The History These Eyes Have Seen

Sitting here at almost five in the A.M. watching the New York Philharmonic performing in Pyongyang-North Korea on CNN, watching yet again as history is made right before my eyes. Spellbound as the cameras zoom through those assembled, mesmerized as one woman uses a hankie to hide her tears, amused at some of the men sitting so stoically still, pretending to be nonplused at this spectacle, unaffected at the history occurring right before their eyes. As the flutes add their voice to the chorus I find myself looking back upon my own life, remembering the times I've sat before my television watching as history occurred right before my eyes.

Perhaps the most vivid recollection I have of history being made was, is and shall continue to be the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I was in first grade at the time, Miss David my teacher. Coming back in from beating the erasers on the bricks of the building, walking past the principals office I saw everyone huddled around a black and white TV, heard the announcer (Walter Cronkite) state that the President had been shot.

I continue down the hall into our classroom and blurted out my news, "The President's been shot!" Miss David was furious at me, shouted out, "That's not funny YOUNG MAN, you're going to the principles office." She crabbed my arm and started dragging me down the hall when the principal came over the PA system, "School is dismissed for the day, please prepare to go to the buses, the President, John F. Kennedy has been shot. Miss David dropped to her knees as she shouted Oh My God, then tears rushing to her eyes started saying over and over again, "I'm sorry" as she held me in her arms crying softly.

When we arrived home both my parents were huddled around the black and white television we had, both of them weeping...it was the first time I'd ever seen my father cry.

There was the death of Martin Luther King, and then Robert Kennedy...that one really hit home with me because I was a fan of Rosie Greer...seeing that huge, hulking football player openly weeping, tears rolling down his cheeks hit me hard, made it far more personal to me than when John F. Kennedy had fallen, even though I'd shaken the man's hand when I was four years old.

Vietnam was brought right into our living rooms on a nightly basis, and a great rift began to divide our family, my parents clinging to their patriotic ways, my older brother and I listening to our Beatles music and questioning not only the war, but our government. Two opposing emotions existed with Woodstock, and the Apollo landing on the moon. It was FAR OUT to think we had just landed a man on the moon, there was a pride in our nation that perhaps counter balanced our hatred of a war we had come to believe was wrong.

I grew up on John Wayne and Shirley Temple, both a constant staple on Saturday afternoons. In my 20's I sat in a bar and wept when the television announced his death. Was not sure why his death affected me so at the time, but looking back, think John Wayne and Shirley Temple represented everything we had been raised to believe America stood for. There was my summer in Portland, Maine and learning the night before I was to see him in concert that Elvis Presley had died, just another in a long line of musical greats who perished from this world. (Janis Joplin, Hendrix, Buddy Holly)

There were lesser events, important to me, but in the big picture of the world insignificant pop culture events. The last episode of MASH, finding me crying at the end of a show and the lose of a cast I had come to love. Sitting in our college bar drinking JR Ewing beer and placing bets on who shot JR...all these years later, almost embarrassed to admit I can't remember.

There was Hinckley's attempt on President Reagan, an event that scarcely registered in my mind as a significant event, perhaps because I never really like the man, found his politics distasteful...blasphemy I know. There were the two space shuttle tragedies, both finding me weeping in my living room as I watched every moment on my personal silver screen, again history unraveling right before my eyes.

No event in history affected me more than 9/11, watching the towers collapse dropped me too my knees as a scream escaped from deep within. For almost two weeks I went almost totally without sleep, watching each painful moment of our nation's greatest singular moment of pain...my lord, why has thou forsaken me. Now, almost seven years later life has not returned to normal, our American psyche seems almost incapable of bouncing back, our swagger gone. Where is John Wayne when you need him, does any one else remember him in, "The Green Beret"?

Television has changed the world, brought history into our living rooms, and made us a part of it as it happens in the right here and now. This morning, while others sleep I've watched it occur once again half a world away in Pyongyang-North Korea.