Looking Back from 2012

2012 is going to be an interesting year for me and those of my friends and classmates that will turn 70 sometime during the year.

I don't recall much of 1942 as I was probably just trying to get to 1943 and put on a few pounds. I do remember 1952 as I was one of two kids in my fifth grade class at Bond Hill School that was for Stevenson for President. The other kid in my class that shared my hopes that Stevenson would be elected in November 1952 was Marcia Wagner. She was a very bright girl, so I knew I could not be totally wrong in my championing Stevenson. All the other kids liked Eisenhower. As one of the few 5-star Generals during WWII, Ike as he was known, was a popular hero.

In 1962, I turned 20 and started my junior year at the University of Cincinnati. My summer of 1962 was special in that I travelled to California for the first time and spent my summer in LA. I lived in Westwood just off the UCLA campus in a frat house that rented beds for a dollar a day. LA was definitely not Cincinnati, and I loved going to the beach in Santa Monica as I worked from 6pm to 2 am six nights a week as a busboy at a restaurant named Truman's on the corner of Wilshire and Westwood Blvds. One morning in August I went outside to read the newspaper with some of the guys that lived in the house and was told Marilyn Monroe was found dead.

At the end of my summer in LA, I hitched hiked back to Cincinnati to start my junior year at UC. Perhaps later I will write about 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002. But for now, I have to jump forward into 2012 and get on with painting and selling my t-shirts.

Stay tuned.