 who was killed when his car was struck by a tractor trailer on New York's Long Island Expressway. He wrote and recorded the musical masterpiece Cats in the Cradle. He was scheduled the very next night to be at the Casino Ballroom in Hampton, where I had a chance to meet him a few years earlier. 38 years ago, 1986, Dollywood Amusement Park opened in Tennessee. Also, it was 55 years ago, Apollo 11 blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 9.32 in the morning, four days before two of the astronauts aboard became the first men to land.