Have you checked the news lately?

Yeesh — we’ve got over-heated politicians going on the tube, blithely anointing the recent mid-east conflict as the beginning of the long dreaded World War Three, and airlines are suddenly confiscating your toothpaste in the name of safety (hah! — tell it to your cavities)! Makes you long for the good ol’ days, doesn’t it?

A word of caution — don’t be TOO hasty.

Back on Election Day, 2003, I wrote up the following not-so-fond-reminiscence, a little thing I called…

“Dr. Strangemouth — or, How I Learned To Eavesdrop And Fear The Bomb”

It’s Election Day — what say we talk politics, okay?

WAIT! WAIT! Get your itchy little index finger away from that mouse — it’s not what you think. Yes, we most assuredly have our own political biases here at Hembeck.com, true, but — well, how shall I put this? Probably the overriding one is that all — or, okay, to be fair, merely most — of the folks who take up the political profession as their life’s work seem to spend most of it beholden to the various moneyed concerns who provided the necessary finances to propel their candidacies in the first place, while our dear friends, the politicians, in turn try their doggone darnedest to convince the public that — gee whiz! — it’s actually the little people’s best interests that they actually have at heart. Uh huh. Cynical? Yup, you betcha, but hey, after all these years, just try convincing me otherwise. Partisan though I may be at times, that’s still the way I feel deep down inside even about “my” guy, whoever he — or she — happens to be at the time.

What kind of attitude would you expect, after all, from some poor sap whose very first exposure to national politics had him totally convinced that if Richard Nixon DIDN’T win the right to kick his loafers off in the Oval Office, this future voter — and his entire family — was assured a horrible, gruesome death?!?…

Understand that we’re hearkening back — WAY back — to the initial run Eisenhower’s Veep made for the White House in the 1960 Presidential campaign. America had just cruised through 8 years of Republican rule thanks to the former World War Two hero, General Dwight D. Me? Well, I have absolutely no memories of the old soldier’s term in office, but Mom and Dad Hembeck sure did. Hitting the seven year mark several months before the odometer on the decade turned over, I eventually became superficially aware of the constant campaigning by the two candidates for the Big Job — Nixon, of course, and his Democratic opponent, some guy named John F. Kennedy (who was, for reasons I then couldn’t fathom, also called “Jack”…). The glitzy looking campaign buttons — red, white, and blue, of course — that we picked up at a mid-summer’s outing at a local fair did an inordinate amount towards informing my nascent political sensibilities. My parents, lifelong blue-collar workers who nonetheless stayed firmly and loyally on the Republican side of the aisle, naturally scooped up a handful of pro-Nixon paraphernalia, and I’ll be darned if Little Freddy himself wasn’t tremendously impressed by it! That man on the button seemed to have such a nice, pleasant smile! Fact was, he sorta reminded me of that OTHER man I liked, y’know, the funny one with the similar looking proboscis? Bob Hope, I think his name was…

Everything would’ve been just swell during the final months of this hard fought political contest in my insulated little corner of the world if only it weren’t for a chance remark I accidentally overheard one of my dad’s friends offer up whilst they were engaging in a discussion at our kitchen table one fateful night. But before we get to the specifics of the curious comment, allow me to tell you a little bit about the speaker in question…

His name was Turbish. That’s what everyone called him — Turbish, just Turbish. Years later, I finally found out that his first name was “Rowland” — which may well explain things. Anyway, he worked alongside my dad in the kitchen of the Suffolk County Infirmary, and was around my house, on and off, pretty much my entire young life. Even in the days after my dad passed on and I had the family manse dropped unceremoniously into my hands, Turbish would drop by unannounced. He was a nice enough fella, I suppose, though, frankly, he never really related to me as a kid. Nonetheless, I always found him sort of amusing. He spoke rapidly, always as if he were out of breath, AND in a high pitched voice! Picture, if you would, a cross between Ed Norton (NOT the actor, young people, but the patron saint of all sewer workers..,) and Barney Fife, and THAT’D be a decent approximation of good ol’ Turbish! And for someone who long ago had let go of the notion of employing a first name, he had this amusing affectation of referring to my dad as “Mr. Fred”! He was prone to exaggeration, but on that early fall day back in 1960, I was too young, too naive — and dare I say it? — too STUPID to know the difference between hyperbole and reality. And friends, it cost me. The price? My peace of mind (small as it may’ve been…)

