Apollo Has Landed

1969 Bald Eagle Lake, Minnesota

Dad said come out here son this is history the first man to ever step on the moon.
I remember he also had me come out and watch a few years later as Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency. I don’t remember seeing the moon landing, but I do have a memory of it, and I remember the quote like everyone else does, and Armstrong´s footprint. Nixon was surrounded by his family and maybe Checkers the dog too, as he bowed in disgrace to the cameras and the world. Then or before he was to coin the phrase I´m Not a Crook! which was to become all the craze in later years.

Probably the first real memories I have come from television, it was my babysitter and I watched everything all the time. Especially in the winter, our picture window framing the frozen lake while the Looney Tunes defied death and body bags rolled off the plane from Vietnam.

It was about this time in my young life when I asked my Dad where I had come from. He often told me the story about this moment, it was one of the family favorites.

He was working on building the front porch when we first got the house on Bald Eagle, and I just walked up and asked him out of the blue--Dad, where did I come from?? He didn’t know what to say, like The Stork brought you or The Birds and The Bees or what. So he started by saying, well Jay you were adopted. I just said Okay Dad and walked off.

I´m not really sure if I knew what Adopted meant at that moment, but from the very beginning it wasn’t a secret at all.