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Jim Nabors – Impossible Dream

An evening pause: Performed in season four, 1967, of the Gomer Pyle television show, where Nabors played Gomer Pyle as a country bumpkin. When he sang this, however, he shocked not only his sergeant, he surprised the nation, since few knew he was such a polished singer.

The song is from my childhood, when Americans were all hopeful, confident, and knew their nation’s real history, based on liberty and freedom, a history that had strived consistently to achieve that for everyone.

Hat tip Tom Biggar.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Remember watching that episode.

    Yeah, I’m old.

  • Mitch S.

    I’m old enough to remember Jim Nabors singing “Back Home Again in Indiana” before the start of each year’s Indy 500.
    I read he did it from 1972 – 2014.
    I remember when he came out as gay pundits wondered if the conservative race crowd would still welcome him. They welcomed him just as warmly as previous years.

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “The song is from my childhood, when Americans were all hopeful, confident, and knew their nation’s real history, based on liberty and freedom, a history that had strived consistently to achieve that for everyone.

    As I recall, Private (First Class) Pyle, in that episode, was having a crisis of confidence singing this song in front of so many people in Washington DC. He was urged on by someone who reminded him of the bravery of those who founded the country, the ones in the statues and monuments all around him.

  • Jeff Wright

    He and Fannie Flagg were Alabama’s best.

  • Gary

    Jeff, I’d add Willie Mays and Hank Aaron to that list.

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