Mick Jagger, the voice of the Rolling Stones, turned 70 today.

Jagger is older than I am, but not by a lot. There's no getting around it. I've been around for more than a few years. To give you an idea of how long, let's just say I've been listening to the Rolling Stones since the Rolling Stones have been the Rolling Stones. That's a long time.

Michael Phillip Jagger was born during World War II, on July 26, 1943, in Dartford, England. I was born after World War II, but not many years after. I am a baby boomer, after all, and I have rocked to the Stones for the majority of my years on Earth.

Jagger attended the London School of Economics, but left so that he and Keith Richards could start up a band and go on to make rock 'n' roll history. Imagine if Jagger had gone on to become an economist. That thought alone evokes a bit of whimsy in my head. I shake my noggin and whisk away such crazy visions and then grin, knowing that Jagger and the boys did get together and did go on to produce the rockin' music that makes up so much of the musical memories in the minds of America's boomers.  

Sure, there were the Beatles and the Beach Boys and the Motown artists and the Stax stable and Fleetwood Mac and more. However, the Rolling Stones are still around, and those old farts are still rocking it!

The debate over the best rock 'n' roll band of all time will probably go on forever. But for genuine rock 'n' roll – that raw, gritty, bluesy, pounding stuff of real rock – it's hard to pick a better band than the Stones. Add the band's resiliency and longevity to that mix. The Stones stand alone.

Longevity is the astonishing thing. I keep thinking back to the years that have gone by. Where did they go? I keep thinking I'm still young, until I look into the mirror. Yikes! What happened? Seems like yesterday I was in high school, listening to Jagger and the boys sing "Heart of Stone." We rocked to "Satisfaction" when I was a college freshman. "Gimme Shelter" reminds me of the Vietnam War.

I'm no longer young, but I like to think I'm still going strong. Jagger, of course, is still going strong. 

Happy birthday, Mick! You're 70! And I'm not far behind you, man!

America's deputy ambassador to South Vietnam popped into my room and asked me if I wanted to watch the television coverage of the moon landing.

He was talking about the first moon landing, the "giant leap for mankind" moon landing. 

The historic event took place at 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Sunday, July 20, 1969. It was 3:17 p.m. on clocks in the St. Louis area, where my family and friends back home would have been watching it. That would make it already 3:17 a.m., July 21, Saigon time, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the surface of the Earth's moon.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador Samuel Berger had not stopped by my room at Marine House No. 1, which was the name for one of two dorm-type barracks for the embassy Marines in Saigon. He was standing in the Marine security guard room – or office, you could
say – on the second floor of the ambassador's home in a residential neighborhood in Saigon's 3rd Precinct.

"You want to watch the moon landing, Cpl. Griggs?" he asked. Maybe that's not exactly how he put it. It was a long time ago, and my brain's memory compartment is a little cluttered.

"Yes, sir!" I answered. I'm pretty sure I said at least that much.

Speaking of memory, I've often heard people ask others if they remember where they were when Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. I, of course, recall my night watching the historic milestone alongside Ambassador Berger, but I now realize that we probably weren't watching it live, with the 600 million viewers around the world who did.

American Forces Radio and Television Service in Vietnam, better known as American Forces Vietnam Network or AFVN, aired it delayed rather than live. It was recorded in the Philippines and flown by jet aircraft to Saigon and played the day after the actual event.

The ambassador's television was located in an upstairs room next to the Marine guard room, at the top of the big staircase in the French colonial-style home. That's how I remember the house, but I've already told you about my dubious memory recall. Still, I think that's pretty accurate.

As the Marine on post that night at the Berger residence, I was supposed to be the ambassador's body guard, not his special guest for a TV screening of lunar history being made. However, I figured, how better to be able to protect the ambassador than to be sitting just several feet away, with my Smith and Wesson .38-caliber pistol and my fully automatic M16 rifle?

South Vietnamese soldiers and police guarded the exterior of the residence, as usual, and I was at the ready on the inside, as always. And there I was, sitting in the same room with the second most powerful American diplomat in Vietnam, ready to watch coverage of space-exploration history. It was all a bit surreal.

The most incredible part was witnessing those first steps on the surface of the moon. It was so astounding, practically beyond belief. How could it be? But it was. I was mesmerized. Viet Cong terrorists could have lurched into the room, and I would have blasted them to obliteration, not just to protect the ambassador but because they would have interrupted the greatest show on and beyond Earth.

