It may be unfashionable to say this but I remember the 60’s. I was a little kid. I remember sitting in a semi-circle on the floor wearing a smocked plaid dress and suede saddle shoes, singing “we shall overcome” in my kindergarten voice. The day that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated our teacher’s eyes were red-rimmed. In gentle and quiet sentences she explained to us that she was crying for America. She lit candles and held a vigil in the classroom with us so young and wide-eyed. I cried too that day, and many days after, not knowing exactly why but feeling that something was lost. The 60’s were colors, and sounds and images. The nanny that came when my little brother was born had Bob Dylan records and stripey sailor shirts and flower power stickers. Still, I had no concept of Woodstock. But I remember tying a flowered sash around my head and telling my parents I was going, even though at the time I wasn’t allowed around the corner by myself. And then my family left the town of Oyster Bay in the suburbs of New York City and moved to Washington, DC. One hundred and eighty miles were an ocean. It was the seventies. I lost my new york accent in about a minute and incorporated phrases like “yes ma’am” and “no sir” into my vocabulary. Sure, most kids had parents like mine, lawyers and doctors, but many had parents who were lieutenant colonels and admirals. Or dads who drove to Langley every day. They were military kids, nomads with no notion of social justice. My parents were rudderless liberals, folks with graduate degrees and careers but ungrounded in literature and history and art. My dad would debate points of law for hours on end, never mentioning Plato or Socrates, Dante or Shakespeare, though the complete works of all these men were on our bookshelves. My parents were children of the depression. That was their raison d’etre. I never questioned it. But these kids were like tv evangelists for the army and the navy. I literally had to drink the kool-aid because their parents were pouring it at birthday parties and sleepovers and soccer games. But still, these were American military officers, a group I had always thought of as the bad guys, the men in black. The guys with guns who shot college kids carrying daisies leaving them to die in pools of black blood. I said little as I watched through my rose-colored glasses.

Straight out of college I ended up in Europe, going back and forth for several years traveling and then studying in France. For a few years I lived and worked in London, eventually marrying an Englishman and thinking I would never have to return to this crazy fucked up country. My kindergarten heart had been broken by the institutions and corporations of grown-ups.

Falling back in love with American music, the idea of a limitless western frontier, cowboy songs and even traditional gospel makes perfect sense. I can touch the sounds and colors and images of the little girl sitting cross-legged on the floor, learning the words to “we shall overcome.”

back to top