I post this at the end of Ripper's diary just before it fell off the page so I guess few saw it. Ripper suggested I make it into a standalone post so here it is.

I was in Miss Hanson's second grade class at our brand spanking new
Worthridge school when the principal came on the PA to call all the
teachers down to his office that day in November 1963. A few minutes
later a visibly shaken Miss Hanson came back to class and announced we
were all being sent home early, the president had been shot, and we
were to go to straight home. Walking those 6 blocks my friends and I
were sure it was the work of the Russians and World War 111
was about to start. At the age of 7 we didn't really know what that
meant but we'd never seen the teachers so distraught before so we knew
it couldn't be good.

All that weekend we watched the funeral procession on our black and white tv, the incessant beat of the drums, John John saluting the casket as it passed, Jackie in her veil. They reran the scenes nonstop.

On March 31, 1968 I watched LBJ make his "I Shall Not Seek, and I Will Not Accept" speech with my Republican father. My dad hated LBJ and I was 12 so I hated LBJ too. As Johnson began to talk I mocked him hoping to goad my dad into changing the channel. The big ugly Texan and his Johnny Reb drawl was making another boring speech and I was sure there must be something better on. My father told me to shut up, the president was speaking and I was to respect the office. So we watched.

Less than a week later I was confirmed in the Episcopalian church at the big cathedral in Chicago. On the way there we sat in the car silently at an intersection in the city for what seemed like an hour waiting for what looked like the entire Illinois National Guard to pass by in speeding big olive drab Army 4x4 trucks, rifles at the ready, on their way to the West Side. I noticed my mother gripping the dashboard with both hands, her knuckles white. Martin Luther King was murdered the day before and a lot of the West Side was burning to the ground. Some of those lots remain blighted and empty today.

Two months later I was at my new school in Downers Grove in 6th grade. We'd moved the year before. It was the last day of the school year if I remember correctly and we discussed Bobby Kennedy's assassination when we were let out early with our report cards on a bright sunny day. It was senseless. While still a nascent Republican I couldn't figure why this Jordanian man killed RFK out of fear for his allegiance to Israel. RFK was for peace in Vietnam, surely he wasn't for more war in the middle east.

I was pretty sick of and very confused by these assassinations. I just wanted them to stop.

That summer I watched the Democratic convention in Chicago, 30 miles away on TV, again with my dad. My father was never a fan of Mayor Richard J. Daley. He was an arrogant ass merely interested in amassing as much power as he could for himself as far as dad was concerned, I of course agreed. We watched the police riot. Together we saw them gleefully wade into the crowd bludgeoning anyone within reach with their clubs. I watched dad's reaction, he was as troubled by what we saw as I was. The next day I went to school and heard tales from a classmate whose 17 year old brother came home with his head wrapped in bandages. That night Dad and I watched Mayor Daley's infamous "the police aren't there to create disorder, they're there to preserve disorder" press conference. He pulled out baggies of feces as "proof" that his men were provoked by the demonstrators.

Right then is where I began coming of age politically and thinking for myself. My father accepted Daley's explanation for what we witnessed live on television the night before wholeheartedly. I guess he needed that reassurance from a authority figure even if he reviled him. I was amazed. I couldn't believe it. I argued with him to no avail. We both saw what happened but he refused to believe his own eyes and instead bought the excuses.

I still believed in Nixon's "secret plan to end the war". If I had had the vote that fall I would have voted for him right along with my parents. I remember my mother's angst, she was tired of voting for losers. Once elected it wasn't long before Nixon's plan went by the wayside and I started growing my hair long.

Within a year my parents couldn't understand me any better than they understood Abby Hoffmann.

My dad and I didn't agree on politics again for decades though we'd argue all the time. He thought Nixon was railroaded out of office. Reagan, from western Illinois like him was his hero. No appeals to decency or common sense would change his mind. Nothing I ever said got through.

I knew he voted for Obama in 2004 for senator but that was no test, his opponent Alan Keyes was nuts. Even my Republican congresswoman all but admitted she voted for Barack in that election.

But about a year ago, suffering from aphasia and unable to speak Dad came into my office with a Obama fundraising letter in his hand addressed to me. Pointing to his chest he made it clear he wanted to me to help him contribute to the campaign. Happily I took his debit card and sent in $50 in his name. Dad died in April but I still get emails from the Obama campaign addressed to him. So when I can I double up on donations for both of us. I know he'd approve.