History As You Experienced It

Saddam Hussein's Sons Meet Their Maker (July 22, 2003)

Five months before the capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, his sadistic sons Uday (age 39) and Qusay (37) were shot to death by U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.  (A teenage son of Qusay was also killed.)  I heard the news a few days after it happened while on vacation in Iceland.  Unlike Osama bin Laden, photos of their shot-up bodies were widely circulated.

 

Our tour group was in the desolate central portion of the country on a gloomy day (pictured, left) when our tour guide, Yense, announced the news over the bus microphone.  This was the first news we heard from the "outside world" since our trip began six days earlier.  I found it interesting that Yense mentioned it since, except for me and my friend Tom and a feisty retired elementary school principal from North Carolina (who still sends me postcards), the rest of our tour group was from Ireland or the UK.   

Tragedy at Chappaquiddick (July 18, 1969)

As the nation prepared for one of man's greatest triumphs (the Moon landing) another event was unfolding that would remind us of human frailities that time and again lead to the downfall of many great men.  And although it occurred on the eve of the Moon walk it would easily outlive that news cycle. (Looking back, it was a precursor to the uncensored scandals that are now sadly the norm.) 

 

The news of the deadly car accident involving married Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy and his young female passenger Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick Island (off Martha's Vineyard) interrupted my family's viewing of the Miss Universe Pageant on Saturday night (back then beauty pageants were a big draw). Although the accident occurred late Friday Kennedy waited until after daybreak Saturday to report it.  And despite the fact that I was only 12 at the time even I could sense that there was something amiss about his explanation. 

 

  

 

30 years later another Kennedy tragedy would occur in the middle of July (7/16/99) when John Kennedy, Jr. was killed in the crash of the plane he was piloting off Martha's Vineyard. (See my post about the deaths of Princess Diana and JFK, Jr.)

 

(For the uninitiated the book Chappaquiddick Revealed: What Really Happened goes into detail about the scandal and the implications it would have on Ted Kennedy's political career.)

Remembering TWA Flight 800 & United Flight 232: Two Memorable Mid-July Plane Crashes

News of aviation disasters often produces a visceral reaction since such crashes usually result in a large number of fatalities and also because most of us have been on board a plane so we can empathize with the doomed passengers.  Two of the nation's most high-profile air disasters occurred in mid-July in 1989 and 1996.

 

TWA Flight 800 was bound for Paris on the evening of July 17, 1996 when it exploded off the south shore of Long Island shortly after take-off from JFK.  Some eyewitnesses reported seeing a streak of light shoot up to the plane, perhaps a missile.  My mother called to tell me the news shortly before I sat down to watch the 11:00 news.  I remember that at one point NBC News anchor Brian Williams resorted to showing the crash location by holding up a paper map since there had been no time to create a whiz-bang graphic. 

 

That summer was the first in which I had a weekend share out at the Pines in Fire Island and a seat cushion was found washed up on the beach that weekend.  For the rest of the summer whenever any flotsam appeared in the water (the plane came down just 15 miles east of the community) we'd wonder if it was debris from the plane.

 

An air disaster captured on video occurred the afternoon of July 19, 1989 when United Flight 232 bound from Denver to Chicago lost its hydraulic system an hour into the flight and was forced to make an emergency landing in Sioux City, Iowa.  Although 111 passengers died there were also 185 survivors.  Besides the high number of survivors what also made this accident stand out was the fact that news crews were waiting for the plane when it crash landed. (For more than an hour it was known the flight was in distress.)

 

The dramatic footage of the plane breaking apart with pieces of it going up in flames and then somersaulting into a cornfield adjacent to the runway was shown over and over on TV that night.  I didn't see the news coverage until late because I had been attending a carefree summer networking event of the NY Advertising & Communications Network (a pioneering gay/lesbian professional group which I was treasurer of at the time; it's now called Out Professionals), but once I was home I was glued to the TV set as I counted the cash from the evening's event.  It was horrifying, but mesmerizing as well, to watch because it was something rarely captured on video. 

 

 

 

(On the same day as United 232's crash landing another story out of LA was receiving a lot of coverage as 21-year old actress Rebecca Schaeffer, co-star of the sitcom My Sister Sam, was murdered the day before by a stalker who shot her at point-blank range when she answered the door of her West Hollywood apartment.)

 

   

John Kennedy Jr. Dies in Plane Crash (July 16, 1999)

It was just past noon on a scorching Saturday afternoon (the temperature back in Manhattan was close to 100).  I was out on the deck of my summer share at Fire Island putting on sunscreen when a housemate returned from a beach walk and told us the news that the private plane piloted by John Kennedy Jr. was missing.  It had taken off Friday evening from New Jersey and never arrived at its destination in Martha's Vineyard where they were to attend the wedding of John's cousin Rory. 

