From Kennedy to Bush                                                       Back

High School shaped me, made me much of what I still am today. I've sadly lost touch with many of the kids who were, during that period of time, my friends. We went through a lot together, both good & bad. I remember when, on a cold winter day in February in 1959 we learned that some of our favorite singers had, the night before, died in a plane crash. Buddy Holly  Ritchie Valens &  the Big Bopper (J.P.Richardson) had lost their lives & broken our hearts. I had many crushes in high school and one was a cute little brunette named Donna Waldron, So when "Donna" by Ritchie Valens hit the top ten, it became my song. I took the loss of my hero personally. I wasn't yet into politics.

I was still in high school in 1960 when the Democratic candidate for president John F. Kennedy came to Trenton, New Jersey. I can remember the kids getting super excited as our bus went by the state house & there he was standing on the top step. He took time to wave at us then continued with his speech. The bus continued on and all the girls & some of the boys started talking excitedly about what a great president he would make.

I wasn't that impressed at the time. I was for Richard Nixon, he was after all President Eisenhower's vice president & Eisenhower was (because of the Second World War) my hero.

Well Kennedy got elected and I still, even though I wasn't really into politics, wasn't impressed. Although I was inspired when he said "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do for your country."

Then came the "Bay of Pigs" and I was sure we had elected the wrong man. (I didn't realize that the "Bay of Pigs" had been planned before he took office.) but he proved me wrong. He talked of putting a man on the moon. Ha! A man on the moon, but the space race was on & we watched as first the Soviet Union, then America put men into space. Those were vibrant times.

Then on a chilly morning in Oct. 1962 I listened to the radio at a little luncheonette with friends, some of whom were in my National Guard Unit, as the President addressed the nation on the Cuban Missile Crisis. We sat with our mouths open but not speaking. We were lost in our own nightmares, remember we had been raised to believe that an atomic war was very real possible, we had been taught to drop & cover, to crawl under our desk in school. Some families had built bomb shelters in their yards. We all knew what was coming. We would fire a missile at Cuba, the Soviet Union would retaliate and a full scale atomic war would ensue. Thanks to the intelligence of Kennedy the U. S. put a blockade around Cuba & wouldn't let any Soviet ships in. Negotiations between Kennedy & Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev ended the standoff and we could breathe again, and what a fantastic tasting breath of air it was.

I slowly fell in love with Jackie, Caroline, John John & finally President Kennedy. The world was beautiful, Oh! there were problems but we would overcome them, after all, we lived in Camelot. Then our world came crashing down, on a sunny day in Dallas. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was dead. A nation mourned, the world mourned & I mourned. Camelot had vanished just as Atlantis before it. Our country has yet to fully recover.

Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as President on November 22, 1963. It was the same day that J. F. K. was assassinated. Though our hearts were broken we still backed Johnson. Then as the Vietnam War dragged on and on and on, we became disillusioned. Was it ever going to end? Could we win? How many of our friends were we going to lose? I lost three friends and knew a few more of the boys that gave their lives in the rice paddies of Viet Nam.

The kids started it. The streets were full of college kids, protesting the war, burning their draft cards, and all the while body bags were coming home.

The girls went crazy when in February of 1964 The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. They were great, they were new, they were British & they had long hair. Our music was changing & so was our world.

We started seeing the photos of the war in Life magazine, of My Lai, and Trang Bang, and assassinations of people in the streets of Saigon. We learned of the enormous number of boys who were dying & we blamed Johnson

Hidden behind the war, (We didn't see the good he was doing.) there were many great accomplishments. He did great things for the Equal Rights Movement, passed many social programs, Medicare being the most important. Man had orbited the moon.

Still we weren't happy. Oh! we had put him back in office in 1964 but that was before the war had gotten out of control. Seeing he couldn't win again or just being tired of all the bodies coming back from Viet Nam he announced to us.

"With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office--the Presidency of your country." he continued. "Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

During his presidency we saw more tragedy. On April 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. Then as we hugged each other and danced, we were going back to Camelot, Bobby Kennedy was going to be are next President, It happened again. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968. Again the world had to morn. We thought, is sanity ever going to return, are we ever going to be able to live a normal life.

In January 1969 Richard Nixon took office and I was elated, my man had finally done it, he was our President. Richard Nixon proved me right He was Brilliant in foreign affairs. In Feb.1972 he visited China and opened American relations with China which cut the ties between China and The Soviet Union. In the May of that same year he visited Moscow and during that visit signed the SALT I treaty (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) He was my man and he was doing great things. He was slowly turning more and more of the fighting over to the Vietnamese regulars. At the same time he expanded the fighting into neighboring Cambodia to destroy North Vietnamese sanctuaries.

On Aug. 15th. through the 17th. Woodstock

The war was coming to an end. But because of the intervention into Cambodia and the protests on the Kent State campus the Ohio National Guard was called out and shortly thereafter on May 4th, 1970, all hell broke out. The guard open fire hitting thirteen students and killing four of them. Again the nation had to morn. only this time for it's children.

In January 1973 the United States and North Vietnam signed a peace treaty. That peace failed and during the Ford Presidency the North conquered the South.

On June 17, 1972 the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee was broken into and a scandal the likes of which none of had ever seen or even imagined followed. Nixon proved to be as paranoid as he was brilliant. Though not involved in the break in or the planning he became very involved in the cover up.

The Washington Post and the reporting team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein started digging into the break in and soon with help of a man they called deep throat discovered the cover up. On Aug. 9th 1974 Richard Milhouis Nixon resigned the Presidency of the United States. The first and only man to do so. My hero had fallen.

During the Nixon administration we had suffered many loses. Besides the body bags coming back from that hell hole in South East Asia we lost more of our own. On September 18th we lost Jimi Hendrix and less then a month later on October 4,1970 we lost Janis Joplin

On the same day The Nixon resigned Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office. I hadn't been impressed with him a Vice President and wouldn't be when he became President.

more to come

Charles Manson   Tiananmen Square   Fall of the Berlin Wall