What's the first major news story you can remember living through as a child?

We got the ‘news’ from the Army’s Stars and Stripes newspaper.

Later from the Atlanta Journal.

And, when, back from Japan, the new phenomenon of the ‘Nightly News’ on ABC, CBS, or NBC.

Families sat together to watch. It was appointment TV.

We were a CBS family, and Walter Cronkite was God.

Or, Moses coming down from the mountain with the latest Commandments.

I met him much later when he covered one of the Gemini launches out at the Cape and I was working for ABC News as a ‘desk assistant’. He was nice, had bad breath, and was sweating heavily in the hot Florida sun.

à la recherche du temps perdu:

The Cold War:

It was an everyday thing. The Soviet Union had millions of troops, thousands of tanks, artillery, bombers, MIGs, square-faced savage looking Slavic Generals in their high peaked dress headgear, gold braid on top of gold braid on their shoulders, chests covered with clanking medals commemorating killing millions of Nazis and razing their cities during the Great Patriotic War.

The ‘missile gap’ that had allowed the Commies to catch up and surpass the United States in delivery systems and total nuclear warheads.

Commie spies had stolen the A-bomb and H-bombs secrets, and now they had weapons of mass destruction before the term was even invented. They were everywhere. We were told: ‘see something, say something’ if we spotted someone lurking near the Airborne’s drop towers.

Yeah, and someone in the State Department had lost China, and by God we were going to find out who did it, weren’t we?

What about Quemoy and Matsu? There was an entire summer of Quemoy alarms.

The Soviet Union starting a nuclear war was in the headlines in the same way that Climate Change is now. Experts, scientists, pundits, history professors, retired generals, the Pope, philosophers, and even Walter Cronkite warning us of Armageddon.

We had ‘what to do when the nuclear clock strikes zero’ drills in elementary school. Fourth grade and crouching under your school desk wondering if it was possible to do what Uncle Reason said was the only thing to do if the Russians launched: kiss your ass goodbye!

I could barely kiss my elbow, much less my ass.

Polio:

Besides the USSR and the balance of terror (Hey, Mom, what does ‘terror’ mean?) there was polio.

The news about polio was very very scary. Much scarier to our parents than any future nuclear winter if we survived the first exchange.

Any kid could get it.

The idea of spending years in an iron lung terrifying.

It wheezed and pistoned like a steam punk fantasy fifty years early. There was one in The Big Lebowski that scared me all over again.

Then news of a vaccine.

We were saved.

I’d be able to play baseball and ride a bike and rappel off cliffs until incinerated in a nanosecond by an H-Bomb

Integration:

The integration of public schools in the South. The National Guard being sent in. Outside agitators and violence. It seemed strange to us, living on an Army Post and going to integrated schools all of our lives.

Sputnik:

How could it be? We’re America!

We stood in the back yard and tried to see it tracking across the sky.

JFK:

Being Catholics, it was a big deal. Him being so young, it was even a bigger deal to us kids. We were part of the New Generation!

Greg and I wrote a letter pledging our support from the Deep South. Addressed it to JFK, Hyannisport, Massachusetts.

We were living in Fort Benning, Georgia. It must have triggered a campaign worker’s curiosity and we got a reply thanking us for our support, enclosing some buttons and stickers, signed by ‘Jack Kennedy’.

Really?!?!?!?

This before either of us knew anything about robo-pens.

Old Yeller Dying

It wasn’t a news story. But, was the story that had the most profound impact on me as a child. A far bigger thing that Who Lost China, Alger Hiss, Ike’s heart attacks, the Hungarian Revolution, or Hawaii and Alaska becoming states.

Thinking about answering this Storyworth question made me remember long forgotten major crises (Suez?). Long forgotten people in the news (Lumumba). Long forgotten scandals (Pat Nixon’s cloth coat). The mega issues or the day (fluoridation). Forgotten political parties (the John Birch Society).

So, always keep in mind as they attempt to terrify you 24/7 in 2024:

“Plus ?a change, plus c’est la même chose”