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience (ditto comment from above)
  
• Being condemned to death
  
• Marrying my first fiancee
  
• Attempting suicide
  
• Joining the priesthood
  
• Converting to Scientology
  
• Joining the People’s Temple and moving to Jonestown
  
• Being murdered or mugged. (fingers crossed)
  
• Being aboard the Challenger
  
• Being in Watts during the 1964 or 1992 riots

Watch for things I am glad I witnessed. Coming soon.