Mine was around age 5, during the Watergate scandal (which I obviously didn’t understand for years afterward). One warm evening, my parents and some neighbors decided we should all take a half-mile stroll for an ice cream cone.
Baskin-Robbins was having a contest where customers could invent their own new flavors, and there was a poster contest for kids to send in drawings of their inventions.
Dad has always been known for his rather corny sense of humor. His contest entry? “Mmmm, Peach-Mint!”
(No, he didn’t win. But he still thinks it was damn witty.)
I remember being in some kind of march-on-downtown thing when I was four or five. I remember shouting “Fired up! Can’t take no more!” while perched on someone’s shoulder. It was fun, but I don’t think I knew what I was fired up about. I still don’t know.
Learning to use a voting machine at my elementary school, 1952 I think. Asking my mom who she voted for in the Ike-Stevenson election. She said Ike. I asked why, and she said because Stevenson was d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d!
When I was six, the original George Bush made a campaign stop at our local airport, and my dad went took my brother and I too see him. I remember there were some Bush supporters, but also some Dukakis supporters. At the time, I didn’t know which candidate belonged to which party.
Ah. 'Twas 1972, I suppose, and George McGovern had won the Democratic party’s nomination for President. The campaign was on, and Democrats were doing their best to give Nixon a beating. My family, ardent Democrats all, had assembled a wide and fascinating collection of campaign paraphernalia, including the red-white-and-blue buttons for the McGovern Million Member (MMM) Club, the cryptic “remember October 9” buttons*, and posters with this lovely poem.
*“Remember October 9” refers to a 1968 speech by Nixon, in which he said (referring to LBJ) that “anyone who has had four years to produce peace and has not succeeded should not be given another chance.”
I was nine years old, and I worked on the McGovern campaign
I was seven in 1980. I remember sitting in our kitchen watching the election returns come in during the Reagan-Carter campaign. I passionately hoped Carter would win as my parents, especially my mother, thought he was the greatest man who ever walked the earth.
As it became clear that Reagan would win I remember my mother crying, even sobbing at times. From her reaction I was sure that the world was ending and that we would all die fiery deaths. I was surprised that the world was the same the next day.
I can’t really remember what year it was but it might have been '74 or '75. President Ford was going through my town on a train between Detroit and probably Grand Rapids. Of course all the people from the sticks had to go out to wave at the prez as he went by at like 70 mph. My parents had to explain to me what a president actually was. And what all the big black helicopters were for.
Wasn’t nearly as cool as watching Air Force One with Bill going over my house low 20+ years later. Shook every window in my house.
Well, uh…
I was about two years old. I remember watching on TV then-president Bush waving out of a window in the White House. I remember telling my mom “President Bush is waving out the window!”. This had to be just before he left office.
My first political memory was also the earliest memory that I have been able to put a date to.
My mother and my Aunt Rebecca were outside shooting firecrackers. They were excited and happy. I asked them why they were doing that and they said, “Because the war is over.”
I was only 25 months old, but I can remember wondering what a war was and figured that it must be a party..
Pledging my allegiance to a country “under God, with liberty and justice for all”. I got the message, and ever since have kept my athiest beliefs hidden in public, though obviously I don’t feel I’m exactly free, and don’t think it’s just.
Election night, 1956. Back in the days of mechanical toteboards. White on black with numbers going clickety-clack. I didn’t care about the election, look at those numbers!
I vaguely remember that whenever Reagan would give his state of the union addresses and such during his first term, my mother would start booing him.
I also remember my parents talking about how they couldn’t stand him. Naturally, then, to me, Reagan was a BAD man-I was probably only about three or four.
I vaguely remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. Not so much what was happening in Cuba itself, or the drama that went on at the United Nations. Rather I remember being afraid that a nuclear war might happen.
I was in junior high (7th or 8th grade, I guess), coming back to school after a doctor’s appointment with my mom. We heard on the car radio that President Reagan had been shot.
When I got back to school, I told the office ladies that the President had been shot. Not only did they not believe me, but I got in trouble for telling lies.
Later on, I felt pretty vindicated and began to realize that there were plenty of stupid grown-ups in the world.
August 8, 1974. My mother sat me in front of the TV and said, “Watch this, you’re going to want to remember it someday.” She was right, and I still remember it. I was 5.
I do have vaguer, earlier memories of stickers reading “HANOI: RELEASE OUR POWS/MIAS” on our little street’s stop sign.
I remember Ronald Reagan running for re-election when I was 6. For as long as I could remember, there were only two political figures in the whole world: Ronald Reagan and Good King Friday. Plus people always mentioned “God” at church, too – seemed like he was the boss, and always had been. Anyhow, those three guys were the Trinity, the constants. Like e and pi. Irrevocable.
So when my parents tried to explain that Walter Mondale wanted Reagan’s job, I thought that was pretty funny. He was Ronald Freaking Reagan! When he won in a landslide, I thought, “Well, duh,” (or the equivalent) and went back to my Lego sets. There was no question: Ronald Reagan had always been President, and as far as I was concerned, he always would be.
Four years later I found out that he had served for as long as he was allowed to, and someone new would have to do the job. I was really worried that we wouldn’t have “freedom” once we got a new President, but I understood that the Constitution said that’s how it had to be. I never trusted George Bush, though. I just barely warmed up to Clinton. George W. is the first President whom I’ve been able to follow as a coherent adult.
…but Ronald Reagan and King Friday will always be the yardsticks by which I judge my executive branch.
The earliest memory I have of the political process was watching Oliver North slime his way through the Iran-Contra hearings. I was 8 at the time, and he kept saying, “I do not recall.” The only thing I could think of was why someone with such a bad memory got to the position he did. Then I figured he was lying about it, and then I wondered why they let such liars into the government. The naïvety of youth, eh?
I remember many political discussions in our household growing up but the earliest big event which stands out in my memory was John F Kennedy becoming President. It was a huge deal at the time even in our little corner of rural Australia.
