Show me what a police state looks like! (Graphic! Dial-up warning!) Updated with livestream link

[EFerrari]

171. My mom wasn't fettered by a husband (as she would put it) so that year, she worked hard

for the Kennedy campaign and left me to look after my brother who was a toddler.

That year was weird for me because I'd skipped a grade and landed in junior high, gone to El Salvador for a couple of months without my mother and was torn between my reading of 19th century novels and white gogo boots. lol

But, the day Bobby was shot, I'd gone to downtown San Jose with Mom to walk her precincts. It was so hot, I still remember it was airless, like an oven. And being Mom, she had two precincts to cover so we got home really tired to a late supper. And things went downhill from there. She was out of commission for days.

It was a huge deal in our family. My favorite uncle, younger than Mom, was also a big supporter and he was devastated. His response was to become a Republican. He was only 20 when JFK was killed and now this, maybe he figured he didn't want to wait around for Round Three. But, he became very bitter after that and for a long time. He was my surrogate father and the change in him was startling and even oppressive in some ways. He is a very private person and I can only imagine how much pain he was in if he let us see even that much of it.

My mom was also devastated. She just didn't hold things together as well as she had been and slipped into alcoholism for about seven years. Can't chalk it up to that event entirely but for sure there was the sense in our house that the center had not held and for some time, we were adrift.

I don't remember knowing about other places that year. My teachers may have tried to bring world events into the classroom but the pall around our little group was so heavy, I don't think I took much of it in beside the mechanical stuff needed to get through the school year. I don't remember Dr. King's death but do remember we stopped eating at the table that summer and took our meals on trays on the sofa in front of the television.