Those Years, and These

The Country (Image courtesy of Roots Vinyl Guide)

“So the subtle face is a loser, this time around.

Here we are in the years

Where the Showman shifts the gears, lives become careers,

Children cry in fear, ‘let us out of here.’”

— Neil Young

Labor Day, 1962. We were hosting our annual barbecue with our neighbors — spare ribs, potato salad, baked beans, homemade ice cream. But this wasn’t an ordinary Labor Day. It was election season, and the governor’s race felt beyond hot even to me, a six-year old boy about to start first grade.

I knew three things about politics back then: 1) My parents were avowed Democrats. 2) They had supported John F. Kennedy in the presidential election of 1960, when many of my friends referred to JFK as a “nigguh-lovuh.” 3) My parents detested George Wallace who was leading the field for the governor’s seat. Wallace had lost the election in 1958 to John Patterson, who was supported by the Klan. Life is always odder than we think. Imagine looking back, in Alabama that is, to a time when another man, another governor, was more openly racist than George Wallace.

Of course, Wallace was more nuanced than your average Alabama politician, but I’ll leave that to you and the history books to reflect on. Wallace had already won the Democratic primary by Labor Day, and so his election…