On The Day I Was Born: March 28, 1969

There was a lot going on in the world the year I was born, so I've heard. My father became our town's first Recreation Director, and I learned to crawl.

On a side note, Richard Nixon was inaugurated as the 37th President of the United States, and Golda Meir became the first female prime minister of Israel. The Boeing 747 made its maiden flight not long before the first Concorde test flight was conducted in Toulouse, France. A week after I was born, Dr. Denton Cooley implanted the first temporary artificial heart, and, five months later, the first automatic teller machine in the United States was installed in Rockville Centre, New York.

1969 was the year WalMart incorporated and the first Gap store opened in San Francisco. The Vietnam war was still going strong, while the Stonewall riots in New York City marked the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S. Cult members led by Charles Manson murdered Sharon Tate and many others, and Monty Python's Flying Circus made its debut in the U.K. on October 5th. And the first message was sent over ARPANET, the forerunner of the internet. Needless to say, 1969 was hardly a dull year.

Also in 1969, from August 15th through the 18th on a farm in upstate New York, half a million guests showed up for the largest rock concert ever conceived. The crowd included anti-war protesters and Vietnam veterans, gays and lesbians and anti-gays, rednecks and black militants. There were two births and two deaths, and flower children and anti-government advocates were also amongst the attendees. And there were certainly many people there simply to enjoy some great music. Sounds like it was quite the crowd!

Woodstock
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On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11, with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on board, lifted off toward the Moon. They arrived four days later, setting down in the lunar module Eagle.

Meanwhile, the world was glued to television sets, watching as Neil Armstrong took those first historic steps on the lunar surface.

On July 24th, the astronauts returned to Earth, where they were placed in biological isolation for several days to prevent the potential spread of "lunar germs." Scientists eventually concluded that the airless environment on the Moon was devoid of even microscopic life.

Ten Days That Shook the Nation - The Moon Landing, 1969 Art Print
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To my eventual appreciation, on November 10th, 1969, Sesame Street premiered on the National Educational Television (NET) network. For years, I watched 8-foot, 2-inch tall Big Bird and the rest of the gang educate and entertain. Kermit the Frog and the Cookie Monster were my favorite characters.

Sesame Street Masterprint
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On January 30th, 1969, The Beatles gave their last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records. The unannounced concert was broken up by the police. Nearly nine months later, on September 26th, their critically acclaimed Abbey Road album was released. That was the same day The Brady Bunch got a series premiere only on ABC.

Beatles - Warhol
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So, obviously, a lot happened in 1969. But what about on the 28th of March that year? I wondered if anything happened at all, besides my birth of course. Was it a day off perhaps, in my honor? I thought I'd do some digging and try to find out.

And, lo and behold, I learned that, on the day I was born, others were born as well! Who knew? So I did some checking, thinking that, of course, some of us would have made our way into the spotlight by now, a little more than 40 years later.

Now, while I found that Queen Ingrid of Denmark, Saint Teresa of Avila, Reba McEntire and Lady Gaga were also born on March 28th, they appeared on this world stage in different years than I did.

But I did come across a few rather famous people that were busy being born on the very same day and year. And here they are:

Little did I know at the time, but on the day I arrived, Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Army General and the two-term, 34th President of the United States from 1953-1961, passed away at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. from congestive heart failure.

On my first full day of life, Eisenhower's body was moved to the Washington National Cathedral's Bethlehem Chapel where he lay in repose for twenty-eight hours. During that same time, I went home from the hospital.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower with 101 Airbourne Photo
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There was a brown, naugahyde chair in the house where I grew up, and that chair had a connection to President Eisenhower. There was a furniture store in North Carolina, were my parents lived before relocating to Rhode Island, where I was born. The owner of that store was my older brother's godfather, and in that store was a chair that Eisenhower's wife, Maime, saw and liked. So she ordered two for the White House. The store owner told this to my father, who then bought the floor model, which took its place in our living room for the next forty some-odd years.

Well, maybe my picture was on Time magazine instead.

