My clock has just turned over and a new day (or so they say; I will believe it when the Sun rises) has begun.
Thinking on this day, the Twentieth day of July........
On the Twentieth of July in the year 1969 I was sitting in fellow History student Neil Douglas's living-room. There were no classes that day and our minds were attempting to comprehend some of the vast mass of conceptual information we had been afforded in the previous term in Dr. Lightbody's lectures. Forty minutes with Doc would give anyone with a working brain many hours, even days, of discussion, so tightly were the concepts packed. And we had withstood three of his lectures each week for seven months. We had a LOT to consider.
But the DATE was important, so we were considering one of the great "what-ifs" of History, an event which had happened just 25 years before, on that date. We were thinking mostly about Claus Schenk, the Graf von Stauffenbrg, a shattered war hero with a single eye and a single hand remaining, arriving at the Wolfsschanze at Rastenberg in East Prussia, where the Fuhrer Begleit Kommando, the cream of the cream of the Waffen-SS, guarded their steadily-less-stable Master, Adolf Hitler, the elected Prime Minister and President of Germany. Using just his medals and bravery, von Stauffenberg refused to allow the FBK to look in his briefcase, although, like every other sworn German Officer, he was relieved of his pistol..... and then was permitted to enter the meeting-room. The staff meeting this day, though, was to take place in a wooden room above ground rather than in the heavily-armoured bunker.
The Graf made his greetings to the staff meeting, put his briefcase under the table, flipped it open with his one good hand, and started the timer.
Neil got us another coffee (we were both addicts by that time; you needed the "high" just to keep up with Doc's mind, even though his body was failing quickly).
There was something on the television, so he turned up the volume, we let poor von Stauffenberg have his peace for a few minutes..... and we watched a Great Man (who was descended from a thousand years of cattle-thieves on the Scots Borders)........ as he climbed slowly down the ladder.....................
................................ and stood upon the surface of the Moon.
Important day in History, this.
Thinking on this day, the Twentieth day of July........
On the Twentieth of July in the year 1969 I was sitting in fellow History student Neil Douglas's living-room. There were no classes that day and our minds were attempting to comprehend some of the vast mass of conceptual information we had been afforded in the previous term in Dr. Lightbody's lectures. Forty minutes with Doc would give anyone with a working brain many hours, even days, of discussion, so tightly were the concepts packed. And we had withstood three of his lectures each week for seven months. We had a LOT to consider.
But the DATE was important, so we were considering one of the great "what-ifs" of History, an event which had happened just 25 years before, on that date. We were thinking mostly about Claus Schenk, the Graf von Stauffenbrg, a shattered war hero with a single eye and a single hand remaining, arriving at the Wolfsschanze at Rastenberg in East Prussia, where the Fuhrer Begleit Kommando, the cream of the cream of the Waffen-SS, guarded their steadily-less-stable Master, Adolf Hitler, the elected Prime Minister and President of Germany. Using just his medals and bravery, von Stauffenberg refused to allow the FBK to look in his briefcase, although, like every other sworn German Officer, he was relieved of his pistol..... and then was permitted to enter the meeting-room. The staff meeting this day, though, was to take place in a wooden room above ground rather than in the heavily-armoured bunker.
The Graf made his greetings to the staff meeting, put his briefcase under the table, flipped it open with his one good hand, and started the timer.
Neil got us another coffee (we were both addicts by that time; you needed the "high" just to keep up with Doc's mind, even though his body was failing quickly).
There was something on the television, so he turned up the volume, we let poor von Stauffenberg have his peace for a few minutes..... and we watched a Great Man (who was descended from a thousand years of cattle-thieves on the Scots Borders)........ as he climbed slowly down the ladder.....................
................................ and stood upon the surface of the Moon.
Important day in History, this.
