We went to bed and we did not know who won the presidency.

I was in second grade. What I remember most is that although we started school in September 1960, by January it was 1961, and you could flip the numbers over and it would still be 1961, and they said it wouldn’t happen again for…so many years it was clear I wouldn’t be alive when it did. A minor item, but when you’re seven, these little markers are a big deal. But then you get old and you realize nothing is a big deal, you’ll live and you’ll die and then ultimately you’ll be forgotten. You think you want to leave your mark, and then you get old enough to realize it’s a fool’s errand.

Now Fairfield Woods was both an elementary and junior high school, at least when I went there. And the buildings were separated, connected by a hall in which the principal’s office was located, someplace you never wanted to go.

Kindergarten is a blur, other than the fact it was 1958. Did I really go to school in the fifties?

As for first grade, it was taught by Mrs. Godfrey. These first grade teachers are saints. To put up with kids who are not yet formulated, who are not yet obedience trained. Then again, it’s different today, with all the pre-school, with kids being able to read before they even go to school, but back in the fifties, this was a rarity.

And, they passed out books. That was another very cool thing about first grade, you got your own books. And in a matter of just a few school days, you were reading. And then you got the “Weekly Reader.” I don’t know if kids get that anymore. Then again, those were exciting times, with space launches and scientific discoveries, we thought we were thoroughly modern, the internet was not even foreseeable.

So now it was 1960. And there was a new second grade teacher, Miss Kamph. She was young. And we could relate to her better, she was less of a mother figure. This was back in the days where single women taught for a few years and then got married and disappeared. These were also the days you didn’t get a male teacher until at least fifth grade. Then again, we were unenlightened, but we didn’t think we were.

But Ms. Kamph’s room was in the junior high wing. UPSTAIRS!

Now Fairfield Woods junior high was run like a military operation. You had to walk around in circles in the hallway. In one direction. Even if your next destination was just a few feet to the left, you had to walk all the way around the building to the right to get there, and believe me, you didn’t want to get busted. That was one of the breakthroughs of going to high school, it was a free-for-all in the halls. And ultimately girls could wear pants and boys could wear jeans, but that was just before I graduated. Oh, the wars we fought back then, remember when skirts couldn’t be above the knee? Probably not.

The junior high kids moved classrooms every period. Whereas we in the second grade were in Ms. Kamph’s room almost all the time. But when we left, if it was between junior high periods, the halls would be full and we’d get pushed around like bowling pins, but we didn’t care, we enjoyed it, we were hanging with the big kids, remember when junior high students were sophisticated? Oh yeah, back then there was no “middle school.” And junior high was just two years. But…

I was trying to remember if we had lockers. But now I realize we did not, those were for the junior high students. We hung our jackets in the room. And this was when the men started being separated from the boys. As in the smart from the less intelligent, or motivated. Remember SRA? Once again, probably not. It stood for “Stanford Research…” was it “Associates,” I don’t remember. But it came in a big box. which you opened and got cards, with questions you answered, and then checked your answers on these other little cards and then filled in a graph with your results. You felt good if you didn’t get any wrong. Yes, even at this young age they were undercutting our creativity, our originality, making us conform. We believed if we got good grades and obeyed, everything would work out. Ain’t that a laugh.

So the first thing I remember about second grade, other than Miss Kamph herself, was the hurricane. It was the fall, school was open, we all went, and then it was closed, they sent us home. And this was back in the era where you walked to school, your parents neither dropped you off or picked you up. I lived about a ten minute walk away. So I put on my jacket and endured the weather on my walk home. My sisters were at Fairfield Woods too, but we did not congregate, we all went home independently. Where we looked out the window and waited for the end of the world, but there was just wind and rain. Furthermore, they sent us home too late to watch cartoons, so it was kind of a botched day.

But then came the election.

I was for Kennedy, because my parents were for Kennedy, they were big Democrats. I never had to do the switch in college, realize my parents had their political heads up their rear ends and switch sides from their party, the Republicans, to the Democrats. And oh yeah, when I went to college everybody was a Democrat. The Vietnam War was still going on. the Establishment was the enemy. You could literally name the Republicans on campus. To this day I still cannot understand how someone can be a Republican. Then again, this was in the era of Rockefeller Republicans. Those don’t exist anymore.

So, I watched the black and white TV with my mom. The results. I never went to bed early, maybe because my mother never did herself. And she slept in until ten every day. But there did come a point when I was sent upstairs, probably 8:30 or 9. Oh, that’s another thing, we used to rank on those who had to go to bed early, who could watch Claude Kirchner but then had to call it quits, who couldn’t even watch network television, which started at 7:30 back then.