That's pretty much how they billed the first moon landing – the greatest show ever. A fifth of the people on Earth watched it live. I was in awe watching the recorded images the next day. Remarkable.

Almost everyone on Earth today probably knows the famous words voiced by Armstrong as he stepped onto the moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." I always think about how more politically correct it could have been if Armstrong had said "humankind" instead of "mankind." But the accomplishment was so monumental and phenomenal that I guess even the equal-rights folks didn't mind.

Perhaps the best observation about Armstrong's famous statement came from Sir Edmund Hillary, a great adventurer in his own right. Remarked Sir Edmund: "Better if he had said something natural like, "Jesus, here we are.'"

Aldrin joined Armstrong on the moon's surface, where they spent 21 hours before reboarding the lunar module Eagle with 46 pounds of moon rocks. They blasted off and returned to the command module Columbia, which had been orbiting the moon, piloted by Michael Collins. It was all such stuff of science fiction before 1969, and it still seemed so in a way, because it was so unbelievable. Again, remarkable.

The awe and inspiration stuck around for awhile, but things soon got back to normal in Saigon. Two months after the moon landing – almost to the day – Viet Cong terrorists bombed a Vietnamese government vehicle on Nguyen Thong Street, just a block from the Berger residence. About 25 minutes later, in the same neighborhood, insurgents blew up a U.S. Navy truck right outside a Navy building.

By then, I had been promoted to sergeant and assigned to the Saigon Marines' radio network, to work as a communicator in the embassy with three other sergeants. I'd no longer get to stand post at the Berger residence, but I liked my new job.

I did, however, get to stand post again, when I volunteered for extra duty as a Marine security guard for a few days at the Abraham Lincoln Library in Saigon. Remember those 46 pounds of lunar rocks the astronauts collected? Some of them were brought to Saigon to be displayed briefly at the library. Guard moon rocks? You didn't have to ask me twice. I was on board. Rocks from the moon! Once again, remarkable.

You've got your computer chips, and you've got your cow chips, but for my money, the best chips are your potato chips.

I eat potato chips every day. I have a minimum daily requirement of several ounces of the roundish slivers of crispy, crunchy, salty scrumptiousness.

Sure, I know chips are rather bad for me – definitely not healthful stuff, they be. However, they taste so darn good to me.

I look at it this way: Chips contain no red meat – in fact, they're void of any kind of animal matter – and they have no sugar. They aren't fried in any kind of animal fat, and they contain zero grams of trans fat these days. So, if I eat healthful grub for breakfast lunch and dinner, then so what if I consume a few chips during the day? Exactly.

My chip-eating days began long ago, even before actor Bert Lahr started pitching Lay's potato chips in television commercials. You know those old ads, when he said, "Bet you can't eat one." Lay's got that idea from this joke:

Why did the sea monster eat a half-dozen ships that were carrying potatoes? Because you can't eat just one potato ship.

Not true? OK. You're right. In reality, the idea for the joke came to somebody after the Lay's commercials became classics. But it's kind of funny, don't you think?

I eat a few chips every morning as soon I get up, while the coffee machine is making my morning joe. Those chips appease my grumbling stomach for a little while, and they kind of clean my funky mouth. You see, I don't want to brush my teeth right away, because I don't want my coffee to taste like winter mint. The chips scour and freshen my chomping cavity, while leaving no overpowering mint flavor to taint my aromatic black coffee.

At least once during the course of an afternoon, I'll enjoy a snack of potato chips. It's  also possible that I'll include chips as a side dish with either lunch or dinner. All my potato-chip eating means that chips are on the grocery list every time my wife and I go to the market or the base commissary.

My favorite potato chips are the plain originals­, as in regular thin potato chips with no flavors added. However, I won't turn down wavy, rippled or kettle chips. And I won't scoff at such flavors as barbecue, black pepper, dill, or salt and vinegar. One of my favorites is Herr's cheddar and horseradish – killer, I tell you, killer. Yet, plain ole original potato chips are fine with me. Simple and unfailingly delicious.

