2010 is now in the past and 2010 was a good year overall. We wish everyone a prosperous 2011. Instead of the customary look back over the year I’d like to take a longer view to 50 years ago.

Where were you in 1961? The Yankees were world champs (again). The Green Bay Packers won their first NFL title game while the Houston Oilers reigned as AFL champs. The two leagues would not play each other for another 5 years. Ray Charles’ “Hit the Road Jack” was #15 on the charts. Closer to home, the cadets of Leonard Hall proudly represented the state of Maryland at John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Parade on January 20, 1961 http://www.lhjna.com/alumni/alumni_02.jpg

On that cold day, President Kennedy delivered a most memorable address to the nation, see www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural.htm  and www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB6hLg3PRbY&feature=related A few months later (April 12, 1961), Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to enter space and orbit the earth. Less than a month later, Alan Shepard Jr., U.S. Navy pilot andTest Pilot School graduate, became the first American in space aboard the Freedom 7. The space race (the public side of the arms race and Cold War) was in full swing.

Perhaps most meaningful to U.S. policy that would be felt profoundly at NAS Patuxent River was the President’s May 25, 1961 address to Congress with the challenge, “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth,” see www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhsQouI8FEg. It was Project Mercury’s goal of putting a human in orbit around the Earth that brought national attention to the base. While it had begun a few years earlier following Sputnik, it was the proposed moon shot (with date certain) that raised the stakes, thus the importance of what’s done at Pax. The rest, they say, is history.
 
Stay posted (and please share with us) the list of major celebrations in 2011 to include Naval Aviation’s Centennial and the Civil War Sesquicentennial (150th). Veterans Day occurs 11-11-11 at 11 am. St. Francis Xavier Church and Cemetery of Compton celebrates its 350th Anniversary. As the license plates indicate, we prepare for the War of 1812 Bicentennial, and yes, St. Mary’s County’s, the Mother County’s 375th Anniversary. We get to do Celebrate 375 all over again!

 

Bob Schaller