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I remember asking my parents to get me a JFK For President button. Which couldn't have been easy because we lived in a notoriously conservative area. I wore it to grade school. There was one other kid in my class who was a Kennedy supporter.... needless to say we were best friends. (I doubt the other kids knew what a Democrat was.) The next-door neighbors' house was the polling place and my mother was a poll worker. My parents made sure we were up early to watch the flag being put out and hear Mrs. Jones say, "Hear ye... hear ye.... the polls are now open!" Such excitement. Such a feeling of pride that we were part of the process.
Our neighborhood went solidly Nixon. I didn't care. I'd backed a winner.
The 1964 presidential election, my elementary school was a polling station.
Back in those days, adults spoke to children, and the poll workers told me and my brother that if Goldwater got in, he was going to keep the schools open 7 days a week 12 months a year, and the dismissal bell wouldn't be until 5 p.m. If we didn't want that, we should go home and tell our parents to vote for President Johnson.
I saw Nixon resigning on a tiny Sony black and white TV. Rather, he announced he would resign effective the next day at noon. Was about to start fifth grade.
I also remember when Mao died and it was on the Today show with Barbara Walters.
JFK's assassination when I was 7 -- it was a Friday, and we were home early from school and my babysitter was sobbing. That has been burned on my memory. My parents took me to D.C. on that Sunday -- six hours in line on the mall in numbing cold (and no bathroom breaks) to visit the lying-in-state at the Capitol. I also remember my parents going to vote in 1960 . . . and my mother getting annoyed because I was playing with the curtain over the voting machine and annoying my mother. :-)
I vividly remember the 60's civil rights activites, MLK and RFK's assassinations, Lyndon Johnson declaring that he would not run in 1968, Spiro Agnew resigning, Ted Kennedy driving into a creek . . .
I'm glad and surprised that some people on here are well over 70.
Not to be cynical, do you think some people are kidding about how old they are here?
Everybody thought the election of 1980 would be so close. But it wasn't close at all.
I was at Ford's Theater when Booth jumped off the balcony and landed on my head. Just kidding.
Oh, honey . . .
No, we aren't kidding about how old we are. Why should we? We're PROUD of it! One of my children dragged me to school to talk about the Kennedy funeral, since I was there, and I gave them a pretty detailed description of the line, the reverent feel of the Rotunda, the tears on everyone's faces, the military honor guard, and of being scared of the woman wearing a black veil with lots of men clearing space for her (Jackie Kennedy). I was twice as old as their history teacher. :-)
Of course, my first political act was being born on election day in 1956 -- and keeping my mother from voting for the first time. :-) She was SOO annoyed, especally since I was two weeks late as it was -- couldn't I have waited ONE MORE DAY?!
The Bosnian War. I was 4 and remember seeing a man lying in the street, machine gunned to death by another man, on the news. It made a very big impression, I understood the difference between real violence and television violence, and understood that I'd just seen someone end a real human being's life. I'm not sure why they would show something that graphic on the news but it was the first time I was confronted with the realities of death and dying.
I remember the Panama Canal treaty under President Carter. Later I was at Boy Scout camp during the Democratic Convention of 1980 and being surprised when I asked a mom what happened (as we didn't see it in our canvas tents) and she said "Carter was renominated" and that was that.
Nightly news coverage of the Vietnam War. I remember being scared because I didn't really understand what was going on, but I knew that my favorite cousin was there.
I was 5 yrs old when Pres. Kennedy was killed . I was playing in my room and heard my Mother cry out from the living room. When I got there she was watching the TV and obviously upset about something but I was too little to understand .
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