Virginia 1973 and a Stone’s Throw Away From My First Presidential Gravesite
Saturday, June 21st, 2008
Until just moments ago, I was all excitedly prepared to tell you how my first Presidential grave was not who I always thought it was (Nixon), but actually George Washington during a visit to Mount Vernon when I was just one year old. My Dad thought that I had also probably seen Woodrow Wilson’s grave in the National Cathedral during the visit. It was all plausible considering I had gone along on the trip and there were slides of both Mt. Vernon and the Cathedral in the set that my Dad took. But then Mom dropped the bomb on me: I never actually made it into Washington D.C. in 1973. I didn’t actually get there until 1998. Read the rest of this entry »
By 1973 most of the excitement was over. I had learned to roll over, crawl, walk, say words, grow teeth, and eat solid food; I had passed my first birthday, spent two Christmases with my family (although I had only begun to get the gist of the whole thing by the latter one); I had fallen down the stairs, gone on my first outing, camped out, and gone on my first vacation. Yes, the excitement of my baby years was pretty much a thing of the past. So as we rolled into 1973, there wasn’t a lot to photograph – hence the minimal number of photos from the early part of the year. 
My first birthday was October 2, 1972. I guess there was quite a fuss made. In fact, the folks had two different birthday parties for me at our house on John Glenn – the first with my Mom’s family and the second with my Dad’s family. Since my birthday fell on a Monday, I have to assume that the celebrations were held over the prior weekend – and our clothes indicate they were on different days. Dad took a couple of minutes of Super 8mm footage of each of the gatherings.