Let me start with the numbers, many of which will startle those not in my particular demographic. I was born in 1958 so I have been alive during eight different decades. Being born in ’58 makes other calculations easy: I was 5 in 1963 when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was 10 when Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated. That very same year there were riots in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. The Detroit Tigers won the World Series in 1968, the Celtics took the NBA title, and the Montreal Canadiens carried the Stanley Cup. My memories of those events are black and white, like the TV we had back then.
Growing up in the Bay Area in the late ’60s and ’70s meant I was around during the heralded hippie era. Yes, I let my hair grow down to my shoulders. Yes, I wore bellbottoms. Yes to sandals, no to grass/weed/ganja.
It also meant being alive and attentive during one of the great eras of local and national music. Tower of Power and Pablo Cruise shaped my taste, as did Chicago, Stevie Wonder, and really all Motown artists. The very first live concert I attended was the Grateful Dead in Berkeley. People were passing joints up and down the rows and aisles and, while I did not imbibe, the hovering smoke may explain why I fell asleep at one point. Nonetheless, hell yes Casey Jones!
When I was in fifth grade, I took part in what was or is the greatest experiment meant to change culture, attitude, and human relations ever in our country’s history. I attended a mostly all-white elementary school, in which the school district bused in Black kids from other neighborhoods in Richmond, California. Our parents fought against the effort to integrate the schools, and I shall never forget the image of that first bus pulling up outside of the fence. All those kids looking at all of us kids. Not to oversimplify, but by the first recess we figured it all out. Granted, I had it easy, I went to school two blocks from my house, went home for lunch sometimes, while my new classmates were hauled away from their neighborhoods, back and forth, every day.
I became interested in politics in 1971 and volunteered for George McGovern, the Democratic nominee for president. He was crushed by Richard Nixon, who won 49 states. That meant I was around and attentive during Watergate, the end of the Vietnam war, the second-wave feminist era, and on and on through Reagan, Bush, second Bush, and also Carter, Clinton, and Obama. I’ve seen gas prices go up and down, along with hemlines and hairlines. But the lines of people needing food from pantries seems only to have grown longer.
I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and the pope visit San Francisco during the AIDS crisis. I saw Willie Mays in person, along with Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Joe Montana. Thankfully, I was here and breathing when the Giants won the World Series in 2010, then 2012 and 2014. I can’t remember ever crying so hard and happily.
I learned to type on an IBM Selectric typewriter, dialed rotary phones, went from one to 21, back to one gear on my bicycle. I learned to drive with a stick shift and still do, and never ever plan on getting into a Waymo or any other robomobile.
I have also, too often in my life, witnessed the horrible, scary things we are witnessing now. Famine, war, indifference to death, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, and xenophobia. Friends, family members, and former students of mine have died in wars. I’ve seen walls go down and walls go up. I’ve had to watch local and national leaders exert their power in ways harmful and terrifying.
But I’ve also seen beauty, and grace, and love and kindness and appreciation given and received from every kind and category of person. Princess Diana shook hands with someone suffering from AIDS. President Obama sang “Amazing Grace” in Charleston, South Carolina. George W. Bush threw out the first pitch of Game Three of the World Series in 2001. And every day where I live and in every town all across the country, people deliver meals to those who cannot go out, first responders rescue those in peril, healthcare workers save lives, and teachers go to work hoping to make the world a better place, one student at a time.
I’m often teased for being an optimist, too hopeful, but I cannot help it. We are a good species, overall. That’s what I’ve got for you at 67.
Gene Kahane is the founder of the Foodbank Players, a lifelong teacher, and former Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Gene-Kahane.
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