I’m not sure how well this interview translates on paper… My grandparents were visiting and so they chime in once or twice, and my parents have lots of inside jokes that I don’t even get. Plus they were just talking to me, so they make references to people and things I know, but that you probably don’t. I’ll try to make it as understandable as possible for you, but I want you to know that I got a lot out of interviewing my parents. I learned a lot, not only about
Well, I hope you like it.
- Did you and/or your parents watch the televised presidential debates between Nixon and Kennedy in 1960? How did the fact that the debates were televised effect the election? How does it effect elections today?
Ben: No, I was 6. I don’t really remember.
Donna: No I did not watch them, I was 1. I learned in film class about how Nixon wore a white shirt and that Kennedy wore blue, which looked better on film so Nixon looked all scruffy and like he had a 5 ‘o clock shadow and Kennedy looked well groomed so people liked him more. It was the first time you saw people instead of just hearing them, so people were making their decisions on appearances instead of the content of their campaign.
Grandma: Kennedy won ‘cause he was better looking. He had a more charismatic personality.
Grandpa: It was the first time anyone worried about the president being cute. But he turned out to be one of the great presidents of my lifetime.
Grandma: That’s debatable. Haha…
- Was your school integrated? Was integration met with resistance in your town?
Ben: Mine was, it was actually one third black, there weren’t Mexicans in those days though, not in
Donna: The town was segregated. The school wasn’t really though; there were some black kids in my school. There were race riots in my town too.
- Did you see the news reports on the civil rights movement? How did the violence and events of the civil rights movement affect your life/family/neighborhood/town?
Ben: Yeah, some. My first real memory is when King was assassinated, but I don’t really remember much before that. In my school the black kids got along with the white kids cause they sold them dope, haha... My friend Jim got hit in the head with a pipe on the day there was the race riot though. I decided to skip school that day… Everyone was kind of tense because of what was going on in Trenton, the black kids and white kids just started beating each other up. Friends told me I really missed a big day at school.
Donna: I was extremely sheltered as a child. But my parents started telling me not to repeat the things that my grandparents said. That was one thing that even as a kid I realized, that my parents were different from my grandparents, and they thought that it [racism] was wrong. I remember one time I went to a restaurant with my grandma and there was a black woman there, and I knew that she was just a woman there to eat like us, but my grandma just assumed she was there to serve us. It was very embarrassing.
- Where were you when you heard Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech…”? What did you think about it?
Ben: I don’t remember where I was when I first heard it but every time I’ve heard it I’ve been inspired. After he died I had the chance to hear Coretta Scott King speak at an anti-war rally, Pete Seeger performed before she spoke, haha... She was speaking at that rally because she said had her husband survived, he would have spoken; he had become an adamant protester of the war.
Donna; I heard it later, in High School. My American history teacher made us listen to in in 1975 or so. It’s awesome.
- Were you involved in the
Ben: Yes, haha... I went to several different rallies. I went to one in
Donna: No. I was against it though, I didn’t believe in the war and I remember listening to the radio when it ended. I think I was about 14.
- What was it like living in the height of the Cold War?
Ben: Ahh... I just remember the drills for a bomb, nuclear bomb or something; we had to get under the desks. I don’t know how our desks were gonna save us. They always told us “DON’T LOOK AT THE LIGHT!” too, it was crazy.
Donna: I thought it was scary because we read the book
- What was living (in
Ben: I just remember seeing it on the news I remember how tense everybody was cause they thought we were gonna go to war. I remember Kennedy saying he was gonna attack unless they disarmed their missiles, or something like that.
Donna: We did drills in school, pretty regularly, about protecting ourselves, crawling under our desks. I knew from my parents watching the news there was a lot of tension, at the same time there were a lot of Cuban people coming to
- What did you hear about Watergate and Nixon’s resignation? How did the scandal affect the nation?
