Im obviously dating myself with this, but when JFK was assassinated, I was a week and change shy of 13, and Mike Callahan and I were off school that day (dont remember why), going door-to-door hustling YMCA Thin Mints and the other garbage that makes up those fund-raising campaigns. As the afternoon wore on (EST) people started reacting angrily when they answered their doors and learned why we were there. How dare you do this at a time like this? Yet none took the trouble to tell us what time like this they were referring to. We had no idea what had happened on the world stage earlier that day. It was only when we returned home (after getting the message that nobody would talk to us for what seemed a pretty intense reason) that we learned what had happened. This was the first President that wed ever paid attention to, mostly because, long before the Camelot White House, JFK was the first Catholic presidential candidate, and we who went to Catholic school were indoctrinated about the campaign by the school and parish. As with so much about Catholicism, they made it a morality play, i.e., JFK was the pure white knight and Nixon was Darth Vader. Confusing stuff for 9- and 10-year-olds. That Nixon later would prove to be Darth Vader (at least, domestically) wasnt known at the time, but that didnt diminish our religion-fueled certainty about it. When I look at the toxic role religion plays in shaping uninformed attitudes in modern politics, my early experience reminds me that its nothing new.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 23:08:03 +0000
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