The JFK assassination. Yep, I was around for that one. I saw the man back in 1962 when I was 9 years-old, youth, vitality all the rage. We were international then, trend-setters for the world. Jackie shocked the nation by wearing slacks in the White House. It was the Space-Age and everything was go-faster, farther, and better than before, cars quit looking like these old rounded-off clunky things but were sleek and low with 'fenders' now integrated. I was a pre-teen coming up on 11 yeas-old that fateful November day in Dallas in 1963. We all bought the story they gave us just after it happened, but man it just didn't seem right.
A couple years later my dad bought the book Rush to Judgement that questioned the official story about his assassination and I read it cover-to cover and over again many times. Like others of that time we began questioning authority after that. There was a rush into a war, Vietnam, and some of the people just seemed too pleased about the death of this forward-looking President and it seemed we were going back into the 50's once again, except that a new era of music came on the scene right after the tragedy - the Beatles made their TV debut on my 11th birthday and that sealed the the idea we were still moving ahead, and on we moved.
I was in my teens soon and by 1967 I had discovered that magic weed that sealed my commitment to do as I felt was good and the hell with what the authorities thought about it if they didn't like it. The drug prohibition conspiracy just didn't seem right either, there seemed to be other motives to bring that on and ignore the evidence that it just might be more than pleasurable but beneficial as well. Just wait for me to rant about all that sometime - their stuff really went deep and there is plenty to show and tell about their escapades.
I am a product of the 60's and will stand shoulder to shoulder with the best that any generation can throw at us. My only failure is that those of my time and the ones after haven't fixed it all yet, but we sure have stood fast while the power-players have exposed their hand trying to defeat us. We, all of us, are going to make a difference afterall. Don't you just feel it starting to come around now? For too long the only way to live the American Dream was to be asleep, but this waking reality is going to be even better. Personal liberty will be ours once again. We are taking it back.
