I was supposed to graduate from Garfield High School in 1970...at least that was the plan...but like everything else in a young boys life, stuff happens!
One of the things that I really looked forward to every school year was...Summer Vacation! This school year was no exception...plus I had just graduated from Robert Louis Stevenson Jr. High School. Wow what an accomplishment..I felt proud of myself for getting this far without any major set backs in my life. But that was about to change. Like I said..stuff happens..and sometimes when it rains it pours ! My life would soon start to spiral out of control!
The nation was still feeling the lingering affects of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Lyndon Baines Johnson was now President of the United States. I remember seeing him take the oath of office soon after JFK was pronounced dead. It was so bazaar..everything was happening so fast. I am certain the whole nation was glued to their television sets.. just waiting for bits of new information on who was the gunman..was this some kind of masterful conspiracy unfolding before our eyes? There had to be many perpetrators involved in this plot..how else could they accomplish this horrific act? Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended on that same day in a Dallas movie theater..surely now the truth about this grand conspiracy would finally begin to be revealed! But it was not to be ..while being transported from Dallas police headquarters to a county jail.. Lee Harvey Oswald was himself murdered by a gunman..Jack Ruby. The crazy thing about this is that the whole nation..including me, were watching this as it was actually unfolding .. live on national television. Wow..what an incredible turn of events! I remember thinking ..now we will never know who was really involved in this horrific plot. I remember all the different sound bites constantly being spewed into the airwaves.. "lone gunman or patsy" "zapruder film", "Oswald was a marksman Shooter in the Marines" "the rifle" "Presidential autopsy" Wow what an emotional roller coaster! This had a tremendous impact on my young life ..just to think that I was an eyewitness to one of the most heinous crimes in American history..it is something that will remain embedded in me till I die..Wow..what a ride! I won't bother you with anymore details about this historical event..the history books are filled with different theory's about the assassination of JFK.
Meanwhile the "conflict" in Viet Nam was intensifying and the newly appointed President.. Lyndon Johnson was about to plunge this Nation into one of the most bloodiest wars in American history. More than 55.000 young soldiers lost their lives on the battlefield. What a terrible waist of sacred human life! The war dragged on for over 12 years.
As young men were dying in this increasingly unpopular war, civil unrest together with large scale college demonstrations were the order of the day. Not a day would go by without hearing or seeing news of another anti war protest..many of them escalating into violence, property damage or even death as in the case of the students that were killed at Kent state when riot police opened fire on an unarmed group of collage protesters. These events are seared into my memory...that's why I can recall theses details. It's funny how being an eyewitness to an historical event can have this affect on someone. Even more interesting is the fact that these events were part of a collective national experience.. everyone was affected by this wave of events in one way or another.
While the Viet Nam war and the protesters were taking center stage on a national level..something was brewing here close to home that would soon boil over into one of Los Angeles gloomiest pages of its history..the Watts Riots! It was late in the year 1965 when it all started..and once again I was front and center observing with this young impressionable mind all the mindless disregard for life,limb and property! Complete and total mob mentality ran amuck for six long days.
As a young boy being exposed to the darker side of human nature..plus being indoctrinated ..(mostly without me being aware of it)into the predominant thinking and almost forced to join the generational divide because of my youth. The mantra was "rebellion, resist and reform". Now if that was not enough to make a young mind spin like a top..what happened next would turn out to be a tipping point in my life and the beginning of a vicious cycle of self destruction.
Like I said at the beginning .. Stuff happens..and my life is no exception. We are thrust into this world and we are supposed make sense of it all. Along the way we bump our heads and scrape our knees. I asked many questions but never could find the right answers..so I kept searching..Most of the time not knowing exactly what I wanted. Sometimes we make bad choices. We open every door we encounter..most of the time not knowing what lies on the other side.
So I kept opening doors...hoping that the next one would reveal the true meaning of life!
Stay tuned for Utopian Dreams part 2 and the rest of My Story
Meanwhile the "conflict" in Viet Nam was intensifying and the newly appointed President.. Lyndon Johnson was about to plunge this Nation into one of the most bloodiest wars in American history. More than 55.000 young soldiers lost their lives on the battlefield. What a terrible waist of sacred human life! The war dragged on for over 12 years.
As young men were dying in this increasingly unpopular war, civil unrest together with large scale college demonstrations were the order of the day. Not a day would go by without hearing or seeing news of another anti war protest..many of them escalating into violence, property damage or even death as in the case of the students that were killed at Kent state when riot police opened fire on an unarmed group of collage protesters. These events are seared into my memory...that's why I can recall theses details. It's funny how being an eyewitness to an historical event can have this affect on someone. Even more interesting is the fact that these events were part of a collective national experience.. everyone was affected by this wave of events in one way or another.
While the Viet Nam war and the protesters were taking center stage on a national level..something was brewing here close to home that would soon boil over into one of Los Angeles gloomiest pages of its history..the Watts Riots! It was late in the year 1965 when it all started..and once again I was front and center observing with this young impressionable mind all the mindless disregard for life,limb and property! Complete and total mob mentality ran amuck for six long days.
As a young boy being exposed to the darker side of human nature..plus being indoctrinated ..(mostly without me being aware of it)into the predominant thinking and almost forced to join the generational divide because of my youth. The mantra was "rebellion, resist and reform". Now if that was not enough to make a young mind spin like a top..what happened next would turn out to be a tipping point in my life and the beginning of a vicious cycle of self destruction.
Like I said at the beginning .. Stuff happens..and my life is no exception. We are thrust into this world and we are supposed make sense of it all. Along the way we bump our heads and scrape our knees. I asked many questions but never could find the right answers..so I kept searching..Most of the time not knowing exactly what I wanted. Sometimes we make bad choices. We open every door we encounter..most of the time not knowing what lies on the other side.
So I kept opening doors...hoping that the next one would reveal the true meaning of life!
Stay tuned for Utopian Dreams part 2 and the rest of My Story
No comments:
Post a Comment