Dialogue of the Decades 1940's to 2010's

Dialogue of the Decades was the dinner conversation theme for the Macalester Golden Scots on June 8, 2018.   Our table had the 1970's.  We could not help but wander off into each decade since, especially how life changed from 2008 to the present.

What stands out in your memories? Who were our national and international leaders of thought and action?  What kinds of music and creative arts did we hear and perform?  How did we engage social justice, racism, sexism, community activism and development.

It is true that four years as a Macalester student changed my life, and began a life-long engagement in every community where I lived.  Most of the grads and spouses travelled a lot.

Let me start with the 1940's.  I can hear the voice of President Harry Truman, and WCCO Radio newscaster Cedric Adams.  I can hear the radio soap operas and comedians.

My grandmothers Lena Warner and Ida Carlson were most influential.  My Uncle David Warner,  Aunt Lucille Gust, Lila Warner, Mabel Carlson, and Alice Carlson all were important.

Thanksgiving week 1949 with Mabel Carlson on her family farm in Apple River Township inspired me for fifty years.  I had little awareness of my sister Diane who was born that week, November 22, in St. Paul.

Jump ahead to November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX.  1964 begins my life at Macalester Collge, and our world already was changing, with a new urgency and anxiety about war.  I did not wake up to the plague of racism until I went to Air Force boot camp at Gunter Airbase in Montgomery, Alabama, July-August 1966.  Macalester classmates already were Freedom Marchers, and Vietnam war protesters.  I avoided the draft by enrolling in Air Force ROTC  Aerospace Studies at the College of St. Thomas.

Two of my Air Force instructors at boot camp in Montgomery had been in the air ready for nuclear war with Russia during Cuban Missile Crisis. Fear and anxiety, the Red Scare of McCarthyism, air raid drills and sirens, childhood memories of the 1950's.

Boot camp instructors also told the "true" story about why the Vietnam War had to be won.  Natural resources, keeping the shipping lanes open, and the skies safe from the Peoples Republic of China were key.  Presidents lied to America about winning the war.   Presiden Eisenhower warned us about the role played by white supremist military industrial complex businessmen, who became billionaires whether the war was won or lost.  We could trust Walter Cronkite on CBS News until Daniel Ellsberg, the Washington Post, New York Times, and every regional newspaper published the Pentagon Papers in 1973.

PBS presented a Ken Burns 2018 documentary on the history of the Vietnam War, included details from the Pentagon Papers.  Now I hold revisionist history that colors my memories.