THESE WERE SOME OF THE NEWS HEADLINES....
AUGUST 1962: Movie sex symbol Marilyn Monroe found dead at
age 36! Soviets send up 2 manned spacecrafts!
SEPTEMBER: Rioting as James Meredith enrolls as first black
at Ole Miss! NASA names 9 more astronauts!
OCTOBER: Kennedy, Khrushchev in Cuban missile standoffs Pope
John XXIII opens Ecumenical Council!
NOVEMBER: Nixon loses California governor’s bid, says he’s
done! FDR’s widow, Eleanor, dies in New York!
DECEMBER: Mariner 2 spacecraft sends close-ups of Venus! Deaths
of more than 300 Londoners due to heavy fog!
JANUARY 1963: Cost of first-class stamps rose to 5 cents!
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Frost dead at 88!
FEBRUARY: Five arrested in plot to kill France’s de Gaulle!
Stars Mantle and Mays sign $100,000 baseball contracts!
MARCH: Alcatraz Island closed as prison! JFK and 6 Latin American
presidents vow to fight communism!
APRIL: US nuclear sub Thresher sinks, 129 dead! Two pro football
stars banned after NFL betting scandal!
MAY: Astronaut Gordon Cooper makes 22 orbits, longest ever!
Thousands arrested in Birmingham peace marches!
JUNE: NAACP’s Medgar Evers shot in Mississippi! England’s
prime minister Macmillan out after sex scandal!
WE WENT TO THE MOVIES AND SAW....
Sisters Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in the gothic thriller “WHATEVER
HAPPENED TO BABY JANE”... .
the epic Best Picture “LAWRENCE OF ARABIA,” with Peter O’Toole .
.. .a WWII epic, “THE LONGEST DAY,”
with international stars depicting the Normandy invasion. .. . “THE
MIRACLE WORKER,” with Oscar winner Anne
Bancroft and a young Patty Duke as Helen Keller
John Wayne chasing wild African animals in “HATARI”....
“THE MUSIC MAN, “with Robert Preston reprising Prof. Harold Hill
from the smash Broadway musical. . . .
Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick as married alcoholics in “DAYS OF WINE
AND ROSES”... .
feathered creatures steal the show in Hitchock”s “THE BIRDS”.. .
.an Oscar for Gregory Peck in
“TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”. . . .Lawrence Harvey as a brain-washed
assassin in “THE MANCHURIAN
CANDIDATE”. .. .an all-star cast in the Western epic “HOW THE WEST
WAS WON,”... .and Dick Van Dyke
and Ann Margret in the musical “BYE BYE BIRDIE.”
WHEN WE STAYED HOME, WE WATCHED...
CBS on Wednesdays, for the new comedy with Buddy Ebsen, “The Beverly
Hillbillies,” #1-rated for the entire
season.. .followed by the hilarious TV Petrie family, including
a young Mary Tyler Moore, in the “The Dick Van Dyke Show”.
.NBC, on Sundays, for the top-rated western, “Bonanza,”. . . .then
we switched to CBS for back-to-back hits “Candid
Camera,” with Allen Funt. . . and the long-running panel show “What’s
My Line,” with John Daly. .. .“The Red
Skelton Show” Tuesdays on CBS ABC late on Mondays,
for Vince Edwards as doctor “Ben Casey”. . . .CBS for
three Wednesday comedy hits in a row, “The Lucy Show,” “The Danny
Thomas Show”. . . .and Andy Taylor, Don
Knotts, and the Mayberry gang in “The Andy Griffith Show”. . . .Richard
Chamberlain as the young intern, “Dr.
Kildare” on NBC Thursdays. . . .and “Gunsmoke” with James Arness,
Dennis Weaver, and others Saturdays on CBS.
AND.. .IN SPORTS....
In September, Rod Layer completed tennis’ Grand Slam by winning
the US Open.. .. Sonny Liston won the heavyweight
title with a KO of Floyd Patterson. . . .the LA Dodgers set an all-time
attendance record of 2.8 M... San Francisco survived
a playoff against the Dodgers, but lost the rain-plagued 1962 World
Series to the Yankees in 7 games. . . Southern Cal
finished the regular season #1 and edged #2 Wisconsin in the 1963
Rose Bowl 42-37. .. . Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay
Packers won the NFL title over the NY Giants... Dallas won the AFL
crown over Houston... Cincinnati finished the regular
season ranked #1, but lost the NCAA title to unranked Loyola of
Chicago, 60-58 in OT. Boston beat the LA Lakers in 6
for the 1963 NBA title. .. Toronto beat Detroit in 5 games to win
the Stanley Cup.