I remember John Glenn orbiting the Earth on February 20, 1962, on the Mercury Atlas mission... I was six... I remember the splashdown, and the tickertape parade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glenn

November 25, 1963 - the funeral of John F. Kennedy... I remember crying, not for the President, (although he was very important to our family and parish, being the first Catholic president) I was crying for Caroline, who was the same age as me, and had lost her daddy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_f...ohn_F._Kennedy

I had the hardest time wrapping my child's mind around death, and started sleeping with the light on, and being afraid of the dark, and worrying about losing my dad whenever he was late getting home.

I remember the Be-In at Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967... I was ten, and my father took our whole family to a picnic in GG Park that day. I remember the clowns, and the hippies, and the swirly skirts and the long hair, and the beginning of the Summer of Love in the Haight Ashbury... our dad took us for walks around the block in San Francisco, and we got bead necklaces and feathers, and learned to make a Peace Sign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love

a few years later, when the Catholic Church added a Peace part to the regular mass, we six kids would flash each other the hippie peace sign, instead of the usual hand shake.

The priest would say a prayer and end with the words of Jesus saying "I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Now let us all offer one another the sign of peace."

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...u_entered.html

I remember the day Nixon resigned with extraordinary vividness... it was August 8, 1974, and I had just turned 17... I remember being VERY glad:

"By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...s/080974-3.htm

now, if only the current crop of criminals would be so kind as to repeat that favor.