3 shots + 50 years

Like everybody else old enough to have been paying attention fifty years ago, I remember where I was when I heard JFK was dead.  I was in Dr. Jayne's Renaissance Literature class.  I hadn't voted for Kennedy — I was 17, and the voting age was 21 back then — but I certainly wouldn't have voted for Nixon.  Yes, I know, I've often identified Nixon as our last liberal president, but he didn't seem all that liberal back then.  Kennedy, in retrospect, was a hell of a lot like Obama — just more of a womanizer.

Fifty years is a hell of a long time.  I've gone from being a teenager to an old man, and America has gone from being an aspirational, hopeful place to a sad, embittered old man like me — or, maybe, that's just my old man's perspective.

Vietnam notwithstanding, I still think LBJ was the best president we've had since FDR.  Bill Clinton was not the "first black president."  Lyndon Johnson was.