At About This Moment…

…26 years ago, I was unloading a bass amp from a pickup truck outside Jamestown High School.  The school’s stage band had just played a noon-hour gig at a Rotary Club meeting, and was coming back to school.  It was a warm, pleasant March day, my senior year of high school, and I really wasn’t interested in going back to class.  I was much more interested in chatting up this really hot trumpet player…

Suddenly, someone said out the door – “President Reagan’s been shot“.

I was still a Democrat back then, and had been very nervous about Reagan winning the presidency; I figured he’d reinstitute a draft and have us all fighting in Saudi Arabia before I could get to college.  I didn’t cheer on getting the news, of course (someone in the band did, although I can’t remember and don’t care who it was), while others groaned; to most of the kids, it didn’t matter that much. 

Still, Reagan’s behavior during and after the crisis helped accelerate my slide to the right. 

More on that later…

8 thoughts on “At About This Moment…

  1. At this moment 22 years ago I was unloading a keg with some buddies at a house we were renting on Lake Minnetonka.

  2. At about this moment 22 years ago I was in a bunny suit tweaking an ion implanter in a clean room. I didn’t even know he was shot until about 8 hours after the event when I finally got the blasted thing sort of functional, at least enough to get my experiment done.

    And I wasn’t a Democrat back then (Carter cured that), but I wasn’t a Republican either.

  3. At about this moment 26 years ago I was sitting in my fourth grade classroom when they rolled the TV in so we could watch the news coverage. I didn’t consider myself a “Republican” or a “Democrat” at the time. I believe I leaned more toward “Jedi Knight”.

    I only mention this to make you all feel real real old.

  4. Mitch reminisced: “I figured he’d reinstitute a draft and have us all fighting in Saudi Arabia before I could get to college.”

    Instead he retreated from Beirut. Shows what kids know!

  5. 26 years ago today…..

    I came into the locker room after track practice in high school, I heard that the President had been shot.

    I probably considered myself a Democrat then, but then I was just an apathetic high school kid back then.

  6. I was in 6th grade at the time so I certainly didn’t have any strong emotions either way. However our English teacher, Mr. Woodbeck, was absolutely distraught! He made no secret that he was a big-time Reagan admirer, so the news hit hard. It was strange to see him like that since he was one of the toughest and most hot-tempered teachers I would ever have.

    It’s weird thinking about it now. I mean, a teacher in the Saint Paul public schools who grew up in the 60s but was a militant conservative? Pretty wild!

  7. Robin Williams attended the same prep school as John Hinckley. Robin Williams was also one of the last people to see John Belushi alive.
    Robin Williams is evil.

  8. I must have been in the 8th grade at St. Agnes. I didn’t understand the cold war at the time and so didn’t appreciate Reagan’s spending. My family was living not too far from Mitch on Van Buren and Aldine.

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