Sunday, January 21, 2018

For the hard of remembering, a look back to a year ago today

For everyone old enough to have lived through the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his younger brother and likely next president of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, remembering where you were when the news broke that each of these political and civil rights giants had been felled by an assassin's bullet is a memory that will never be forgotten.

Had each of these true leaders not been sent to an early grave, the course of this country would have bent toward very different futures than happened.

For all of us who watched with amazement and awe that a self-absorbed, show- and conman like Donald Trump won the Electoral College by under 78,000 votes spread out over three states over a candidate many say was the smartest, most qualified and experienced among Democrats to run in 2016, we also remember where we were when the nuclear arsenal of this nation was put in the hands of a man who just might trigger a modern day war with the fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen.

A year ago today, I was in Washington D.C. with two tickets to attend Donald Trump's inaugural ceremonies. Instead of wasting my time with that, and it seems many, many others had the same idea, I chose to cover the Women's March on Washington.

A year later, those same women, and likely many more, were out in force in their hometown streets. The resistance, as their opposition to President Trump has been dubbed, is as energized as it was a year ago. Only this time, it can be fulfilled this November with voters turning out in record numbers to vote in the good and vote out the bad. The good to be voted in will be candidates who will change the course of history in Washington, from disassembling the federal government to reassembling it to help the public interest combat the worst traits of private interests.

Here's a fond look back at where I was a year ago today.