One of my favorite Christmas memories dates back to 1968.
It was Tuesday, December 24,the night before Christmas. I joined a group of my Sing-Out South friends at the home of fellow cast member, Patty Mayer. We came together to do some Christmas caroling, going door-to-door in her Green Hills-area neighborhood to raise money for the Fannie Battle Day Home (which is now the oldest child care center in the nation).
Caroling for the Fannie Battle Day Home was (and remains) a long-time Nashville tradition on Christmas Eve. Being in Sing-Out together, you would have thought we would have gone Christmas caroling every year. But this is the only time I can remember doing it with other cast members. And I am sure I remember this night so well because of what happened later that evening.
While we were out caroling, the Apollo 8 astronauts had gone into in orbit around the moon. For the first time in the history of man, they got to see the picture above, our beautiful green and blue earth rising up above the moon.
Later, when we returned to Patty's home, we all got some hot chocolate and sat down to watch an unprecedented live television broadcast. It featured live pictures of the lunar surface beamed back to earth from the astronauts' spaceship while they each read portions of the first ten verses of the Book of Gensis from the Bible. Here courtesy of YouTube is that part of the broadcast....
Even today, almost 41 years later, I still get goose bumps thinking back and remembering that special Christmas Eve and that wonderful moment in history featuring a broadcast that was at that time, the largest ever in American history. To put it all in perspective, here's a report from WGN-TV (courtesy of YouTube) that contains some insights about how the Gensis reading came to be read on the broadcast and the reflections of Jim Lovell, one of the members of the Apollo 8 crew...
And just like the Apollo 8 crew did 41 years ago, I close wishing everyone "good luck and a Merry Christmas. God bless all of you...all of you on the good Earth."
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