I’ve been thinking that 2020 and 1960 are closing a cosmic loop. I was seven years
I was seven years old for most of 1960 and remember it as the end of the Happy Days era that followed World War II.
Things were pretty good for most people. Televisions were becoming widespread, a vaccination was available for polio. Jobs often paid enough to make it possible for mothers to stay at home, if they chose.
A couple of moments from 1960 stand out for me. One was the time that I asked my Grandma Blansett about the presidential election.
It was Kennedy vs. Nixon that year and the campaign had produced the first televised debates involving candidates. It was a close race and I remember thinking that every vote was probably going to count. Oklahoma was as solid for the Democrats
Oklahoma was as solid for the Democrats in 1960 as it is for the Republicans today, and Grandma was the definition of an old-time Yellow Dog Democrat.
“Who’ll you vote for, Grandma?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer.
“Nixon.”
I didn’t see that one coming. She explained that Kennedy was a Catholic and, as president, would have to do what the Pope told him. It was clear she wasn’t voting for Nixon because she wanted him for President - she was voting against Kennedy because she feared his religion.
Such was bigotry in 1960.
No one could predict at that moment that the 1960s would bring us assassinations, the Vietnam War and riots over Civil Rights. Nixon lost in 1960, but won in a do-over in 1968. By then, the country was being ripped apart like a rag.
The other moment was the October afternoon I got off the school bus and my mother told me that Pittsburgh had won the World’s Series.
A tobacco-chewing guy named Mazeroski had hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh game and, against all odds, the Pirates were champions of baseball.
Major League baseball was a much bigger deal then that it is now. The NBA and NFL were getting popular, but baseball was the undisputed king of sports.
Come World’s Series time, schools would let kids bring radios to class so they could follow the games and give updates when the scores changed.
I think the Yankees were ahead in that seventh game when I got on the school bus, but the world had shifted by the time I got off.
The American League added two new teams in 1961 and Roger Maris helped himself to the diluted pitching and broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. The game was never the same again and, indeed,
The game was never the same again and, indeed, American sport was never the same, either. The Super Bowl now fills the spot previously held by the World’s Series, but the televised extravaganzas presented us on a Sunday afternoon is a far cry from the magic of a transistor radio on a sunny October afternoon.
Fast forward to 2020 and things are eerily similar.
We’ll vote again for President in a few weeks and the air - especially fed by Facebook - is filled with bigotry and misinformation. The nation is divided and angry, although sometimes it is hard to figure out exactly why. We have COVID-19 instead of polio, but there isn’t a vaccine yet.
Major League baseball is still around, but it’s playing its season in empty stadiums, almost like a pantomime. Same with the NBA. They don’t seem to matter as much as they used to.
I am close to the same age that Grandma Blansett was in 1960. As I’m sure she did, I hope for a good future for my grandkids, one without anger, hate and prejudice.
When we close the curtain on the 2020s, I hope we find they got us closer to that than the 1960s did.