Sharing My Story

The early sixties was filled with confrontations
between the the West and the Communist
East. It seems as if one happened right
after the other. The building of the
Berlin Wall (with American and Soviet
tanks staring each other down in the
German capital), the wars in central Africa,
the Bay of Pigs invasion fiansco and the
Cuban Missile crisis.

The October 1962 crisis over the Soviet
missiles in Cuba was a tense and
frightening experience.
Some of my school mates were actually
scared of a nuclear war happening.
At the time I didn’t think it was possible
but in later years as details became
known it does seem as if we came
close to nuclear war.

We were told that President Kennedy
cancelled a late trip to the Seattle World’s Fair
in order to deal with the crisis.
At the time I was a little disappointed
but I realized he had his priorities
in the right place.

What with the crushed Hungarian Revolt,
the rise of Castro, the U-2 incident,
Nikita Khrushchev pounding on the table
at the UN with his shoe and later declaring
to the West “We will bury you” and many
other things I (and my family) was
somewhat disappointed with Eisenhower’s
seemingly lack of strong response.

Still we had a stong affection for Ike but
felt in some ways that his presidency had
not lived up to our expectations. Our family
was for Nixon primarily because his
opponent John F. Kennedy was a liberal
Democrat and a Roman Catholic. We were
disappointed by the very close election
and the vote fraud reports especially in
the Illinois (Chicago) area. Part of the
dismay lay in the fact that Nixon chose
not to contest the election. Years later,
Al Gore did contest the 2000 election
with George W. Bush and the nation survived.

I remember the Hungarian Revolt of 1956
and was saddened when the Soviets tanks
moved in and crushed the freedom fighters.
I was diappointed that the U.S. did nothing
to help these brave people.

The launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite in
1957 turned my thoughts to the Space Race
and eagerly watched America’s early attempts
(sometimes disastrous) to match the Communist feat.
Eisenhower’s sending the Marines to Lebanon
in 1958 interested me as brother Russ had
joined the U.S. Marines in 1957 and spent
6 months in boot camp (Camp Pendleton
near San Diego, California). The Polaris
nuclear submarine was also a scientific
feat that caught my attention.

In 1959 brother Russ was going to college
(Western Washighton College of Education
—now Western Washinton University) and
met a friend named Don Dale. Don was a
Christian and attended our church
Immanuel Bible Church
(Bellingham, Washington) and was
something of an intellectual. He strongly
believed that Fidel Castro was a sort of
modern day Robin Hood and his cause
of liberating Cuba from the Batista
dictatorship was a just one. Not knowing
otherwise we all hoped that was true.
We were all disappointed that Castro
turned out to be a Communist and after
he came to power produced a much worse
police state than what had gone before.

In this Bio Blog I will be sharing
my thoughts on personal biography.
Our lives are complex and composed
of many strands. Tomorrow I hope
to began unweaving one of those
strands about my own life. God Bless

[I’m starting this off with my interest in
politics and current events]
I became interested in politics and current
events very early on. I have distinct memories
of wearing “I Like Ike” buttons to church
the first time General Eisenhower’s ran for
president in 1952. I was 4 years old at the time.

Though I don’t remember much discussion of
politics at home my family was Republican in
political orientation and we had high hopes
for the Eisenhower administration.

I don’t remember the Korean War while it
was happening. Shortly after I started school
the teachers asked the parents to subscribe
for their children an in-class “newspaper” that
was geared for each grade level called
“My Weekly Reader.” My Weekly Reader
(MWW) was a four page news paper that
distilled current events down to the child’s
level of understanding. This was a attempt
to give children some comprehension of what
was happening in the larger world. I found for
the most part MWW interesting and followed
the current happenings through it. I also listened
to the radio and watched TV news during this time.