Only one kind of potato chip has failed to make me holler with delight and blurt out "OooRAH!" I bought them just this past Sunday, after church, at our little local market. Sunday evening is our wine night, so I picked up some chardonnay, and I grabbed two unique little bags of chips on sale at the check-out stand. They were Larry the Cable Guy Barbecue Rib Tater Chips. What? Yes, that's what it said on the bag, which also featured a picture of Larry the Cable Guy, also known as Daniel Lawrence Whitney.

Larry's chips did, indeed, taste somewhat like barbecued ribs. That doesn't mean it was a good idea for a potato-chip flavor or that the flavored chips would taste good. It wasn't, and they didn't. Sorry, Larry. But I love your cammie cap and sleeveless shirts.

CBS Sunday Morning not long ago featured a segment on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA's all-time scoring leader, who is a fan of the inventor of potato chips. Kareem displayed his enthusiasm for the potato-chip genius, George Crum, when the segment showed him sky-hooking bags of potato chips into a schoolroom full of young students. He told the kids that potato chips were invented by a black American, who was not an athlete or a celebrity. Kareem is big on education and was pointing out that it's also good to be a scientist or teacher or a chef who invents a new goody.

That's cool, I thought, and I wanted to learn more about this Crum fellow and how he invented my favorite snack. The first report I read told me about American Indian George Crum. Could this be the same guy? The next report said he was a black American. The third report did not indicate race or background. Then I read the article that informed me that George's father was a mixed-race black man, and his mother was an American Indian, a Huron to be exact. The exact truth? I don't exactly know.

Neither do I know for certain that George Crum really invented potato chips in 1853 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where he was a chef at a resort and where a customer complained that his fried potatoes were too thick or not crisp enough or both. The story goes on to explain that an aggravated Chef Crum sliced a potato or potatoes super thin and fried them crispy crisp and served them to the picky eater, who loved them.

To make this meal of a story into a snack of an explanation, Crum's potato chips took
off in popularity, and other folks began making and selling them, and the mechanical potato peeler and wax bags were invented in the 1920s, launching the great American potato-chip industry. Then Laura Scudder and Herman Lay and others got rich, and Americans got fat. Or something like that.

I recently heard some smart dude say that potato chips and other salty snacks are simply carriers of what we really crave – salt. I can understand what he was getting at. I love mashed potatoes with plenty of butter and salt. I love baked potatoes with plenty of butter and salt. And, of course, you know I love, love, love potato chips. However, this love affair is more than salt. I lust for those tubers called potatoes, and I especially lust for the thin and crispy end products we know as potato chips. That they are salty is a good thing.

That they could be unhealthful for me is another thing, but I've already told you I don't care. I try to make better food choices throughout each day, when I'm not munching on my chips. And I shall munch, for what is life without a vice or two?

Munch, munch, munch. Ooh. Ahh. OooRAH!

A rice-flour crepe can make for fine eating, and a delicious topping can make the crepe even more incredible of an edible. 

For example, I think berries are mighty good on crepes. Yes, berries are marvelous little things, and I know I'm not alone in that thinking. In fact, back in the early part of the 20th century, "berries" was a synonym for something great.

"What do I think? I think it's the berries!" Jessie said to Norman in the film "A River Runs Through It," when Norman asked what she thought about his being offered a teaching position in Chicago, that bustling town up there at the top of Illinois.

Down here in the southwest area of Illinois, near St. Louis, I picked plenty of berries with my dad when I was a kid. We meandered through the woods north of my hometown, plucking the delicious fruits from thorny bushes and vines. 

I've been picking Illinois black raspberries this past week. They're small, wild berries, and they're great on a crepe. Since I'm on a wheat-free diet these days, I'm making crepes with sweet rice flour. I call them my French-Vietnamese crepes. They're simple to make. 

Mix 1 cup sweet rice flour, 1 cup milk, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon melted butter and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir, beat and whip that good stuff with fork or spoon or whisk till smooth. Ladle some into a pan on medium-high heat, swirling it thin, flipping it after a couple of minutes, fold over in half, cook a minute, flip, fold it over again, brown lightly on each
remaining side. Top with other good stuff, like berries. The addition of some maple syrup is a sweet touch and highly recommended. I also recommend Knott's (Berry Farm) boysenberry syrup or some Smucker's sugar-free blueberry syrup. 

I should point out also that you can fold the crepe in half just once, with the berries and some cream cheese or sour cream on the inside.

You can buy sweet rice flour and regular rice flour at most Asian markets. So, pick
or buy some berries and get to crepin'.