Ben: I remember that it was in the news everyday and as it became more and more clear that Nixon was involved that people just didn’t trust him. And then that’s basically what happened; it just eroded the nation’s trust in the presidency
Donna: I remember Watergate really well. It was summer vacation in Florida at Aunt Gail’s same house she lives in now, and all the adults kept going inside to watch the congressional hearings and trials and it was all that they talked about the whole trip. So I remember it very well and how disillusioned and disappointed all the adults were. My brother and I though felt vindicated because we had previously argued with my parents during the election at dinner every night about them voting for and supporting Nixon and Rick [her brother] and I were for McGovern so it was the first time we could tell our parents “See?! We told you!” And we still like to bring it up today. Haha…
- What kind of impact did the Roe v. Wade decision have on you, and on out nation?
Ben: My girlfriend got an abortion against my wishes. (That’s all he wanted to say about it.)
Donna: Girls in my school started going to
- What do you remember about the presidency of James (Jimmy) Carter and his involvement in the
Ben: He really tried to broker peace between the Israelis and basically
Donna: I loved Jimmy Carter! I voted for him! In my first time to vote I voted for him. Even though he lost… I thought it was frustrating that
- What was it like when the
Ben: I don’t know how it changed things the
Donna: It was good because it was the beginning of nuclear disarmament. It was bad because the
- How has technology changed throughout your lifetime? Are the advances baffling?
Ben: What’s technology? Haha… I did have an 8 track (Donna: Whoa! My boy has an 8 track, he’s smokin’!). I remember when VCRs came out. First was BETA then was VHS ands then for a while there was both, BETA died out though, it was discontinued, they stopped makin’ it. Video cameras used to be huge, you had to rest them on your shoulder. Everyone was like CAMCORDERS! We thought the first cordless phones were pretty awesome. They maneuvered though doorways! Haha... Before we got the cordless phone in the store [my dad had a camera store] we got this like forty foot long cord so we could walk all over the store (Donna: We had one at home too) we thought that was pretty awesome (Donna: Yeah it was good idea.) we could talk anywhere! (Donna: You could go outside with it man!) You could close the door! (Donna: Hippies and technology, they just don’t mix, haha.. You should talk about how cameras have changed so much, it is your field.) Yeah nobody talks about film now... you can’t even get some films now, it’s ridiculous.
Donna: Yes, it is baffling. When I was a kid my dad took me to work at RCA where he was a computer systems analyst and one computer filled an entire warehouse! I don’t understand it [technology], I use it, but I can’t wrap my mind around it... We had the first color TV on my block 'cause my dad worked for RCA... When I was in high school a calculator that you could hold in your hand was a big deal and only one kid had one. My dad brought home one of the first calculators and said “don’t touch it!” It was very expensive and I would say within three years you could buy one at the grocery store and he [her dad] was blown away. But my dad used to tell me that one day everyone would have a computer in their house, and he was right! Our cars have computer chips in them now! Ya know little VW bugs and buses didn’t have computer chips in them before... [Those are cars my parents used to have]
- How did the
Ben: I just didn’t wanna hear about it, it was disgraceful. Well, he lied, and he covered it up. I think he did a lot more things that were not good then were good, just because the economy was good doesn't fix everything else.
Donna: It was just nasty, I didn’t wanna hear about it either. It corrupted the definition of intimacy. Well, he said he didn’t really lie cause he said it wasn’t really sex and now 8th graders can think that that’s not really having sex and they contract diseases. I blame that on him, it brought it into the public discourse. I like other things that he did but I don’t like that, but I mean that adoption tax credit was pretty handy… Haha…
- In light of the 2000 election, what is your opinion on the Electoral College?
Ben: We’re against it! The way I feel is that the popular vote should decide who becomes president, not the Electoral College. I might as well not vote…
Donna: I agree. We’re against it!
- How were you affected by the events that took place on 9/11? What do you think about the subsequent invasion of territories in the
Ben: Everything changed on 911 because we were attacked on our own soil and innocent people lost their lives. The thing that was really different is that it wasn’t soldiers against other soldiers; it was terriost killing innocent people at work. I never thought that we should have invaded
Donna: I saw in that moment, and you saw it with me [I was sitting on the couch doing math with my mom when the reports started to come in, we both saw the second plane hit and the buildings fall, in real time], that the world would never be the same for my kids as it had been for me... I never, and I mean never, capital letters, NEVER believed that this war had anything to do with 911. I thought they were lying, I never believed them in the first place. I kept saying all those documents were false. I knew they were lying…
THE END
