DUers, At What Age Did You Become Politically Minded and Why?

[wasupaloopa]

21. 1963. We had social studies in high school. Our text was titled

"The Common Good". We learned about the "invisable poor" I especially remember that. I was 17.

We did not call ourselves liberals back then. We visited Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. We were friends with a group of hippie type girls at the college and learned from them. One time we accidentally ended up in a Civil Rights march there. We rode into town on my motor scooter and drove up to the back of the March. We were noticed as being the only white guys in the march. No one would sell us a soda in town that day.

One day in Nov 1963 while we were in social studies we were notified by the PA system that the President was shot and killed. The teacher's jaw hit the floor.
We were a Catholic boys high school and without a word we all walked across the street to church.

We were so afraid our world would come to an end without John Kennedy.

Three years later I was drafted and was sent to Vietnam. I was rudely made aware that I didn't live in a safe vacuum world as I thought.

In 1968 I went to work to elect Gene McCarthy. Been politically aware ever since.