Saturday, June 27, 2020
Watching CNN 1968 Documentary, Evoking Personal Memories
I'm watching right now a documentary show on CNN about the year 1968...were you alive back then and if so, do you have your own memories of that turbulent year in our country's history? I was eleven going on twelve, and the year was divided between my last year in the sixth grade at Nova Elementary School in Davie, Florida and the start of the seventh just across the field at Nova High...quite a culture shock in more ways than one. They're trying to stress similarities between 1968 and our own current troubled year of 2020...in my own personal life I missed the final, glorious days of elementary school in June 1968 with a severe case of the flu. I followed the news that year, and '68 was the first presidential election campaign I ever paid attention to...I remember my mom being a strong Eugene McCarthy fan and being disappointed that neither of my parents were voters. While riding home on the school bus just before the November election I discovered a few of my friends were behind George Wallace's independent bid...I bet most of them are ardent supporters of Trump now. While watching CNN's presentation, I realized that there are different histories going on here: the society's history and my own personal one. You can take notes from the TV broadcast and look up interesting topics on the Internet and learn a lot, but with personal memories digging them out of the past can be much more challenging. I am 63 going on 64 in October...I'm thinking of starting something I call "Life Memory Project" in which, like an archaeologist digging up fragmentary clues from a culture's past, I try to assemble my own personal relics from the vast recesses of my tangled memories. I get the fact that with many people the idea of digging back into their own pasts can be a traumatic experience...to each his or her own, I say: maybe this is something you'd like to undertake for yourself, though. I'm also thinking of rehashing years and topics of my past on this blog at times, although what the exact format will be I'm not sure of right now. One idea that might work is for "memory" articles to be written in a stream-of-consciousness style. Yes, 1968 was an interesting, memorable year both in the nation, the world...and my own life. But even with this documentary I can see that they're glossing over some important stories, but you can't cram an entire, very eventful year into a four-hour documentary...
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