I don't know, it was a gradual thing. I always devoured Time magazine from cover to cover when it came weekly, and read two newspapers through each day from an early age. Pre-internet and pre-cable TV, that was what was pretty much available to a pre-teen in insular, Opie-land suburbia.
Also from a quite early age, I'd read a lot of history, so, for instance, in 7th grade I was able to correct the teacher when he talked about the Russian Revolution of 1917 -- telling him and the class that there were two successive revolutions then -- the first brought the Social Cadets (sic) to power, the second brought the Bolsheviks to power.
My parents were both life-long Republicans, though not of the reactionary variety. I guess I thought of myself as a Republican, but I always did kind of think for myself.
One memory is the class voting in 7th or 8th grade while an election was about to be held. I was the only one who split my ticket, voting for a Democrat for the US Senate (Joe Clarke) and a Republican for Pa governor (Bill Scranton), both principled, mainstream American liberals from a time when both parties had plenty of them in their ranks.
Almost every other student had near zero clue about the entire election. I vividly remember one girl raising her hand and blandly asking the teacher, "Which one is the Republican?" so she would know how to vote. I grew up in an area that went for Alf Landon for President during the 1936 Roosevelt landslide, just to give you an idea.
In 1964, though, I was wildly behind Barry Goldwater! I just really liked the guy's refreshingly blunt honesty and didn't really care about anything else. Hey, I was in 9th grade, what did I know?
This support went against the LBJ tsunami prevalent then throughout the land, even in my historically Republican area. Through my efforts, the 9th grade boys (for some reason, they tallied the votes in each grade separately by gender) were the only group, male or female, in the entire 7th-12th grade Jr/Sr High to go for Goldwater! :biggrin:
For my Senior History class, we had to write a 10 page paper. I wrote a 30 + page one passionately defending our involvement in Vietnam. I ended it with, "America, right or wrong!" My teacher mildly questioned the absolute certainty of that sentiment.
At that callow age and more innocent time, I was still a committed Cold Warrior dedicated to confronting the international communist menace. Like so many other Americans, I just didn't know enough about the history of Vietnam and that region to have a deeper, more informed view. Within a blindingly short time in the scheme of things, events I experienced that I will not discuss here changed my views, and my politics, forever.
Life happened, brutally hard and fast, and I grew up.
I was living in California when I could first vote in 1972. Even though I couldn't stand Nixon (even my father the staunch life-long Republican has a personal distaste for the man), I simply couldn't bring myself to vote for McGovern. It was his proposal for a 100% inheritance tax that sealed that deal. So I cast my one and only symbolic protest vote, and voted for Dick Gregory for President from the Peace and Freedom party. I also voted for the 1972 (!) CA initiative to legalize marijuana. Both lost miserably.
Personally, every year through junior and senior high school I was elected to student council. I was semi-embarrassed by the whole thing and never wanted to run, but my buddies would always nominate me anyway and I would always win.
As everyone knows, student council is a lame-ass joke in most schools. Still, I believe I was able to accomplish one small, tangible thing. My Junior year, they had the school nutritionist (lunch lady?) speak before the council.
Then, the floor was opened to questions. So I asked her why chocolate milk wasn't an offered option in the school cafeteria. She said it wasn't because of nutritional reasons. I then said that regular milk was offered, and that chocolate candy bars could be purchased in the vending machines, so it didn't seem that offering chocolate milk as an option would be introducing any new nutritional danger.
She didn't say much in response, but THE NEXT WEEK chocolate milk showed up unannounced in the cafeteria. I told my buddies I was responsible for that. Naturally, they didn't believe me!
Facebook
Twitter