45 YEARS AGO I COULD NOT IMAGINE TONIGHT

Submitted by Roldo on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 12:48.

 

History has been made. Surprisingly so. In a surprisingly short time.

It’s hard to imagine 45 years ago tonight I had a train ticket to Washington, D. C., for the historic March on Washington.

At the time I was working as the assistant to the editor of the Bridgeport Sunday Post, now the Connecticut Post. I was told by the editor that I could not take the day off and should not to go to Washington.

But I had my train ticket and I was ready to go.

However, that evening my first wife, Susanna, felt the first pains of the coming birth of our second child. So it seemed I would miss the March anyway. As was the practice in those days, I returned home to wait. At 1 a.m. she called from the hospital and said that we had a baby boy. Come up and see him and you can still make the train, which I think left Bridgeport, Ct., at something like 3 a.m. I went up to Bridgeport Hospital, saw my wife and son, Todd, whose 45th birthday it is today.

I was tired but took the train and did march in Washington. I did see Martin Luther King, Jr. make his historic speech. Yet I don’t remember where I stood and as I look at film of that day I wonder about that. Now my memory is more of the television footage of that historic “I have a dream” speech than anything I personally remember of being there.

Tonight so much of that period’s hope – and King’s dream - will be realized as Barack Obama accepts the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency of the United States.

It’s an almost unbelievable realization that a black man possibly could in my lifetime ascend to nominee and possibly to be our President.
It seems a long time – 1963 to 2008. Yet it also seems quite a short period given the circumstances of race in America for such an incredible change.

I don’t know what I will feel tonight as I hear Obama but I know the emotions will be right on the surface. I can’t imagine what it will be like for a black man of my age.

eyes on the future

Just read that 38 millions viewers tuned in to see Obama last night.The note closes with a caveat: "Obama's audience might be higher, since Nielsen didn't have an estimate for how many people watched Obama on PBS or C-SPAN Thursday night."

 What they didn't say was "could be higher because they didn't count the number of viewers streaming it online at DNCC website." At my house last night, I had the TV on and there were three laptops streaming the speech. I know there were people watching in pubs and other public spaces even if they weren't tuned in completely for the entire speech like we were. How many, I wonder, went back online today to review or to catch Gore's excellent speech?

The AP and Nielsen have not yet caught up with the online media it seems even though the DNC has. Even here, they don't seem to "get it" that younger folks are watching their laptop screens not TVs. Where does one find the hit counters for the DNCC website vide stream of the speeches?

old media only a small piece of the picture

I missed the Kucinich "Wake up America" speech at the Democratic National Convention... dedicated to Stephanie... but I saw a link to his speech on realneo to You-Tube... I'm listening to it right now, in the background, as I type... the old media is only a small piece of the picture now.

Up with Peace 

Disrupt IT

Dennis' castigation list

Did the banks, which have worked such wonders in our neighborhoods, appear in Dennis' litany of bad things in dire need of change? If not, why, do you suppose?

Brooklyn Centre

Oh Tim--only we know why Dennis and his friends don't rant about the banks.

do tell

OK you Brooklyn Centre Folk, edify the rest of us please. Let's hear the story, please.

Everyone has a right to their opinion, but the "and here's why" is so much more helpful if others are to understand one's view.
So please, do tell... why is Dennis the bad guy?

Some of us do not know the story - didn't live here then, weren't paying attention when he foisted the heinous act upon Brooklyn Centre, whatever. I moved here in 1979 and taight at CSU during the Voinovich Administration. Voinovich cut the budget for higher education in half. That didn't make him popular with me, but that was just my view from inside a struggling CSU.

I looked him up and found this from Roldo: Who Really Governs?

Your comments seem to imply something else is afoot here. What's the rub?