1968
Looking back, 1968 was when I stopped being a child. I was in 8th grade that year, at Hubbard Trail Junior High, in Crete, Illinois, just outside Chicago -- a clueless 13 year old. Events would take place that year -- terrible events -- that rocked our society and would force me to stop seeing the world through innocent eyes. The first of these was the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. At the time, I still lived in a community largely uninhabited by people who were not white. In fact, despite the segregation that still gripped the south where I was born, I had much more exposure to African-Americans growing up in as a young child in Texas. On April 5th, the day after Dr. King's assassination, our usually wise-cracking U.S. Government teacher (or was it history?--memory fails me here) dropped his lesson plans and instead poured out his despair over the soul of a nation where such a heinous act could take place. As I listened, I realized this made as little sense to...