Vonnegut Volunteers for the JFK Campaign, 1960

[Shrek]

[spanone]

1. k&r...

H U G E fan!!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. On occasion, I write pretty well...

Damn that is the truth!!!

[Scuba]

4. + 1,000

[Octafish]

3. Great find, Shrek!

Thank you, infinitely.

[ananda]

5. Wow!

That is so cool!

My little friends and I were going round the neighborhood taking a poll.
To our surprise, Kennedy was winning.. and this was in Dallas with a
lot of Baptists too.

[freshwest]

7. He won in our polls at my elementary school in Houston.

I got hooked on politics then. It's been a bumpy ride.

[Shrek]

6. I sort of like this quote from the linked article

“He was a tough, joyful athlete and he loved to win. And it wasn’t a bad guess, really, that this might cheer Americans up and make us more energetic.”

I was only 3 months old when Kennedy was shot, so I don't have any memories of him. But from what I've learned since then it seems like Vonnegut has nailed a pretty good insight.

Edit: typo

[life long demo]

8. I can tell you it was a time of great hope.

I graduated from HS in 1960, not having the resources to go to college and being a young woman, I started right in working, secretarial work and helping to support my widowed Mother and younger brother and sister. But I can remember really wanting to go into the peace corps that was starting. But in the beginning you really needed a college degree or at least some college. I think that is on my list of regrets. Now being retired and too many health issues, it's not on my bucket list. But I had hope, that's what I remember most about that time, the hope for a better America, a better world. Just remembering.

[freshwest]

9. When I started middle school, we were all doing the Kennedy fitness challenge program daily. I was

devastated at his death, watched Oswald get shot. Then there was MLK and Bobby and the war droned on until I was in college.

It shaped my life, and I began working in political campaigns, local, state and national as a teenager. Either running phone banks for the Democratic Party, walking the streets trying to elect what would have been our first black mayor, gathering petitions for the 18 year old vote, the ERA, and continuing on through my college years with the Young Democrats and then the YSA and SWP.

Traveled across the country with coalitions after I left home. and worked with unions from work and beyond. Continued later in life, all of it unpaid. There is little like that kind of comraderie and the chance to help others to be involved in something bigger than oneself.

[burrowowl]

10. Love Kurt Vonnegut!