So I went to bed convinced Kennedy had won. I was sure of it, I remember my mother telling me so. And needless to say, my mother wasn’t awake when we left for school, she never served us breakfast, but occasionally my father bought us doughnuts. And I’m hanging outside the classroom, at 8:30 in the morning, the junior high kids started at 8, they were already in class. And remember when you lined up outside and waited for the teacher to unlock the door? I do. And, of course we’re talking about the election. And one of my classmates says Nixon won. And I’m arguing with him.

So I ask Miss Kamph. She seems to come down on the side of Nixon. And now I’m totally confused. My mother was hip, she was with it, she couldn’t have it wrong, no way. But as the day ensued, the word spread, that Kennedy had won, I don’t know how we ultimately found out, someone in the administration must have listened to the radio and conveyed the information.

But I was too young to be concerned about shenanigans in Chicago. Or to even know that Kennedy’s dad was a bootlegger. Or maybe he wasn’t. They’re still arguing about it. And since it’s in the past, we’ll never learn the truth.

But JFK was a revelation. He was old, but he was young. Remember when your parents used to call people in their late thirties and forties “young,” we always used to argue with them, now we know they’re right.

And Kennedy represented the youth, a break with the status quo, he was a new man for a new decade and it was gonna be all roses and champagne until…

The Cuban Missile Crisis.

I remember that. The pictures on the front page of the “New York Times.” The missiles on the decks of Russian ships, covered up, but everybody knew what they were.

And by second grade I don’t think we did air raid drills anymore, for nuclear wars, where you got under your desk, but we were totally aware that a bomb could end life as we knew it. Although I do remember being confused as to the difference between an “A”-bomb and an “H”-bomb, I looked it up on the internet a few years back, I forgot what I learned.

So I was scared life was gonna end. But my mother said if they dropped the bomb we’d all die and not to worry about it. But Kennedy turned around the ships and then…

Well, there were the rocket launches. The space race was a big deal.

And Jackie was on TV giving tours of the White House on Sunday nights, how she redecorated it.

But what was truly memorable was Inauguration Day, obviously January 20th. It was a snow day, so we were all home. Otherwise I wouldn’t have seen it, there were no TVs in classrooms at that point. And for some reason my mother was watching it upstairs on the little black and white in her bedroom, and I sat on the bed and watched too, as I stared out the window at the cold and the snow. And I remember Robert Frost speaking, although he looked so old, and almost like Nikita Khrushchev, and all the adults could not get over Kennedy not wearing a hat. And soon thereafter, no one did. My father stopped, whereas before that he and all his compatriots did.

I can talk about other elections. Like in ’72, when I turned on the TV and it was already over, even though it was barely after 7 on the east coast.

And there was the exuberance of ’92, with Clinton’s initial victory.

And there was the defeat of Kerry, we were dumbfounded.

But back in 1960, things were different. Kennedy represented the future, he represented hope. The American Dream was still alive. There was no income inequality (even though there was a good deal of poverty, although in high school we raised money to eradicate it, it was one of Johnson’s big crusades), we were all in it together. Everybody I knew was middle class, although some had Cadillacs and some had Pontiacs, or Fords. But few had old cars, you see the cars didn’t last that long, a new one every two or three years was de rigueur. But they all looked different, in many cases futuristic. And we thought we were jetting into a better world.

I’m numb.

How could the polls get it so wrong?

The only silver lining is 2018. If you remember, it was bleak for Democrats on election night, but over the ensuing days the results changed in many races and the outcome was ultimately much more positive.

It was not supposed to go down this way. The traditional Democrats gamed the system, installed Biden, and they even convinced us everything was copacetic, but come on, there was a giant enthusiasm gap. Old Joe was phenomenal yesterday, even better than Obama, but it was too late, it was always too late, it’s still too late.

Once again, Democrats were optimistic. They felt they had this one. They ignored the prognostications of those crying “authoritarianism” like Sarah Kendzior and Umair Haque. Those two didn’t even get mainstream traction, even though they were the canaries in the coal mine. Their opinions were too outside.

But now we are here.

I’m not going to predict or even envision what happens if Trump ultimately wins, however…

Everything they told us was wrong. Lindsey Graham was on the bubble, he was losing in the dollar race, yet he walked to victory.

And Florida, and Texas, turned out they were not in play. All those upstart Democrats, who were going to eviscerate the status quo? They fell by the wayside.

And even Lauren Boebert is gonna win.

