FW: proof of age -Way OTT, with RMN content

[James Mullan]

At 02:04 08/02/2000 -0800, Joseph Carson wrote:
>Nancy Elliott wrote (on Fri, Feb 4, 2000, 11:49 PM):  The Challenger
explosion
[snip]
>Nancy, thank you for bringing the start of the Gulf War up! -- That was a
news
[snip]
>that bring an immediate knee jerk reaction from everyone under the age of
[snip]
>the images of Nixon flashing the "victory/peace" sign at the portal of Air
[snip]

Images of Nixon, there's a source of knee jerk reaction for this boy.
Picture this, it's 1952, I'm six years old, and TV has come to Omagh, N.
Ireland, a new-fangled novelty restricted to the technologically advanced
of the day - bit like early 286s - and a rota is established for visitors
to the house with the first TV in Omagh to come see this amazing
technology. We get about a half hour apiece, then have to move for the next
viewers.

My turn came, and, guess what, I get to see Nixon's "Checkers" speech,
repeated on a flickering, snowy BBC feed. The very first thing I see on a
TV in my life.

No boasting, I figured even at 6 years old, the jerk was lying then, and
nothing he ever said from then to the day he died shook that conviction.
(Such prescience, in one so young ;-). )

And then came Watergate. The greatest political drama of this or any life.
What an obsession, what wonderful dicta it gave the language. Aw, such fond
memories.