Sunday Morning Coffee — July 20, 2025 — Bang. Zoom. To The Moon!
By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, Nevada
Assuming occupying planet Earth has been on your dossier for the last half century or so, where were you 56 years ago today— July 20, 1969? Not-a-helpful hint: It was also a Sunday.
Let’s be honest that was a long time ago, but if you’ve reached that certain age where recalling impressionable details from your past sometimes is easier than remembering what we did last Thursday, you’ll understand.
If that July 20, 1969 focus isn’t keen yet, let me try and jog your memory:
The top song in the country that week was In The Year 2525 by Zager and Evans.
The top movie? Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider were packing them in but that week the box office honors belonged to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
And television? More dials were tuned in to The Ed Sullivan Show than any other show during the week.
A gallon of gas in July ‘69 cost 35 cents; a half-gallon of milk was 55 cents; a dozen eggs were 62 cents and that loaf of bread at the A&P or Grand Union 23 cents. Plymouth Road Runner was the most popular car in the country; a new one set you back $2,945. And after you bought the car if you needed a garage to park it in the average price of a new house was $15,550. Richard Nixon was six months into a White House residency that didn’t pan out exactly the way he had planned.
In baseball, still America’s pastime in the 60s, the Cubs won a doubleheader that day from the Phillies to up their lead in the National League East to five games over the Mets. More on that Cubs sweep in a bit. It would be another month and change before the Mets got rolling, overtook Chicago and miracle of all miracles won the World Series over the Orioles. The Mets were so bad since their inception seven years earlier that many said a man would walk on the moon before the Mets won a World Series— two things that didn’t appear very likely.
During that summer of 1969 I was 17 and working as a counselor at a small, homey sleep-away summer camp in the Catskill Mountains. Eight weeks of playtime for us and two months of joy for Mom and Dad. About 100 kids in Woodbourne, New York. Zip code was 12788 — one of those inconsequential details that has stuck with me. It was my fifth year at Camp Impala; three as a camper and the last two bossing the campers around. Things were pretty regimented at camp. You had a daily schedule and kept it. Except for two things: rain and a special event.
That first special event was on August 22, 1967. Camp Impala brass wheeled a black and white television with rabbit ears into the mess hall allowing counselors, staff and the oldest group of campers to watch the most anticipated climax to a television show of our young lives—the final two episodes of The Fugitive. The penultimate episode aired at 10 pm Eastern which meant just about all the camp was sleeping except for the privileged few. Everyone laughed when the commercials came on just like we did on the rare occasion we watched TV in public school. The same scenario was mimicked the following week with the final episode of the four-year-old cliffhanger validating what we suspected all along: Lt. Gerard was full of hooey; the one-armed man was indeed the killer of Richard Kimble’s wife. Dr. Kimble was free at last. We stood and cheered but not too loud to wake-up the campers, which was a counselor's nightmare.
The next time the TV on wheels made an appearance was two summers later. In fact, 56 years ago tonight. It fulfilled a promise made by President John F. Kennedy eight years earlier in 1961 that, “Before this decade is out, (our goal) is landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” JFK made no mention of the Mets winning the World Series. Kennedy offered Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev the opportunity to partner in the moon mission, but Khrushchev turned him down. The race was on.
Apollo 11 landed on the moon at 4:17 pm Eastern July 20, 1969 under the guidance of Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin. Armstrong, 38, finally stepped out of the capsule at 10:56 Eastern, 19 minutes before being joined by Aldrin. Pilot Michael Collins flew the command module Columbia in orbit while his two compadres were exploring the moon’s surface for almost 21 hours collecting some 50 pounds of lunar material. In other words, as Bing Crosby sang 25 years earlier in his 1944 Swinging on a Star classic, they carried moonbeams home in a jar. President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 but would have taken great delight that we beat the Russians in what was a frenetic two-country space race. If you had the US-Russia exacta, you cashed a ticket.
The moon landing is still the most watched television broadcast ever with an estimated 650 million viewers worldwide including the couple dozen of us at Camp Impala. Again, we stood and cheered. We heard Armstrong’s legacy words of, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” No doubt the only one disappointed was his wife Janet who probably hoped her husband would have said, “I love you to the moon and back.” Oh well.
Meanwhile in Philadelphia the Phillies were hosting a doubleheader against the Cubs at Connie Mack Stadium. In the third inning of the second game Chicago All-Star Ron Santo, batting cleanup, hit a home run off long forgotten Phillies pitcher Billy Champion. While Santo circled the bases, much to his surprise, the partisan Philadelphia crowd of 12,393 roared. A standing ovation in fact. Upon returning to the Cubs dugout Santo commented to teammate Glenn Beckett, “I’ve never had a standing ovation for a home run on a road trip.” Beckett told him, “You still haven’t. Take a look at the scoreboard, we just landed on the moon!”
As for me, I had no idea as I watched the drama on the moon unfold and Armstrong take that legendary first step out of the capsule, it would begin a lifetime marked by losing wagers. In the Camp Impala first-to-the-moon counselors’ pool, I had Alice Kramden.
Bang. Zoom!
I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger
Simply the best.
Always look forward to SMC , wonderful look back to a different time. Good memories and yes we had an Impala too