It's always something, but it could be something else

Ten newsworthy things that happened in 1969 after I enlisted in the Air Force.

1. Eisenhower died on the day I reported for basic training, so did my grandfather.

2. Charles DeGaulle died too, typical French guy, he couldn't even let Eisenhower get cold before he goes and kicks it.

3. Man walked on the moon for the first time while I was playing poker in the upper bay of my barracks in Biloxi Mississippi

4. Woodstock took place. Three days of love, peace, and rock & roll, or whatever they called it back then, and I did my part by playing pin ball and getting drunk on a bottle of Bacardi's Rum that I had to have someone buy for me because I had just turned 19 and the legal drinking age for everything except beer was 21.

5. The Tate-LoBianco murders were committed by the Manson family which was weird because the night of the Tate murders a bunch of us went to the drive-in and saw a double bill of The Planet of the Apes which starred Charlton Heston and The Valley of the Dolls which starred dun dun dun ... Sharon Tate.

6. Teddy Kennedy got away with murder or at least negligent homicide when he drove his car off the bridge at Chappaquidick (sic), saving himself, and allowing Mary Jo Kopechne (sic) to drown, but at least this spared us of a Teddy Kennedy presidency, and this is coming from a life long democrat, so don't go there with the "oh yeah, you conservatives yadda yadda yadda".

7. Hurricane Camille hit the Gulf Coast, which I was smack dab in the middle of, and it was pretty cool, seriously, and one of the guys from my squadron went missing, but it turns out he was at his uncle's house just outside of Biloxi, and I kid you not, the guys name was Bud D. Wiser, and it wasn't even a nickname, it was his given name.

8. Ehhhh, there was some peace march on Washington DC, but I was in the air force so my ass was covered, and yeah, even then I was the center of my own universe, so since the war didn't effect me I just sort of ignored it, ok, I was against it, but I ignored it.

9. The Hells Angels beat some guy to death at a Rolling Stones outdoors concert in Altamont California in stark contrast to Woodstock just a few months earlier.

10. The first draft lottery took place while I was home on leave before going over seas, and my number would have been in the 300's so there was no way I would have been drafted if I hadn't enlisted, and I always refer to this as the "so sad, too bad" period of my life.