Landing on the Moon and Landing in the Drink

Mark Daniels reminded me of two events which took place on this day in 1969: The landing on the moon by Apollo 11, and the landing in the drink by Teddy Kennedy. We've done Teddy to death around here, so we'll let that event pass, but I did want to mention a personal anecdote regarding the moon landing.

July 20, 1969 was a Sunday, and we always went to church on Sunday morning and evening. However, do to the historic nature of the event, we played hooky and stayed home Sunday night to watch the broadcast (along with the Associate Pastor and his wife, I might add). It was a very exciting evening, even for a 13 year old kid like me.

Many years later - probably 30 or so - I was moving a bunch of books around, one of which was an old Good New for Modern Man, a version of the New Testament that was popular in the late 60's. I used to use it as a kid and it was still in my collection of Bibles. If you're as old as I am, this might bring back some memories:

As I was picking up the book to put it up on some new shelves, something dropped out. To my surprise, look what I found:

It was a tithe envelope, dated July 20, 1969, that never made it to church because we stayed home and watched the moon landing. I apparently never used that Bible again - otherwise I would have turned in the tithe. I gave a whole $1.10 (which is still in the envelope - I've never opened it). My handwriting isn't any better today than it was back in 1969.

I keep the Bible and the tithe envelope together on my bookshelf as a reminder of a very important day in our country's history.