I mean, there I was, sitting in the
cafeteria having a tray of meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy (yuk) and
green beans (double yuk), topped off with a cup of fruit cocktail (okay),
surrounded by a couple hundred other middle schoolers on a drizzly cold
November day in Crestwood, Missouri at Truman Middle School. It happened to be
November 8, 1972, the day after President Richard Nixon wiped out George
McGovern. I was sitting at a table with my best friends Tim Schepker and David
Jobe, who were short-haired nerds from the pastoral (and conservative) county
of Fenton, and, as they reported languidly, masticating their green beans, their
‘religious’ parents resolutely “supported the President.” Then again, almost
everybody in Missouri, and the United States, “supported the President.”
“I Can See Clearly Now” was the
number one hit that week, a song I instantly loathed (and still do).
“Down with the establishment” I say,
mauling my meatloaf, referencing Nixon’s landslide victory over his opponent,
Senator (D-South Dakota) George McGovern last night. With only tiny
Massachusetts carrying the anti-war, pro-ERA, supposedly pro-abortion
and legalization of marijuana candidate, this was the greatest electoral
wipeout of all time (520:17). Despite the recent 26th Amendment which lowered
the voting age from 21 to 18 — plus the ongoing Vietnam War with its
lethal compulsory draft — imagine Richard Nixon as the most popular American, ever.
“Right arm!” Tim jovially responds, as David mocks a power salute. My best
friends love it when I play radical John Lennon, who is unironically my role
model. Why do I have such reactionary pals? Well, they like me —
they certainly humor me — and, considering that, under my new long hair,
recently acquired granny glasses and subscription to an obscure hippie magazine
called Rolling Stone, there remains a scrawny, insecure suburban boy too
timid to smoke cigarettes (let alone anything stronger) or say ‘bad words’ (or
anything suggestive) in front of girls (none of whom I have kissed yet),
they’re the sort of pals I should have.
I mean, the really freaky
dudes in 8th grade — actually smoking grass and feeling up their girlfriends —
call me a pussy when they cut in front of me in the cafeteria.
And these hardasses don’t care about
the election either, although they do groove on Alice Cooper’s facetious
“Election” (with its fadeout quip, “And personally, I don’t care”). Mainly,
they’re interested in looking bitchin’ wearing harness boots, sneaking
Marlboros in the boys’ room and comparing notes on “copping tit.” Although I
got my politics from John Lennon, especially last spring’s Sometime in New
York City (which brought the radical antics of Jerry Rubin and Abbie
Hoffman into my suburban bedroom), my middle school detractors were into Black
Sabbath’s Vol. 4. My Fenton buddies, conversely, still pledged
allegiance to the Bee Gees. (Both parties would all come together to support
Ronald Reagan in a later electoral massacre.) But I knew that Nixon was evil
and his victory wasn’t a laughing matter.
I did realize things were
going very wrong when, after including the very people most impacted by
the pointlessly suicidal war overseas — the freak nation was granted suffrage!
— a band like Grand Funk Railroad (who,
only months earlier, recorded one of the most bitchin’ anti-war anthems ever)
declared in print that they planned to vote Nixon because, as bassist Mel
Schacher put it, “McGovern would screw up the economy.” But, here in the Truman
Middle School cafeteria, even though the coolest girl in my English class (or,
at least, the one with blond hair and the largest philtrum) Cindy Kaetzel was
digging on “I Am Woman” on her pink transistor radio, the election didn’t
really matter to anyone. These 13 year olds figured, “It’s gonna be a bright,
bright, bright, bright sunshiny day” — even if the weather outside was 41,
cloudy with rain.
And the weird thing was, the election
didn’t matter. That smug bastard had to resign in disgrace 21 months later.
Then we got a president nobody voted for.
©
2024 C. Kurtz.