My memories of the Royal Wedding are linked to a personal career milestone. On the late July morning in 1981 when Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer's nuptials were held (it was a Wednesday) I had my fourth, and final, interview at ad agency Young & Rubicam for a position as a senior media planner on the Eastern Airlines account.
I had been at my first job with Scali McCabe Sloves for a little more than two years and was ripe for a move (four of my colleagues had left in the previous few months.) And while Scali was a great place to start, its reputation was largely due to its creative product. Going to Y&R would be like getting an Ivy League education in the discipline of media planning, so I jumped at the chance to interview there. For this last interview I wore a new suit from Saks that I bought earlier in the month (a 3-piece blue pinstripe for $185). While getting dressed I watched some of the TV coverage of the wedding and saw Diana as she glided down the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral after the ceremony (which took place at 6:15 AM EST).
Later that morning I got the call with a job offer from Polly Langbort, the doyenne of Y&R Media Planning, and I eagerly accepted. I started my new job on August 11. My energetic new boss, David Verklin, was a rising star with the company. At the time he was still in the relatively humble position of media supervisor but a number of years later his career took off after being hired as media director at San Francisco agency Hal Riney & Partners where he directed the media strategy behind the high-profile launch of GM's new Saturn line.
Alas, six weeks after I started my new job Eastern took its account of 17 years to Campbell-Ewald in Detroit where Eastern chairman Frank Borman's old Navy buddy was CEO. (Borman is best known for being Commander of Apollo 8 which was the first mission to orbit the Moon in December 1968). Fortunately, Y&R had recently won enough new business so my job was secure (I was reassigned to work on the Chee.tos and J&J Band-Aid accounts). And speaking of airlines, another big news story at this time was the strike by 11,000 air traffic controllers who President Reagan fired and replaced a week later. And while on the subject of strikes, Major League Baseball players went on strike in mid-June and stayed out until July 31. This resulted in a split season and a complicated post season.
Of course, we all know that once Diana's and Charles' wedding day was behind them the world's most transfixing soap opera began. The following video clip from the end of the wedding ceremony is amusing because of the dour look on the Queen's face - as if she already knew how the next 10 years would unfold.
On July 22, 2003, five months before the capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, his sadistic sons Uday (age 39) and Qusay (37) were mowed down 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 vacationing in Iceland. Graphic photos of their bullet-ridden bodies were widely circulated. They were truly vile characters whose "removal" was one of the few positive accomplishments of the U.S. invasion.
Our tour group was in the desolate central portion of the country on a gloomy day (pictured, below) 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, the rest of our tour group was from Ireland or the UK.
A 10-day heat wave was about to end when Diana Ross gave her much publicized free concert in New York's Central Park on the evening of July 21, 1983 (the high temperature hit 95° that afternoon). And as hundreds of thousands of her fans streamed into the park severe thunderstorms were bearing down on the City. I wasn't part of these throngs since I was never one for huge NYC crowds, especially those attracted by a free event. Instead, after work I walked to Saks on Fifth Avenue to buy an outfit for my newborn nephew, Corry, who had been born the week before - making me an uncle for the first time.
After making my purchase (white terry cloth pajamas with blue polka dots) I hurriedly walked to West 34th St. to catch the 'F' train downtown to my apartment on West 15th St., hoping to get there before conditions got too bad. I almost made it. The image that stays with me was the creepy color of the sky as I walked along 34th St. With the rain pouring down the ominous clouds turned from a Wizard of Oz gray to a sickly mustard-yellow and moss-green, colors I'd never seen before - except in a J. Crew catalog. It was a true tempest and I wouldn't have been surprised if a funnel cloud had formed. (More than two inches of rain poured down between 6:30-9:00.)
Despite the turbulent conditions "Miss Ross" valiantly continued with her show (which began at 6:00) as she was pelted by rain and buffeted by strong winds. At one point she referred to the torrential downpour as a "love shower" before the concert was stopped after 45 minutes because of danger posed by lightning. And that's when things got even uglier. As the soaked crowd of 400,000 began streaming out of the park some concertgoers were set upon by marauding gangs. The press referred to it as "wilding". (It was a crazy, raucous time in New York back then.)
Happily, the concert was rescheduled for the next day, a Friday, and the weather couldn't have been more beautiful. And I took the train out to Roselle, NJ and held my little week-old nephew for the first time.
The book Diana Ross in Central Park provides an in-depth background into the planning and execution of the concert.
The morning of Apollo 11's lift-off on Wednesday, July 16, 1969 was bright and sunny in Pittsburgh. My dad was on vacation that week and we went for haircuts in the morning and were back in time to see the rocket blast-off from Cape Kennedy at around 9:30. By contrast, the weather on the day of the Moon landing four days later, a Sunday, was overcast and a bit showery.