 

 

John's wife Carolyn and her sister were also on board.  Their bodies were recovered on July 21.  John was 38, Carolyn 33; they would have been married three years in September.  Flight experts speculated that Kennedy, a newly licensed pilot, likely became disoriented by a thick haze that obscured the horizon and was unaware his plane was flying directly into the water.  Ironically, Kennedy's death occurred almost 30 years to the date of his uncle Ted's controversial car accident at Chappaquiddick.

   

That weekend happened to coincide with the annual Fire Island Dance Festival (a benefit for Dancers Responding to AIDS) and the Kennedy tragedy put somewhat of a damper on the event.  Kennedy's fate was likely on mind of many of the event's attendees, especially since the stage looked out onto Long Island's Great South Bay which served as a sobering reminder of the watery grave of the plane's passengers.

 

 

 

This tragedy brought back to mind the death of Princess Diana two years earlier because I was also out at Fire Island then when I heard the awful news.  

 

 

 

 

The Stonewall Riot - Gays Fight Back! (June 28, 1969)

I was 12 at the time and completely unaware about what was going on in New York's Greenwich Village – and who knows if the disturbance even received news coverage in Pittsburgh (after all, the city's first Gay Pride parade wasn't held until just six years ago!).  And even if it was reported I wouldn’t have understood much since at that age I didn’t even know what a homosexual was.  (A few years later I’d learn by sneak-reading my older sister’s copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*.) 

 

 

 

 

 

The only memory I have that has some connection to the event was hearing about the death of Judy Garland on the car radio as my family drove to church on the Sunday preceding Stonewall.  At the time my only association with her was as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and not as a gay icon.   Legend has it that her death was a contributing factor to the riot (along with a heat wave) as her funeral was earlier that day and bar patrons weren’t in the mood to be harrassed by police (but that has since been called into question).   

 

Not to digress too much, but 17 years later I was living in the belly of the beast, the West Village, just a few minutes’ walk to the Stonewall Inn.  During that summer of 1986 I participated in a sit-down protest that blocked traffic on Seventh Ave. for an hour or so on the evening of July 1.  It was in response to the Supreme Court upholding Georgia’s sodomy law.   And so I had my own opportunity to participate in a bit of civil disobedience. 

 

 

 

But getting back to the disturbance at Stonewall, an event that ignited the gay rights movement, the account that follows is provided by Liz Solomon, a former co-worker of mine, who grew up in Greenwich Village.  She kindly volunteered to offer her story of that night.  Take it away, Liz …

  

  

 

First off, let me say that the thoughts and language of this memoir are those of 1969 not 2009.  I cringe at some of the things we said and did back in those days. But more importantly, I am a firm believer in historical accuracy trumping political correctness.

  

 

It’s important to understand that the West Village of 1969 was a very different place than it is today.   For one thing it wasn’t called the West Village, but rather “Downtown”, “West Side”, maybe “the Village”.  Furthermore, it wasn’t the home of celebrities, models – and especially not the rich.   It was a regular working/lower middle class neighborhood with dock workers, butchers (the Meat Packing District actually processed meat back then!), truck drivers along with a scattering of white collar workers and government employees. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

We always knew there were gay people interspersed in the neighborhood but it had yet to take on the “gay ghetto” vibe that came later in the 70s.  (When I was in high school and college, guys I dated from outside the neighborhood would often give me a hard time about walking me home when they learned where I lived because it might be bad for their "image" if they were spotted there).  Did we welcome those of differing orientations with open minds and hearts?  Much as I’d like to say yes, we were kids and it was 1969.  But it wasn’t a matter of thinking that homosexuals were deviant.  No, they were just different, and there was getting to be more of them in OUR neighborhood and they were starting to take over the docks after dark, previously the urban version of "lover's lane" for a neighborhood full of frisky and hormonal teenagers.  No doubt some of the local boys felt a bit uncomfortable or threatened by overt homosexuality (not that they would admit it), but any harassment, name calling, or even occasional fisticuffs was really more a matter of “turf”, not orientation, and would have been even worse had the interlopers been from, say, 17th Street.

  

 

 

 

 

 

Which brings us to the last weekend of June, 1969. I admit I missed the first night entirely.  The police raid on the Stonewall Inn happened after 1:00 AM and at the time I had a curfew so I was long home under lock and key.   The next day was Saturday and a family obligation kept me off the stoops and out of the loop until after dinner.  The minute I could I broke away and once outside the air was buzzing with incredulous and somewhat amused chatter about how the gays actually fought back, throwing stuff, shouting about their rights and turning the tables on the police - at least for a while.

