The News

Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC. Walter Cronkite on CBS and John Daly on ABC. They were the living legends of broadcast journalism, and they came into our living rooms solemnly, and with purpose. They had much to talk about in 1960. The events of the day had a dangerous air about them; the world wasn't as safe and secure as we were told it was.
Nikita Kruschev was in the news. The crazy communist who banged his shoe at the U.N. and stirred up Fidel Castro in Cuba. The scary looking Russian with the bald head and the bump on his face was our latest boogey man. He was threatening to blow us all up if we didn't leave the Cubans alone.
An American spy plane was shot down, and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured by the Russians. More threats, more duck and cover. Maybe this time, we thought. Maybe this time it's for real and all the bombs will go off, and the world will explode and we'll all be gone.
Something about black people not being served lunch at the counter in a Woolworth's in the south. People were having something called a sit-in. There were protests and a call to end the discrimination in our country. We didn't, we couldn't, understand. Wasn't this America? Wasn't this the land of the free, with liberty and justice for all? Troublemakers some would say. Why don't they all go back where they came from?
John F. Kennedy was running for president, and he was calling for an end to all the things that were wrong in the world and in our country. He was young and telling us that there was a brighter future in store. He spoke with confidence and enthusiasm in his effort to inspire us all.
France would set off its first atom bomb. The laser beam was invented. People were worried that computers would replace human beings, and satellites were "spies in the sky." American troops were going off to a place we never heard of, a part of the world we hardly knew.
Most of these events would pass us by. Let our parents worry about it. We had more important stuff to think about.
Barbie dolls and Fanner 50s. Comic books and bike rides. The May Fair and summer vacation. Birthdays and Christmas and Halloween.
We were slogging through Second Grade, looking for spring and warmer weather.
Let the world and all its problems just pass us by.
We wouldn't take notice.
Let the laser beams and the satellites, the computers and communists and the protesters all take care of themselves.
So what if we're sending soldiers to some little country somewhere?
Some place called Vietnam.
Why should it matter to us?