August 1969.
Men walked on the moon for the first time last month, but things aren't any less crazy on Earth. My father and my brother are at each others' throats over the war in Vietnam and my brother's future. He turns eighteen next month. Draft age.
I'm going on thirteen. Trying out for football and trying to figure out girls. My friend Tony thinks he already has them figured out. He drags me into it any time he might have a chance with one. It always seems to backfire.
So I lie awake most nights listening to the Top 40 on the radio. My brother tells me about the big changes coming and how they're being shaped by the protest songs of people like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. He wants to see them at a concert up at a farm in New York; maybe I'll go along.
And then there's the Mets. The worst team in the history of baseball is on the verge of moving into first place. That should tell me something. The times really are changing.
