Missing time

The few who have hung around here long enough know that, courtesy of the U.S. Navy, I am short about two months of my life, from March until mid-May, 1970. This is the period in which I was conned into accepting unnecessary surgery. During that time, my chief preoccupations were getting well, and helping people far worse off than I to get well. For most of that time, my exposure to media was limited to the cacophony of  50 radios in a 40-bed ward, all tuned to one form or another of pop music.  I was barely conscious during the Apollo 13 crisis. When I saw the film, it was entirely new territory to me. Next, I had only the vaguest idea that the first Earth Day was happening. My thought at the time was something like "cool," but ever since an idea that otherwise should have, and does, resonate with me, is something with which I haven't totally connected. Perhaps if I had been present at the creation, I wouldn't have to be reminded of it each year with a dope slap. I had the annual dope slap today, which is why this is on my mind.

I was somewhat more aware of things by May 4 of that year. If you don't know what May 4, 1970 means, you're the one who needs the dope slap. Even that was barely on the radar of someone on a big ward full of broken sailors and Marines. None of those 50 radios was tuned to news, and in any case in those long-gone days there was no such thing as a 24-hour news cycle.

So, if that era is only something you studied in high school history, do keep in mind that a few of us have gaps in our recollection that owe nothing to early dementia. We had other things on our minds.