George McGovern Receiving Hospice Care

[slackmaster]

105. My family moved from San Diego, CA to Alamogordo, NM a few months before the election

I was 10 years old. The move was temporary so that my dad could work on a weapon system at Holloman AFB, home of the White Sands Missile Range.

To say I experienced a culture shock was an understatement. Most of the people in my neighborhood were progressive Democrats, or old-time New Dealers. I lived close to the UC San Diego campus. Professor Herbert Marcuse lived around the corner from me. His home was a favorite stop for the neighborhood kids every Halloween.

Most people I knew supported Robert F. Kennedy, at least until he was assassinated in June. After that, George McGovern offered himself as a substitute. But it just wasn't time for him. I remember him speaking at the convention. I remember a newspaper cartoon portraying him as flying a bomber, dropping a load of flowers. I remember some of my more outspoken liberal friends saying things like "The country just isn't ready for him yet." Of course he ran in earnest in 1972 against the incumbent Richard Nixon, and got his clock cleaned. It was that election in which I learned what the term "landslide" really meant.

Alamogordo was a very different place. There were Wallace posters, yard signs, and bumper stickers everywhere. Nobody in my part of San Diego would have dared to show support for the unrepentant segregationist that Wallace was at the time.

I remember General Curtis LeMay appearing on the ballot as the American Independent Party (Wallace's) candidate for Vice President. I was an avid reader of history, and I had recently learned of his role in leading the Berlin Air Lift and forming the Strategic Air Command. It seemed odd even to my 10-year-old mind that a man with a career like that would get involved in politics at all, much less with a clown like Wallace.

Of course I also remember well the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Tet Offensive, and most of all the Apollo 8 moon mission. My brother and I spent Christmas at the home of our grandparents in Topeka, Kansas and watched coverage of the flight on TV. It was about 0 degrees outside. That was the last time I ever saw that grandfather. He died in March 1969 of a heart attack.

Returning to San Diego was like waking up from a long nightmare. We arrived back at our home on the evening of July 20, 1969 about an hour after Apollo 11 had touched down on the surface of the Moon.

I view the late 1960s as a peak time for our country, and in some ways for me personally. There was an optimism, and a belief in what could be achieved through science and education, that seems to have been lost among many of us.

Maybe the country wasn't ready for George McGovern in 1968 or 1972. Maybe it never will be. Maybe it never should be. I don't know.