Current Events

Christmas would come and go like it always had in 1959. A new decade was upon us. The 1960s were coming, but the 1950s weren't over yet. We were still living that Ozzie and Harriet- nothing's ever wrong-let's all go to the malt shop perfect world we thought existed.
Questions would be asked, and the answers wouldn't be good enough anymore. That's the way it is wouldn't cut it.
Our white world of privilege would be challenged by those on the outside looking in.
General Eisenhower would leave the oval office and a younger man, a Catholic man who stood for action and an end to the excuses would become our president, and we looked to him to guide us into a brighter future.
Events would swirl around us as we walked to school and rode our bikes and scrambled through the playground. Most of it would pass us by. We were kids and our world was safe and predictable.
Birthdays and holidays, summer and Christmas, neighbors and friends. Life would go on for us like always. How could it be otherwise?
Like it or not, the world was coming, and it didn't always have a smile.
I'd get a new bike for my birthday that December. Another West German Rixe; bigger and this time it would be red. I'd have to wait until spring to try it out, more fussing and fuming, time to crash and burn.
I'd plow through Second Grade and watch cowboys and Leave It To Beaver on TV.
I'd try to ice skate, and I'd be as graceful as a sack of beans.
Whee-Zee would still be by my side and I'd still keep one eye open on the bedroom closet door.
There were bigger, scarier monsters out there, and the world would come close to unleashing them.
Walls would go up and some would come down.
We would pledge our allegiance each and every day, unshakable in our faith and our pride for our country.
We would be comfortable in that faith and that pride for several years until one fine, sunny November afternoon in Texas.