 

  

 

This animated discussion continued as more and more kids joined the “hanging out” group.  Then someone suggested we walk over to Sheridan Square (two blocks away) to witness what was going on firsthand.  It was about 9:30 and, WOW, was it ever crowded with an agitated throng shouting previously unheard messages of gay pride and solidarity. Cops were everywhere with their billy clubs in hand and ready to go.  The tension was beyond anything I could remember in my limited experience.  Anyway, we were just onlookers and this wasn’t our fight.  Except that anyone starting trouble against our tormenters from the 6th Precinct, who enforced truant laws and chased us off street corners, was officially okay in the neighborhood kids’ book.   The enemy of our enemy was our friend, thus did some dispassionate teenagers become involved in the opening act of the battle for Gay Rights.

 

 

 

I remember being pushed along with a group of my friends and other people to the other side of Sheridan Square towards West 4th St.  Fires lit in garbage cans and there was was considerable harassment (but restraint as well) on both sides.  I saw a lot of shoving, and a few outright beatings, but alas, once again, my curfew loomed (plus a small grace period) and I had to make my way to the safety of home.  Thus my first participation in civil disobedience, albeit I was somewhat on the peripherary, came to an end. 

 

 

 

The following year on June 28 New York City held its first Gay Pride Parade as an estimated 2,000 participants marched through the streets of Greenwich Village.  Since then a number of other key moments in Gay History have also occurred in late June: the unfurling of the first Rainbow Flag at San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade on June 27, 1978; the striking down of the nation's sodomy laws by the Supreme Court on June 26, 2003; and on June 30, 2005 MTV debuted its gay-themed cable network, Logo.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Two books that provide in-depth background on the Stonewall Riots are Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution and Stonewall.)

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Death of Fred Astaire (June 22, 1987)

Fred Astaire's death stands out in my mind because it coincided with a career milestone of mine.  After spending nearly six years at ad agency Young & Rubicam I left to take a job as media research manager at NWAyer.  My first day on the job, June 22, 1987, was the day Astaire died at the age of 88.  I heard word of his death after returning from a welcome lunch.  Another memory of that afternoon is that a guest staying at the Warwick Hotel, which was across the street from the office, had jumped to his death. 

 

Years later this suicide, for some reason, came up in conversation with a new boss (at another ad agency) and she told me that the same thing happened on her first day at a new job.  We determined that it was the same suicide since her first day was the same as mine and with a company in the same office building (the Burlington Building on 6th Ave. between 54th and 55th Streets).   

 

 

Getting back to Astaire - He didn't get his start in Hollywood until he was in his mid-30's.  Between 1933 and 1957 he appeared in 30 movie musicals with his dance partners including Ginger Rogers (in 10 pictures), Eleanor Powell and Rita Hayworth, among others.  And although he was a remarkably sleek and athletic dancer his sex appeal alluded me (unlike that of Gene Kelly).  I cringed while watching two classic films from 1957 where the 58-year old Astaire was romantically paired with much younger actresses - 28-year old Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face and 35-year old Cyd Charisse in Silk Stockings.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ethel & Julius Rosenberg Executed (June 19, 1953)

The execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, members of the Communist party convicted of passing plans about the A-bomb to Russia, coincided with a milestone for my parents - the purchase of their first home in the summer of 1953.  At the time my sister Linda was 2-1/2 years old and my mother was a month away from giving birth to my brother Darrell.  Mom and Dad were understandably anxious to move because they wanted to be settled in by the time my brother arrived. 

 

The new house on Roosevelt Ave. was in McKees Rocks, 10 miles from downtown Pittsburgh along the Ohio River.  It was part of a new development, Hanover Heights, that was very near to the small farm where my father grew up.  Ours was one of the first homes completed and after a string of delays the fledgling family moved in on June 30.  My brother was born a few weeks later and I came along four years after him.  And it's where my mother still lives.

 

The early 1950's was rife with paranoia about Russia's plans to overtake the U.S.  Thus, the Rosenbergs actions were portrayed as having seriously comprised the nation's security.  Still, as a young mother, Mom felt some uneasiness over their execution since they had two young sons, Michael and Robert (pictured), who were orphaned.  The execution of their parents in the electric chair took place at Sing-Sing prison in New York State.

