fused events

[novapsyche]

What is your earliest national memory?

Comments

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

Coverage of JFK's assassination on TV. I was trying to figure out why my mom was upset; I was four at the time.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Four or five is about when one's identity is solidified, if you trust the psychologists and social psychologists.

How do you feel about JFK and his assassination now? Did anything change after that, from your viewpoint?

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

No, nothing really changed in my world-view. Earth Day in 1970 probably brought out the most feeling of Maybe The World Is Headed Down A Bad Path.

1970 was a pivotal year for me, because I also figured out that there were things my parents' religion just wanted me to ignore. Hmmm.... maybe it can't really stand up to the light of day? What else are they not telling me? And it was downhill from there. I still went to School of Religion; I just went with a different attitude.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

I think it's the 1976 Presidential election. But there could be something earlier; my memory gets all chronologically fuzzy then.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

What do you remember about the election? I'm sure it was a happening time, as it was our bicentennial.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember a ton of bicentennial stuff during that year, too.

I had just turned six, and I was a sickly child, so my memories are really hazy. I remember that my grandmother came to watch me while my parents went to go vote. I remember my dad had a bunch of pamphlets and papers from the UAW and a lot of Carter literature laying around. My grandmother and I went downstairs to watch the election coverage on television and she talked about politics the whole time, but I didn't take very much from it substantively. What I did take from it was that political responsibility as citizens, associated with voting, was taking very seriously in our family. We were supposed to be well informed and make a considered choice because it was so important, who was in charge, and the kind of power they could wield.

[vylar-kaftan.livejournal.com]

The Iran hostage situation. I was scared because some kids didn't have their mommies and daddies with them. I was 3.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

That's an incredible amount of awareness. How did your parents react to the situation?

[aiela.livejournal.com]

I remember having mock elections in kindergarten for the 1980 election. I had just turned 5.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I wish my kindergarten had done that! :) My first mock election was Reagan/Mondale.

[davidfcooper.livejournal.com]

The 1960 presidential race (my sixth birthday was seven or eight weeks after election day). In the fall of that year I was starting first grade at an elite private school on Manhattan's upper east side (I was a scholarship kid). We lived on the lower east side, and three or four classmates and I were driven to school by a private car service. Our driver favored Nixon and our parents all supported Kennedy, and as precocious five and six year olds we would argue politics with him.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic. Have you written stories about these memories?

[davidfcooper.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't. I don't remember much more than this and would have to rely on a combination of research and imagination to fill in details and create dramatic tension. What does stand out in my memory of those car rides was convincing one of the girls to sit on my lap (those were the days before seat belts) and let me put my hands up her skirt and feel her butt (which made her smile and giggle--she didn't require much convincing, just initiative). But that recollection is also a bit hazy. Yes, some day I should write my "confession of a five year old pervert."

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Oh, yes, the world of five-year-olds. It is wide open and they are curious.

national memory

[magicmaiden.livejournal.com]

http://my.execpc.com/~culp/space/timeline.html

The space program...sputnik and waiting for ours. John Glenn probably the most- though when I first saw this I thought of the
Kennedy assassination.

I had to look it up to see which came first the bonus was finally learning what all happened with the first dog in space. Didn't read the newspaper at that time.

Re: national memory

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link; apparently it goes away soon. I wonder why it doesn't have any data since 2001.

When did you start reading newspapers?

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I don't think I was an incurious child (to say the least), but it wasn't until I was five that I have a memory that concerned the nation at large instead of something local. That would be the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.

(Many of my early memories have been repressed, I believe, tying into the trauma I suffered at my grandmother's death. But I don't believe [or can't know, anyway] if that would extend to facts/events at large.)

And why don't I have a volcano icon? I love volcanoes. (Mana Flare will have to do.)

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

The 1980 presidential election. Lots of derisive comments being made over the course of the election. Waiting in a looooong line with my parents the night they went to vote.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I don't recall the election of 1980--I guess it just wasn't on my radar. What kind of comments do you remember?

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

The 1987 general election (I remember my mum and dad staying up late to watch it; Labour got horribly, horribly trounced by the Tories).

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Who were they for, and how did you feel about it?

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Labour (my dad's a party member). I personally don't remember any strong feelings one way or the other about it. I do remember being all 'ding dong the witch is dead' when Margaret Thatcher got kicked out of being Prime Minister - when I was around 15 I think - which led to some arguments with my mostly-conservative classmates.

The Dismissal

[entheo.livejournal.com]

The Dismissal - The sacking of the Whitlam labour government, I was in Primary School and it was announced over the speakers. The Dismissal was orchestrated by the CIA over Pine Gap

Re: The Dismissal

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Now you have me searching in all sorts of odd areas.

So this happened during school hours--what was the mood like? What happened when you got home and talked to your parents?

Re: The Dismissal

[entheo.livejournal.com]

At school it was a bit of a shock, most of the teachers were left-wing, socially aware labour voters (that I can remember). When I came home and told my mother, she didn't believe me at first (no internet back then!). I can remember arguing with another kid in my class who was celebrating though.

And people didn't learn about CIA maneuvering behind the scenes until many years later, although many on the left believed it without the hard evidence that was found later on (and some on the far right refuse to believe it even to this day). So it wasn't a full on coup, it was a legal, although alot of the maneuvers were done by breaking the convention of the unwritten constitution (Westminster system).

[kittenkissies.livejournal.com]

The vietnam war.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

How old were you? What about it stood out to you?

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

Does disliking Carter for preempting TV shows count?

There must be something prior to the Challenger, as I was ten by then, but I'm having a hard time coming up with anything significant. I guess I noticed the 1984 election, but I wasn't paying attention to notice much beyond a female VP candidate and that Reagan was a lot less of a chore to listen to than Mondale.

I also remember my second (I think) grade class talking about Yuri Adropov coming to power in the USSR, and the effects Mt. St. Helens was having on the weather.

[mofic.livejournal.com]

Here by way of davidfcooper.

My earliest national memory is the 1960 presidential election. My father put up pictures of Nixon and Kennedy in our playroom and said he'd take down the loser after the election so we'd have a picture of the new president. He wouldn't tell us for whom he was voting and talked about the importance of the secret ballot. It wasn't until many, many years later that I realized:

- Most people aren't secretive about their political views, particularly with their families, secret ballot notwithstanding

- He didn't want us disclosing he was a Democrat in a Republican environment

- If he were not putting up the pictures in the *hope* that we'd have a picture of President Kennedy in our playroom rather than out of general civic education, we would already have had a picture of President Eisenhower :-).

A lot of things escaped me at age almost-five.

[chai-tease.livejournal.com]

the first thing that jumps out is the challenger explosion. i think it is the first thing that was outside of my home/family that was all abuzz. i was 7 then, tho, so i think the thing i remember that was national but perhaps not something i was entrenched with was the pope being shot. i think that was 82? i was 2 or 3 at the time, and i remember i was staying with my MaMa and PaPa who were devout cajun Catholics and we would pray for him, MaMa would cry and pray more and it kind of freaked me out because in my life i hadn't been around that sort of sorrow before.