Nineteen Sixty-Eight

I am off today and doing my chores here around the old homestead... I am watching the History channel as I do my weekly three loads of laundry.

Tom Brokaw has always been one of those people I admired... Funny to see him in 1968 as an occasional on air reporter for NBC, and today... as the trusted information icon he has become:

Funny also, the parallels between the then war, in southeast Asia (Vietnam), and our ongoing Bushwhacking (in Iraq). One of the first people, a student from the University of Wisconsin, to protest the draft in 1968, and move to Canada, has since become a Canadian citizen, a well respected attorney, and has started to represent some of our young people today, sucked into the Iraq war by talks of WMD, connections to Al Qaeda, and other Bush lies, tricked into fighting another war similar to Vietnam... I know I am oozing secrets of my age and my political preferences here, but this gets better!

The Smothers Brothers (Comedy Hour, a very popular show in 1968), were censored for being too politically incorrect and ended up being cancelled by CBS in 1969. Yet comedians today, specifically people like John Stewart, contribute their passion for their profession to people just like them. I loved the Smothers Brothers, and yes they did come back!

I was not even thirteen yet that April, when I watched Bobby Kennedy announce that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, TN... My Dad, for whatever reason at the time, had decided to take his wife, four sons, a dog, and a cat across country (to move us and show us all the beauties of our United States) from a very comfortable life in Northern California... We were visiting family near St. Louis, MO when that news came out... The June announcement that year that Kennedy himself was shot and killed in LA, came when I was living with my family in the US Virgin Islands, St. Croix to be more specific. It seems my Father was smarter than I could have possibly known...

The plan for my Dad in 1968, was to find a large sailboat (something in the 60-70 foot range), and take this awkward time to show his "boys", wife, and animals, the world... He wanted to sail around the world with us... We made it to the Caribbean and Bahamas before he passed away in 1979... But that's another story...

Back to 1968... My current "significant other" was not even born yet when these events took place... The democrats self destructed in Chicago of that year... HHHumphrey had no chance after the convention, and we were destined to have a Nixon (who had previously announced he would never seek another public office) in the White House... but then there was George Wallace, from Alabama... Yeah I remember this shit...

Women's equality also became more advanced that year... Miss America 1968 came to be a turning point for women's rights in America, when a live sheep was crowned Miss America before Debra Dene Barnes actually received the bouquet of roses from Bert Parks... Additionally, women trashed their girdles, and bras (mistakenly referred to as burning their bras) along with other articles commonly associated with women.

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1968 also marked the lift off, and voyage of Apollo 8, the first manned mission from earth to venture to the "dark side" of the moon... A precursor to the eventual landing the following year.

We are now 40 years beyond 1968... I am happy to be here, and even happier to be a part of the next "bra burning" generation or group... We are who we are!

Over and "Out" from Chesapeake, VA... in 2008!