Seeing Nixon - 1974
January 20, 2009 is a historic day. We will inaugurate the first black President of the United States. My daughters are to young to understand exactly how significant that is but they do know that it is something special. With all of this presidential stuff going on I got to thinking about the presidents I have seen in my lifetime.I saw President Richard Nixon at Vance, AFB in 1974, President George H. Bush at Convention Hall in 1992 and I saw President George W. Bush's landing at Vance, AFB in 2006.
I've got a small collection of things from the Nixon visit to Enid. My great grandma was a huge Nixon fan and she waited 3 hours in the sun to see him. These are the things I received after her death.
(click for larger views)In 1974, I was not heavy into politics. As a matter of fact, at eleven, I really knew very little about politics and the news. I do remember that countries were always getting attacked by guerrillas. Being just a youngster, I always wondered why gorillas were attacking people. Little did I know.
I do remember hearing about Watergate but not really understanding what all the fuss was about. The first election I really remember was Ford/Carter. I spent the night with my best friend the night of the election and we got to stay up until we knew who the winner was projected to be. Of course, Carter won and we went to bed wondering what was going to happen to the country. I was a republican even then.
posted by Shaggy D at
12:21 AM
1 Comments:
OMG! My dad was stationed at Vance when Nixon came through. My family was there that day. The little black kid in the second photo with the sunglasses on his forehead might be my baby brother! It looks like him and there weren't many black people at Vance back then.
My brother got separated from us in the crowd and was pushed to the front and he got to shake Nixon's hand. He told me that Nixon seemed scared, that his hands shook and that he asked the Secret Service guys if they were sure it was ok that he get that close to the crowd. My brother said that Nixon's hand was warm and damp.
Nixon handed him an autographed business card that my mother kept it for 20 years in the same container where she stored her hair curlers. Go figure. She finally decided that the autograph was just a photocopy and threw the card away. It was also smudged with lipstick and hairspray by then.
Wow. What a trip.
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