It seemed that life was put on hold as most everyone was following the TV coverage of the lunar module's approach to the surface of the Moon. (And since this was in the days before cable TV there was no counter-programming to switch to.) The afternoon's baseball games kept fans apprised of the mission's progress. I alternated my time between playing kickball out on the street and sitting in the living room sorting through my baseball card collection while listening for updates. The anticipation was unlike any I had ever experienced - perhaps with the exception of waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus.
The lunar module settled on the Moon’s surface late in the afternoon at 4:17 ("Houston, the Eagle has landed"). Finally, at around 11PM, we watched the fuzzy black/white TV transmission as Neil Armstrong descended the Eagle's ladder and took his, and mankind's, first step on the moon. A short time later he was joined by fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin (the quintessential astronaut name) and together they planted the American flag into the lunar soil (further immortalized by an MTV promo 12 years later). It looked like they were having fun as they sort of skipped and bounced around due to the Moon's lack of gravity. This was a truly an awe-inspiring occasion that was a bit difficult for my 12-year-old brain to fully grasp.
Many years later (in 2003) while vacationing in Iceland our tour bus drove through the barren central part of the island and my friend Tom and I remarked how it could pass for a moonscape. Then our tour guide told us that, in fact, NASA had trained there for some of its Moon missions because of the similarity in landscape.
As the nation prepared for one of man's greatest triumphs (the Moon landing on July 20) another event was unfolding that would remind us of human frailties that time and again lead to the downfall of great men. 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 that 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. 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.)
28 years later another Kennedy tragedy would occur in the middle of July (July 16, 1999) when John Kennedy, Jr. was killed in the crash of the plane he was piloting off the waters of 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. And in April 2018 a movie about the incident opened. The actor who portrays Kennedy, Jason Clarke, was born, no joke, on July 17, 1969 - the day before the incident.
News of aviation disasters often produces a visceral reaction since such crashes usually result in a large number of fatalities. Additionally, since most of us have been on board a plane 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 Kennedy Airport. 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 in Fire Island Pines 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 was at a carefree summer networking event, 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.
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 here and two passengers, John's wife Carolyn and her sister, were to attend the wedding of John's cousin Rory. 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 that awful news.
The chilling reality that homicidal maniacs walk among us was introduced to me when I was nine years old on the afternoon of July 14, 1966. I was bringing in the afternoon paper, the Pittsburgh Press, from the front lawn and saw on the front page the photos of each of the eight student nurses murdered in their Chicago apartment by a man named Richard Speck. What sticks with me to this day was this chilling gallery of photos of the victims.
There was also a photo of the 24-year-old suspect as well as the one nurse who survived. She managed to hide while Speck proceeded to rape and murder (in various ways) her roommates one by one. My young mind was unable to grasp how he was able to pull off such a heinous act considering that he was so outnumbered. Speck was convicted in 1967 and spent the rest of his life in prison - where he was murdered in 1991 the day before his 50th birthday.
Then less than three weeks later (Aug. 1) college student Charles Whitman climbed to the top of a water tower on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin and went on a shooting rampage, killing 14. Again, I remember this event from seeing it on the front page of the newspaper. (And to think that in both cases all I wanted to read was the comics!) If you'd like to delve further into the demented minds of these murderers the book Crime of the Century gives a detailed account of the Speck murders, the murderer himself and his trial while A Sniper in the Tower provides disturbing insight into what may have led to Whitman's deadly spree.
The Speck murders were referenced extensively during an episode of AMC's drama Mad Men. The episode, titled "Mystery Date", aired on April 8, 2012. In it little Sally's step-grandmother scares the bejesus out of her by talking about the murders. And then the following week's episode the shooting spree at the University of Texas was mentioned twice.
My summer job in 1976, which was the summer between my freshman and sophomore year at Penn State, was working at Roy Rogers restaurant in downtown Pittsburgh. And that's where I spent the 4th of July - the day the nation was celebrating the Bicentennial. (Our distinctive salutation to customers was "Howdy Pardner", and after giving back their change, "Happy Trails".) Roy's was the only fast-food restaurant open that day in the vicinity of Point State Park and Gateway Center, where Bicentennial festivities were taking place, so the line of customers was non-stop and it went out the door. Sunny and mild weather ensured that the celebratory crowds would be quite large.
Because of the large number of customers that day the roast beef we served was unusually rare because there wasn't enough time to cook it completely (under orders from our manager). Rather than come off in full slices the beef came off the slicer in drippy clumps. Burgers were a bit rare as well, but that was the cooking instruction on any day (the district manager would make spot visits during lunch and slice open a burger to see if it was pink in the middle.) At least we didn't get any complaints from customers. On a typical day I put in 4-5 hours but that Sunday it was a 12-hour day. When I punched out it was nearly 10:00 and the fireworks were over. On the bright side, at least I didn't have to work on the day before or after the holiday.