Remembering Skipper and what happened 55 years ago this evening
He was very special ... and it was Dec. 1, 1969
Mailbag: A song for Skipper Carrillo
As seen in the Daily Pilot Nov. 27th
I doubt anyone who heard Skipper say “Have a home-run day!” (“Obituary: Skipper Carrillo saw to it that many had a ‘home-run day,’” Daily Pilot, Nov. 23) will ever forget meeting him. He truly was Laguna’s angel. With sincere apologies to “The Wizard of Oz” and Judy Garland, here’s my rewrite of the 1939 classic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Fly on, Skipper. Fly on.
Somewhere over the rainbow Skipper’s fine;
there’s a land that he heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow Skipper flies,
and the dreams that he dared to dream really do come true.
Somedays he wished upon a star
and woke up where the clouds were far behind him,
where troubles melt like lemon drops with Skipper on the chimney tops;
that’s where you’ll find him.
Somewhere over the rainbow, Skipper’s fine
Birds fly over the rainbow, look and you’ll see him there.
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow,
look and you will see him there.
Denny Freidenrich
Laguna Beach
55 years ago this evening
If you are 70 or older, I'm guessing you remember what happened 55 years ago this evening. It was the first national draft lottery since WWII. All 366 dates of birth were randomly selected. If yours was among the first 150 picked, you most likely would be heading to Vietnam. Despite my birthday, Sept. 14th, being selected first (yes I “won” the lottery my senior year at USC), I never was drafted. Why not? Five years earlier, I had fallen off a cliff and fractured 3 vertebrae. After a two week stay in the Stanford Hospital, my medical file was a foot thick. In many ways, that fall changed my life forever. If you have a story about the draft, or know someone who does, please feel free to share it here.
-DF