One Small Step for Man

One Small Step for Man

The other day at lunch several similarly aged Baby Boomers and I sat at lunch playing “where were you when.” The first trick is to figure out the events of our lives that rose to the occasion. JFK getting shot in 1963 is the baseline and everyone could remember. We all missed on Martin Luther King and The RFK assassinations in 1968. The next one was the moon landing in 1969 with Armstrong and Aldrin leaving tracks in the lunar dust on grainy TV. The only others we could all agree on were the Challenger disaster in 1986 and, of course, 9/11 in 2001. We made feeble attempts at the Nixon resignation in 1975 and the fall of Saigon in 1975, but it just didn’t work with the same slamming impact. I would love to see a broader sample. When I asked my wife Kim, she added the O.J. Simpson car chase in 1994. That gives us a clean sweep that includes every decade over fifty years.

While some will say that Nixon and Vietnam were positive events, we can all understand that those are unlikely to have been universally celebrated events. The only memorable event on this list that pleased and captivated the entire world was the moon landing of Apollo 11, fifty years ago today.

In July, 1969 I was living in Rome, Italy and going to high school at Norte Dame International Preparatory School for boys, run by the Brother of the Holy Cross from South Bend, Indiana and located on the Via Aurelia. We lived in the modern EUR suburb of southern Rome, where the majority of expats lived. My passion in 1969 was motorcycles. I was onto my second one, a Ducati 50cc that was pretty radical, but awfully narrow for my 15-year-old derrière. My friends were Bobby, Tom and Mike, who were all equally into motorcycles to varying degrees.

Bobby’s father, like my mother, was a UN Development official and they lived way out of town in the exurbs. Mike’s father was some sort of American businessman and they lived close to school. Tom’s father was a President of Getty Oil Italiana and as a high-ranking Getty executive, was given a luxurious modern villa in EUR, across the street from the home of the Italian Prime Minister. We mostly spent our free time at a Tom’s house since it was a great setting and since he was the baby in his family (he had two older brothers, one not in residence and the other back home to regroup), his mother liked having youngsters around. It was also a very nice place (much nicer than my apartment or the other guys’ homes). It was also the only house amongst us that had a television.

This was not about wealth, it was about the fact that Italian TV in the late 1960’s was still extremely limited. There were only two state-run channels and they tended to play news and sports (mostly soccer) and little else. In fact, a phenomenon in Italy at the time was that the only commercials on TV (by regulation) were grouped together for one block showing per day. This “show” was called Carosello and it was 30 minutes long and was the most entertaining thing on TV. Think about it, all the advertising power and creativity had to be put into small ad segments that had to stand on their own and not merely get viewed because of other content. It was so popular that an expression arose in Italy at the time, “A letto dopo Carosello” or “go to bed after Carosello”. Most of us expats watched very little TV, so watching it at Tom’s house was a treat in which we would occasionally indulge.

      This was one of the primary differences of growing up in Italy versus the U.S. in those days.  It caused us to go to a lot of movies to get our pop culture quotient.  In fact, the Pasquino Theater in Trastevere, just off the Piazza de Santa Maria in Trastevere was, for all intents and purposes, the American high school “malt shoppe” hangout for us.  It was on a small side street that looked quintessentially Roman in a La Dolce Vita sort of way. It didn’t get first run films much (for those we went up to the swankier Parioli movie theater where the rich and famous of Rome lived in the northern part of town). It’s two unique features were that it had a retractable roof for warm summer nights and it changed English language film billing every night.  I largely attribute my love for movies of all kinds to the Pasquino.

      We were acutely aware of the coming Apollo 11 moon shot.  The daily English language newspaper was called The Daily American.  Think of it as the USA Today versus the Herald Tribune, which was more like the New York Times. On that fateful day when Armstrong and Aldrin were to get into the LEM (standing up, as there were no seats) and land on and set foot on the moon’s surface, we were primed and ready.  We all met at Tom’s house late the evening of Sunday July 20^th to watch the landing and then went home for a few hours of sleep before regathering six hours later in the middle of the Roman night on Monday July 21^st to watch Neil Armstrong’s fuzzy image in black and white, descend the steps of the LEM to set foot on the moon.

     It was a magnificent moment of awe and we could almost feel the entire world holding its collective breath.  It was the first time such a moment was shared globally on television and it may be the only moment we, in our lifetimes, have ever seen the entire world be on the same peaceful and hopeful page.

      It was probably totally coincidental, but it was likely a precursor to the filming of my favorite TV commercial of all time; the Coca Cola Hilltop Singers commercial.  In early 1971, a call went out among all the international high schools in Rome (there were 5 or 6 including mine).  This ad agency (McCann Erikson) was gathering international young people to film an ad just outside of town on a hillside.  What resulted from a day of standing in the sun and lip-synching was the song: “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony).  I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company…”  The intro on the inspiring commercial was:

On a hilltop in Italy (Manziana – outside of Rome),

We assembled young people

From all over the world… (from all the schools in Rome)

To bring you this message

From Coca-Cola Bottlers

All over the world.

It’s the real thing. Coke.

      I like to think that the moon landing and the broadcasting of it, and the Coke commercial and the filming and broadcasting of it, all collectively formed a high-point in civilization.  It was one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind, and fifty years later we await the next comparable giant leap for mankind.