 

 

The 6-Day War: Israel Vanquishes Its Enemies (June 5-10, 1967)

The residents of McKees Rocks, the factory town I grew up in just outside of Pittsburgh, were a mix of Poles, Slovaks, Italians and Germans and largely Roman Catholic.  Jews were few and far between.  However, the 6-Day War in the Middle East in June 1967 struck a chord with my family because my teenage sister Linda had an Israeli pen pal.  Her name was Meirah; she lived in a village somewhere between Haifa and Tel Aviv and was a soldier in the Israeli army.  When war broke out it put a human face on the conflict for us.   

 

I was 10 at the time and the idea of female soldiers was a novel concept (as it probably was for most of pre-feminist America).  Linda developed a crush on Israeli general, and war hero, Moshe Dayan (and also took a liking to a Jewish classmate of hers, Sanford Barsky, who was valedictorian of her 1968 senior class).  Because of the ties my sister had with Meirah I developed a strong affinity for Israel.  (20 years later I'd have an Israeli boyfriend who drove a tank in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.) 

 

In the eyes of this 10-year old the conflict seemed fairly black and white: Egypt, Syria and Jordan planned to attack Israel which struck first, prevailed and gained new territory - which its enemies then demanded back.  Even a child on the playground would find this demand laughable.

 

 

Also on the minds of my family at this time was the well-being of my Aunt Lillian who had been hospitalized.  Shortly after the war ended she died suddenly on June 13 - the first time I experienced the death of a relative.  On that sweltering day my parents picked me up from school at lunchtime and once home told me the news of her death.  It was a shock since she was set to be released from the hospital the next day.  She was only in her mid-50's at the time of her death. 

 

Linda and Meirah exchanged 25 letters over a 3-year period (thru the end of 1969) and she has all of them as well as souvenirs and small gifts she received.  I've wondered how much she could get on Ebay for the special commemorative edition of the magazine Bamahane, a Hebrew-language weekly of the Israel Defense Force that Meirah sent her after the war concluded.

 

(To learn more about this war, the book Six Days of War: June 1967 War & the Shaping of the Modern Middle East, sets the landscape for the conflict and discusses the geo-political implications that still reverberate today.)   

 

Bobby Kennedy Assassinated (June 6, 1968)

I'm sure many of us remember times in our lives when we awoke in the morning to learn of some major news event that had happened overnight.  For instance, that's when I first heard of Indira Gandhi's assassination; the death of Roberto Clemente in a plane crash; and about the truck bomb that killed 230 US Marines in Lebanon. 

 

 

The first time I recall this happening was the morning of June 5, 1968 when my dad woke me up for school (5th grade) and told me that Senator Bobby Kennedy had been shot.  The shooting occurred minutes after his victory speech at a Los Angeles hotel after he won California's Democratic primary.  The first thing that went through my mind was that this was the second Kennedy in just five years to be shot and it been only two months since the assassination of Martin Luther King. 

 

Kennedy lingered for a day before dying in the early morning hours of Thursday, June 6 - which happened to be the day of my sister Linda's high school graduation.  Later that day when I arrived home from school I watched some of the news coverage as Kennedy's casket was taken from the plane after it landed in New York.  Since I was 11 at the time the fact that RFK was a youthful 42 years old didn't register with me - after all, he was the age of my parents so it didn't seem young.  Of course, his death cast a pall on the evening's commencement exercises and references to it were inserted into a number of remarks made on the dais. 

 

 

 

In 2006 the movie Bobby, a fictionalized account of the hours leading up to RFK's assassination, was released.  It had more than a dozen recognizable stars in its cast, including Ashton Kutcher, Laurence Fishburne, Elijah Wood, Demi Moore and William H. Macy.  

The Death of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (May 19, 1994)

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died the night of May 19, 1994 at her Manhattan apartment.  Cause of death was non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which had been made public a few months earlier.  Her death came one month after the death of former president Richard Nixon (who JFK defeated for president in 1960).  Jackie's death is particularly memorable for me because it coincided with the death of my father.

 

Dad sufferred from a rare degenerative disease of the brain known as supranuclear palsy for about 10 years - the same condition actor Dudley Moore sufferred from.  On Mother's Day he was hospitalized for a mild heart attack and two weeks later I visited him and my mother for the weekend.  (Up until this hospital stay my mother had taken care of my father at home.)

 

I heard the news about Jackie's death (at the age of 64) during the 11:00 news while packing for my trip and I read more about it the next morning while waiting to board my flight to Pittsburgh at Newark Airport.  On the last day of my visit Mom, Dad and I watched some of her funeral from Dad's hospital room.  The next day, May 24, Dad died unexpectedly, two months shy of his 70th birthday.  I returned to Pittsburgh the following day to help my brother, sister and mother with funeral preparations.