November 17, 2007

• Camelot...

  Of course, there never really was a Camelot. It was just that most of us were too naive and content. We had WWII and Korea behind us. Done. We were ready for pretty, and happy, and home, and fun. And, yes, we elected a President who was handsome, who had a beautiful, cultured wife, and his children were adorable, and his huge family was a close knit bunch, and they all loved their mother. Camelot.

  On the afternoon of November 22nd, 1963, someone breached the walls of Camelot. There isn't a person of that era who doesn't remember exactly where they were when they heard. I was in typing class [luol]. They announced it on the PA system and sent us home, a busload of shaking, sobbing, teens. There we sat for I don't remember how many days, glued to the TV and speaking in hushed tones. The caisson, the magnificent horse with the boots backwards in the stirrups, John-John's salute, Jackie's widow's weeds...a nation, some say world, in mourning.....

  ....and we became a nation in flux. Yes, I said flux. And we began to flux all over the damn place.

  Burn your draft card, take off your bra, sit anywhere on the bus. Sing-along, sit in, march, stand up, take your pill, drop out, and make love not war - twice. Not everyone, of course. But we were getting deeper and deeper into Viet Nam, and losing another generation of young people was just too much to ask.

  Even the Church was in flux. We listened to the newly formed Ecumenical Council un-decree a lot of customs that the older generations were attached to. The Mass in English! The dress code! The kiss of Peace! Hootenannies! Eventually, even Friday night burgers!

  I don't feel knowledgeable enough to comment on the politics of the day. I was a self involved teenager. My sense of Johnson was of an old uncle who mumbles. And, "Tricky Dick?", well, say what you will, for whatever reasons, he 'ended' the war. Or, as I recall, basically he said "Enough".

  The real 60's were a joyous, horrendous, psychedelic, fearful, ever changing and growing as a nation, time. Every strata, every age group, every ethnicity, was on the move forward. And then they killed Martin, and soon after, Bobby.

  I truly mourned the loss of Martin. We were finally making real progress. People were beginning to come together and the movement, led by Martin, was the force making it happen. Many people had 'the dream'.

  Two months later, when my clock radio woke me one morning, I felt paralyzed by the weight of the news. I went downstairs and stood at the foot of my parent's bed until they awoke. I remember my mother staring at me for a few moments and asking, in barely a whisper, as if she already knew...."what?". As I burst into tears, I burbled, "They've killed Bobby". I don't remember if we got any days off, but I do remember watching the train, for hours, that took him home.

  If you think this is a sad story...one of the saddest parts is that it really happened...to all of us. And the world was never the same. "In short, there's simply not, a more congenial spot, for happily-ever-aftering, than here in Camelot."

  P.S. And, if you think of it, on Thanksgiving {Nov. 22nd}, remember to be thankful to any over-the-hill hippies you may still have in your life...or, not. All we were saying is, Give Peace A Chance.

  • 4:35 pm
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