Just How Old Do I Look?

I’m not looking for praise, but I’m just telling the truth when I say that one of the joys in my life is mentoring at the local Boys and Girls Club.

It’s only an hour a week. During that hour I might help someone with their homework, or play a board game, draw and color pictures together, or just talk. I don’t impose, but when I am invited I’m glad to help.

The other day two girls were very excited when they saw me enter the room. They hopped up and down, pencil and paper in their hands, and waved me over. It was obvious they were getting ready to write an assignment, and they thought I could contribute.

“Oh good!” they said. “We have a question we want to ask you!”

“Sure,” I replied. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you remember what it was like during slavery days?”

Now I’m old, but I’m not that old.

“No, but forty years ago I knew a very old man whose mother was five years old when she heard the guns of Gettysburg.” When that didn’t impress them I added, “I remember the Civil Rights movement.”

Undeterred, they jumped ninety years and asked, “Did you fight in World War II?”

“My father did,” I answered, but evidently that wasn’t good enough.

I’ve enjoyed retelling that story, not because

I’m making fun of the kids, but because it’s a reminder how tricky the time scales can be. Everything that happened before we were born gets smushed together, and we really have to think things through so we can keep the Alamo straight as compared to the Battle of New Orleans, or Bloody Kansas.

When I got home I asked myself – what are the earliest historic events I remember? Well, the first President I remember is Eisenhower. Also, the morning after the 1960 election I asked my father, “Who won?”

“We aren’t sure yet,” he replied. “But I think it’s Kennedy.”

The Cuban Missile Crisis is a vivid memory. My father was nearing the end of his 20 year

career in the Navy and he was stationed on the East Coast. We lived on the Navy Base in Norfolk, Virginia, a likely target if the missiles had been fired, and we knew it. That was one scary time.

But sadly the greatest historical event I remember from those days occurred November 22, 1963: the assassination of President Kennedy. We all felt the sad weight of history.

Only a few weeks later Dad retired, and as we moved back to Southern California he made a point of stopping at Arlington National Cemetery so we could see Kennedy’s new grave, as well as Dealey Plaza in Dallas, where the fatal shots were fired. They are both very clear in my mind.

Not long after that, my father make a point of taking us to the Nisei Parade in Los Angeles, and emphasized these

Japanese-american veterans were part of the most decorated unit with the most casualties, in the Army, despite having been sent to internment camps. That memory stands out.

Needless to say I’ve lived through a lot of history since then, especially in 1968, when the world was turned upside down with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, civil upheaval, riots at the Chicago convention, and at the end of it all, thank heavens, Apollo 8. Still, I think standing on the brink of nuclear annihilation as well as the death of a President are dramatic enough, even if I don’t remember what it was like during slavery.