The Cusp

I feel like I am living on the cusp of history. I was born in late 1941, and then, though very young, but not unaware, I understood the concept of “lack,” and the rationing of World War II. I remember my parents and grandmother talking about the shortages of essentials, and then the excitement my grandmother had when she could buy nylon stockings.

I grew up in the 1950’s, as the nuclear age began post-Hiroshima, a peaceful time at the end of the war and the beginning of the  Eisenhower Presidency, early television programing, rock and roll, tail fins on cars and bucket seats and sock hops.

I matured in the sixties, witnessing global travel, global awarenesss of interdependence and the advancement of the cold war and the space age beginning with Sputnik in 1957. The Korean War was just ending, and Vietnam was beginning with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The assassination of JFK was monumental as was the landing of a man on the moon, LBJ’s Great Society, and color television.

The seventies was a time for me advancing my journalist career; savoring and questioning the experience of covering the White House and Capitol Hill and covering the actions and issues of another war’s end, Watergate, Nixon’s presidency, the civil rights movement and a man on the moon.

The 80’s and 90’s were just as professionally adventurous coupled with the worry that the millennium computers would crash.

One of the definitions of the word “cusp” is the point which marks the beginning of change.

I was born on December 6th, 1941, the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Certainly a “cusp” in this definition and it’s not over yet.