This was definitely a huge year. I was in elementary school, or grade school, when MLK was assassinated, and I was confused because he was killed by James Earl Ray, yet there was a kindly Mr. Ray Show in Chicago, where my family had lived for a few years before moving to St. Paul, Minnesota. My Dad carried a .38 when we drove around Chicago; we experienced a tornado, a fire, and riots all in the same year. It was scary, sad and very exciting all at the same time.
In St. Paul, at my school in Mendota Heights, we conducted a mock election. Hubert H. Humphrey won our election (he was the home town favorite), with Nixon in second place and George Wallace a distant third, thanks to some Tennessee transplants. I remember driving around St. Paul with my parents, them pointing out Humphrey's modest house -- a guy not unlike Joe Biden.
Also remember Tet, the body counts, all sorts of things from 1968. It was a seminal year, from Paris to Mexico to Prague and beyond. And it shaped me, no doubt, into expecting the bizarre as the norm.
Today's Rune: Wholeness.
8 comments:
Detroit remained calm at the death of Martin Luther King, The Tigers won the world series, I started high school, and just about anyone who could get their hands on one, began the now tradition of carrying a gun because of the previous year riot.
Bizarre has always been normal to them normally insane.
We split 1968 between Port Washington, NY and Teaneck, NJ. I remember being sent home from school when MLK was murdered. I remember watching the news at night with my dad and seeing the war on TV.
Thanks for the tip on the book
Eric, it was quite a dicotomy for us living in carefree northern Michigan. I was completely naaive.
In 1968 I was way out in the country and new about very little of the political unrest of the day. It was a logn time before I came to political consciousness.
And it shaped me, no doubt, into expecting the bizarre as the norm.
We lived in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood in April of 1968. It was a different neighborhood then; a block south of where we lived (Armitage and Cleveland) was African-American, and two blocks west was a primarily Puerto Rican neighborhood. The Puerto Ricans rioted in 1966, and the black neighborhood erupted when King was killed-- I remember our teachers walking us home the next day. The Vietnam War was on the television, Prague, Mexico City-- yeah, it was a crazy time. The suburbs were really, really boring for me.
Having not even been thought of yet in 1968, I don't have much to comment on this time, lol. But nice post as always. I always like reading about your different life experiences.
The most important thing to me back then was "Lost in Space" - I couldn't wait to get off the planet.
-JC
Enjoyed all of the comments. MLK in April, RFK in June, the crazy Dem convention. The close election in Nov. I have always admired HHH and thought he was destroyed by LBJ and Vietnam. It was just not in him to split with LBJ on the war. the left hated HHH more than Nixon thereby giving the lection to Nixon by sitting out the election. I have always voted because of that election -- even when I disliked both candidates. HHH would have been a MUCH better president than Nixon. HHH is all but forgotten now but should not be.
Sometimes I think back to that time when things get crazy (911, etc) and realize we've been through strange times before and survived them.
Just too many civil rights leaders died in those years for me to rule out governmental involvement -- but that is another subject.
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