Not Exactly Déjà vu, But We’ve Been Down This Road Before

“Back in the last century”, is a quip I throw out there frequently, as much as anything to remind my current listener that I’ve been around the block a time or two, and, no, this isn’t my first Rodeo. 2020 is going to stay in our collective memories for a long, long, time. And justifiably so. The younger set has the tendency to think, Man! Things have never been this messed up before! And even us older lot, tend to forget what the road was like we trod on 52 years ago.

Following the lead of my Hero, Camino Felipe, I tend to take a broader view. The View we are going to revisit with today’s Blog, has the time stamp 1968 on it. Admittedly, there was no World Pandemic raging that year. But there was a savagely raging shooting war going on half way around the world, and it had much longer legs than the virus the world is fighting now. That war had already been going on for a dozen years, and to us of a draft-eligible age, seemed like it was going to last long enough to suck us into it.

The term “Tet Offensive”, probably doesn’t ring a bell with anyone under age 50, but it truly does to any of us 20 years older than that with the tag “veteran” affixed to us. That was the opening act of 1968, and it was a “game changer”. The “Bad Guys” came out on the very short end of that stick, but the fact that they did what they did at the time they did it, knocked America on its proverbial behind. It would still be a long time til “the end” of that tragedy, but it was most assuredly, the beginning of the end.

As is the case today, ’68 was an election year, and the rhetoric then, as now, was visceral and constant. Twitter wasn’t even a glint in any entrepreneur’s eye, but AM radio was on constantly to fan the flames that the Evening News would rekindle daily.

The twin topics of The War and Civil Rights dominated everything. Until, that is, something like “The Pueblo Incident” would erupt and then the pot would get stirred and heated to the boiling point as an American warship and its crew are captured by North Korea, threatened with execution, and literally held for ransom.

Assassinations, not one, but two, and of young, shining stars, Martin and Bobby, mourned with a passion that still reverberated from JFK a short five years before. Agony of mind and spirit was omnipresent.

There was no Pandemic to halt the ancient inspired games of the Olympics, but the angst of a race of people long oppressed flashed around the world on a raised fist of Black Power.

2020 has thrilled us at least momentarily with the Falcon Rocket taking American astronauts to the Space Station. 1968 saw us one step closer to that Giant Step for Mankind on the moon, with Apollo 8 orbiting the magnificent orb, Luna. And on a more mundane note, the incredible 747 took its jaw dropping maiden flight, with a wingspan longer than the total flight of Wright Brothers on the sands of Kitty Hawk. .

The term “Police Brutality” was coined long before 2020, and the days and weeks surrounding the Democratic Convention of 1968 would seem like a primer. Police dogs tearing into panicked, screaming, high pressure water-hosed demonstrators was daily TV fare, as well as tear-gassed gagging reporters covering the mayhem.

And all of this was viewed through the eyes of a 21 year old newly minted Iowa State University alum, with a signed contract obligating him to 4 years of discipline and adventure provided by the United States Marine Corps. I had already earned the love and promise of my heart’s desire, and the future had more promise than fear. Bring it on!

This is the feeling that I hope is predominant for those who may feel that there is no justification for hope. There must always be hope, and a good way to find hope is to find reassurance that bleak times of the past did not last.

John Conway Caminoheads Heartland Bureau Chief