But, on the day I was born, the featured story on page 82 of LIFE magazine was "The Vanishing Orangutan" by David Agee Horr, about how extinction was threatening "our red-haired kin of the rainforest." (And still does.)

Also in that issue was a review of the movie Alice's Restaurant, based on an Arlo Guthrie song, photographs from the Apollo 9 album, taken by the astronauts on their historic flight, and an editorial entitled, "Bringing Home 50,000 Troops Is Still A Good Idea."

You can pick up a copy of the LIFE Magazine issue from MARCH 28, 1969 on Amazon.com.

Vanishing Wildlife: The Threatened Orangutan, March 28, 1969 Photographic Print
Rentmeester, Co
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On the day I was born, the Grateful Dead band was on the other side of the country, in Modesto, California, where they played at the Student Center at Modesto Jr. College. You can listen to an audio archive of this show at Archive.org.

Following the first set, which included songs like the 11-minute, 42-second Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl, Dark Star, which lasted nearly 23 minutes, and the 10-minute Death Don't Have No Mercy, Jerry Garcia told the crowd, "We're gonna knock off for a little while and drink some Coke and stuff like that and then we'll be back and play some more, shortly." Apparently, though, the break didn't really happen. While tuning, Jerry said, "We're gonna play instead of taking a break," which I'm guessing the crowd must have been very happy about. (Source: Deadlists)

I went to only one Grateful Dead show, on July 4, 1987 at Foxborough's Sullivan Stadium where they played with Bob Dylan, and I think I was the only one of the 61,000 in attendance not wearing a tie-dyed shirt. When I once mentioned the show to my husband and said, "Eh, it was okay," he looked at me wide-eyed and said, "Okay! What are you nuts? It must have been awesome!"

Grateful Dead
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I actually ran into lead singer, Jerry Garcia, a few years later (give or take) when he and the band were in Albany, New York for a concert. I was visiting my older brother and was in a downtown museum, waiting for him to meet me on his lunch hour break, when Jerry sat down next to me on a bench. I think the lady he was with had gone to the restroom, so Jerry took a load off, said hello to me, and then we both pondered the diorama in front of us. I remember glancing at the bearded stranger, only to do a quick double-take then looked down to see that, sure enough, he was missing the tell-tale finger. It was Jerry Garcia all right.

Richard Milhouse Nixon Stretched Canvas Print

On the day I was born, President Richard M. Nixon sent a memorandum to the heads of departments and agencies on the subject of Equal Employment Opportunity.

The memorandum began:
The concept of nondiscrimination is inherent in the Civil Service Act of 1883, which calls for a Federal service based on merit and fitness alone. "Nondiscrimination" was broadened by President Eisenhower to "equal employment opportunity" with his issuance of Executive Order 10590 in 1955. In the years that followed, other Executive Orders designed to insure equal opportunity in the employment, development, advancement and treatment of employees of the Federal Government have been issued. This series of Presidential directives reflects continuing support for this program at the highest levels of Government.

Read more at Presidency.ucsb.edu.

One of my favorite forms of exercise, Jazzercise, was founded the year I was born, too. And I actually joined our local studio here in Flagstaff, Arizona, on my birthday, three years ago. I wrote about this dance-fitness program here:

Jazzercise: More Than a Great Workout

Although I'm an avid outdoorswoman, hiking isn't the only thing I do for exercise. I'm also known to work out three or four times each week in a class...

Ever heard about the mystery of Everett Ruess? It's something of a legend here in the southwest, but that mystery has now been solved. And when I heard the news and read some articles, I came to find out he was born the same day I was (but in 1914).


The Mystery of Everett Ruess (Solved?)

Artist and poet Everett Ruess was a wanderer, a loner, and a minimalist who was also a prolific letter-writer. Each time he'd set out to explore the wild...

The "On My Birthday" Lens Challenge:

Create a lens about the year or day--or even the year and day--of your birth, then come back and let me know. I'll feature it here. And, if we get enough, I'll just have to make a separate lens altogether, to feature each lensmaster too.