Y’see, there they sat, yammering on and on about the upcoming election, and as usual, Turbish was doing the vast majority of the lip-flapping. Dad would occasionally interject a comment or two, generally to lower the exasperation level of the conversation, if for no other reason. He well knew his colleague’s proclivities, and always had a bucketful of salt at the ready. But to me, this fast talking, shrill, bespeckled man was an adult, and at that point in my social development, I took everything an adult said as gospel. Everything…

So imagine if you will my alarmed reaction when I chanced to hear THIS prime bon mot:

“Mr. Fred, I’m telling you, if Kennedy and the democrats get into the White House, the Russians’ll drop the bomb on us all by Thanksgiving!!”

The bomb? That would be one of the atomic variety, the likes of which we’d long practiced avoiding by — good plan! — crawling down under our desks at school. And the Russians? Communists, and America’s sworn enemy. We always seemed to be on the brink of total annihilation back in them good ol’ days, so, by golly, the high-pitched words of doom and devastation emanating from Mr. Turbish’s lips (kids still addressed adults as “Mr.” in those long gone times, for those of you who came in late… ) didn’t sound all that absurd. Not by a long shot.

Of course, they had no clue I’d been eavesdropping, and being the sort of family we were — i.e., minimal communication, if that — I certainly didn’t ask for further clarification from anyone. Nope, I just kept it to myself and worried. And rooted desperately — DESPERATELY, I tell ya! — for the man destined to one day be known as “Tricky Dick” to win, win, WIN! Barring that, I consoled myself with the notion that, even with the awful possibility of imminent destruction awaiting everyone just before the Thanksgiving turkey could be carved, I WAS, at least, guaranteed one last, glorious Halloween!…

Okay, so maybe I didn’t lose any actual sleep over the loose-lipped remark my shell-like ears had chanced upon, but even forty years later, I can still recall the overriding sense of dread I carried with me for over a month, as I internalized my own private countdown to doomsday. I did share my concerns with a close friend, who told me the whole thing was just a bunch of hooey (kids still said stuff like that in those days…). Of course, HIS parents were Democrats, so how could I truly trust anything they said? Weren’t they the problem, after all?…

No, the problem turned out to be my own gullibility. I went out Trick or Treating that Halloween and partied like it was, well, 1959, and then I held my breath as the adults went to the polls on the first Tuesday of November. The election? It was a close one, mighty close, but I think you all remember how it turned out. Yup, Nixon lost. No turkey for me — or anyone else in our soon-to-be-demolished democracy. But…

Then Thanksgiving DID come after all! AND it was followed in rapid succession by not only Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Day, the JFK Inauguration, but perhaps MOST importantly of all, my very own Birthday towards the end of January 1961! Glory be — I’d made it to age eight! Heck, we’d ALL made it!! Who’d a thot? I thereby learned a great and valuable lesson — political pundits, whether they’re smartly dressed on a Sunday morning talk show or sitting around your kitchen in their work clothes, the general rule of thumb is that they don’t actually know what they’re talking about, they just SOUND like they do!!

Well, as fate would have it, I soon became a big JFK fan — how could I not? Mort Weisinger seemed to feature him in just about every other issue of one of those fabulous Superman Family comics I had only recently started buying and collecting. And a few years later, when things really DID go sour — a little thing known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, history buffs — I remained blissfully and steadfastly unconcerned. After all, I’d already been through this drill, hadn’t I? You people weren’t gonna fool me TWICE! Little did I realize just HOW close the sky actually came to falling that particular time, but by then I was fully convinced of Kennedy’s extraordinary governing abilities. Even my parents and the excitable Mr. Rowland — G.O.P. lifers all — gravitated toward the charismatic young chief executive in those so-called days of Camelot.

As for Mr. Dick, the man I so desperately wished to be 1960’s winner — if only to assure my further existence on this happy little planet — well, come 1968, let’s just say my attitudes had, um, changed somewhat. At THAT point it was my equally desperate wish was for Nixon to LOSE, again so as to guarantee my remaining existence on this not-always-so-happy little planet for the then foreseeable future.

But that, folks, is ANOTHER story!…

Vote! Because, hey, you might as well.

Hembeck.com, Fred’s MySpace, or click here to send a personal message — I invite Republican and Democrats alike to pull the lever on any one or all three of these choices! And yes, Whigs too!…

-Copyright 2006 Fred Hembeck

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