SOLSC: Fifty Years Ago Today...

            This slice happened on this day, but 50 years ago.

            Jack and I had just bought our first television—he was writing short profiles for the New York Post of TV actors, and without our own television, he had no idea who they were.

            Radio news was reporting that the president was going to give an address to the nation this evening. We thought it probably had something to do with the Vietnam War, and since we’d been demonstrating against the war for years, we decided to boycott LBJ’s speech. But we weren’t going to just ignore it. No, we had to make a statement.

            We turned on the TV, but turned off the sound. And we made love, not war on the living room floor in front of the TV.

            Not until the next morning, when we bought the paper on the way to work, did we learn that LBJ had announced he was not going to run for re-election. We antiwar protesters had chased him out, we thought, though it was more likely the New Hampshire primary three weeks earlier, when Eugene McCarthy had gotten 42% to LBJ’s 49%. I recorded the Announcement in my datebook, and two days later, in the Wisconsin primary, McCarthy got 57%, LBJ 35%, and Bobby Kennedy got a write-in vote of 6%.

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 I’m participating in the 11th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 31 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!