Fly Me to The Moon plus 40

July 20, 1969.

The eyes of the world broke away from the Vietnam War, the Paris Uprising, and the Mets challenging the National League. Most people's vision was fixed on the Moon, as TVs and radios reported the lunar landing of Apollo 11 to an anxious planet.

This space mission had been inspired by the late-President Kennedy and Neil Armstrong immortalized the epic moment with the words. "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

July 20 1969 was a Sunday.

I had no school the next day.

The next day I was working at Ma Bell.

A summer job.

I was 17, but have no recollection of watching the astronaut's first steps on the surface of the moon, which should have been as indelibly etched into my memory as the JFK assassination and losing my virginity and this memory lapse lent credence to those conspiracy theorists claiming that Man never landed on the Moon, but let's face the facts.

The Lunar Landing was televised by every channel; ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS.

Teenagers watched almost 30 hours of TV on the 1960s and being a teenager if the Lunar Landings had been on TV, then I should remember seeing them, instead recalling nothing.

Ergo no Lunar Landing.

NASA has yet to refute my analysis, but for further research into the Moon Hoax, check out this URL

http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/

One theory is that I could have been making out with my girlfriend.

On the weekends her mother permitted us stay at their house unchaperoned and Janet Stetson was certainly more important to me than a silly moon landing.

Even now.

Opps - Wrong Email Address

My hometown south of Boston had ten churches, two temples, and seven traffic lights in 1960.

Milton was a dry town without a single bar within the boundaries of the trolley suburb.

My parents considered Milton a good place to raise kids.

People believed in God and America.

As an atheist and an anti-war radical I fled this town for Boston in 1970 to return only to visit my parents.

Only my older brother lives there now.

I travel north for holidays and keep explanations about my life in New York, Europe, and Asia to fifty words or less.

Some family members think I belong to the CIA, but my cover was blown by a sexually explicit email to a Pattaya friend attached to the address of a family friend.

I had asked my ex-babysitter to delete the email.

Being female Layla opened it instead and responded with vitriol, "What I read made me sick."

She was a true believer in God.

Whatever I wrote had nothing to do with perversity, because I have become a sexual square in my old age, however the passage must have been graphic and I apologized to her, especially since I had carried a decades-old torch for Layla.

"You are not who I thought you are. If you are in Boston for the holidays, it would be best if you didn't come to my sister's house for Christmas."

I was 'persona non grata, which is Latin for 'unwelcome'.

I have to be more careful about those emails in future.

Once more 'mea culpa' to my family friend.

That's Latin for 'sorry', which I learned it as an altar boy.

I looked pure in my cassock and surplice.

It was all a show.

Unlike my crush for Layla.