America puts an astronaut in orbit, 58 years ago

On February 20th of 1962, astronaut John Glenn made three orbits around the earth aboard a Mercury capsule called “Friendship 7.” Glenn was the third American to go into space, after Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom.  Years later, John Glenn became a Senator from Ohio, and would fly another space mission in 1998 aboard the shuttle Discovery.   

On TV that particular Tuesday night, you could have watched “Bachelor Father,” “Dobie Gillis,” and a new game show called “Password.”  

The Rat Pack had a new movie comedy in theaters. La Crosse’s Hollywood Theater was showing “Sergeants 3,” featuring many stars of “Ocean’s 11”–Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior, Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. “Sergeant 3” was billed as a spoof of the “wild wild west,” three years before the TV show “The Wild Wild West” came along.

The city of La Crosse was seeking $100,000 for land that the state wanted to buy for a new physical education building, near the football stadium. The Racquet newspaper at La Crosse State included ads for the Super Ice Cream Shop on 16th Street, for Winston and Tareyton cigarettes, and for light, bracing, clean-tasting Pepsi-Cola…”for those who think young.” In 1962, yesterday in La Crosse.