Here’s the truth folks. The red hate the blue. Too many bluish people don’t truly know red people. I’m not talking about the person in your neighborhood, I’m not talking about your circle of friends, I’m talking about those in the Deep South, those in the rural areas, the hinterlands. It’s not just a difference of opinion, it’s worse than the Hatfields and McCoys. I was on the phone with a legendary country musician. I asked him about politics…he didn’t want to go there. But when he danced around it, talking about the elites…it was scary.

But the 2018 comeback was all local. Whereas we live in a country made up of states. Can a Californian convince a Texan to go blue? Hell no, Texas and its enablers have been denigrating the Golden State for years, talking about taxes and hindrances to business. But isn’t Silicon Valley in California? It’s just like Trump denigrating New York, you’d expect lawlessness in Manhattan. As a matter of fact, that’s how many red staters see the blue states. Socialist where the upstarts are coddled as opposed to put down, and nothing puts you down like a gun.

So, why did they vote Trump, in addition to their hatred of the Democrats?

FREEDOM! They don’t want people to tell them what to do. Don’t talk to me about voting against their own interests, don’t talk to me about abortion rights, what they’re interested in is being able to be whoever they want to be with no infringement. The right owns “freedom” just like it owns “taxes.”

It’s a dirty word. The government wastes your hard-earned money. And just like the Democrats let the right define Hillary, they’ve let the right define taxes. Never mind it being your civic duty, we do have roads we drive on, so many services that taxes pay for. And, as far as that canard that the poor don’t pay any taxes, they pay them all day long, because they spend their wages, and go to the grocery store, buy anything, even on Amazon, and there are taxes.

Meanwhile Trump lies and even Jack Nicklaus believes it. He says that his Covid was cured by hydroxychloroquine and that hospitals get paid more for Covid deaths, look it up: https://fxn.ws/3oOjwQC

Trump controls the news cycle. So what he says has impact. As for facts, as for truth, they went out the window years ago. It’s every person for themselves in America, and therefore lying, cheating and stealing is cool, unless you get caught, even in some cases if you get caught, like Roger Stone.

So it didn’t seem like Election Day. They were so busy telling us to wait days for results that we didn’t expect any. And then I looked at my phone in the late afternoon and they were already calling states. HOW CAN THIS BE?

But it gets worse, everybody’s got a different take. “The New York Times” is calling states blue that TV is calling red. As for TV, CNN’s coverage is so superior it’s laughable, John King deserves an Emmy for tonight’s performance with the electric maps. The way he keeps drilling down, comparing to four years ago, updating the count, playing out scenarios… On MSNBC we just get spin. As for Fox…a terrible set with no energy.

So what we know now is Trump is not going to concede, no way. He told us so, but now we’ve got to believe it.

One thing’s for damn sure, this election is gonna be close. As for counting all the ballots, verifying signatures on mail-in ballots… Supposedly very few have been rejected already: https://nyti.ms/3jYPF4i but on recount??

Let the games begin, let the arguments begin.

Naysayers were not listened to. Not only Kendzior and Haque, but even Bill Maher. For years he’s been sounding the alarm, saying Trump won’t leave, and the Democrats’ answer? HE’LL HAVE TO! As if possession were not nine-tenths of the law, in this case possession of the White House.

So, it turned out the national media, the elites, were not in touch with the pulse of the people. Sure, Facebook is a bad actor, spreading falsehoods, but that’s another thing the Democrats don’t understand, THERE ARE NO UNDECIDED VOTERS! Nothing Trump says can sway his minions, can push them away from him. Even if only truth was told Trump still would have gotten their vote.

So, four years ago, after Hillary’s defeat, the left and the media did a big self-investigation. Nate Silver did an exhaustive mea culpa, but this time around he said that Biden had a 90% chance of winning. As for those margins? They disappeared into thin air, they never really existed.

Philadelphia has stopped counting mail-in ballots for the night: https://bit.ly/2TNMIsV So we’re not going to get a result tonight, Pennsylvania is truly the Keystone State.

And Trump could win and it will be all over. Or we could argue about it for eons, but the Democrats always concede, for the good of the country. As for riots in the street? I don’t expect them, certainly not soon. The Democrats are not fired-up, they’re not angry, they’re stupefied, and too busy licking their wounds.

Biden could still emerge victorious. There’s a good chance of it.

But we do not live in the country we’ve been told we do, no way. The media is in such a bubble that it can’t see reality. Which is that a whole slew of people are pissed the country didn’t go their way. Talk about international trade, talk about immigration, talk about minorities… And, they need something to believe in, in this case nationalism. Yes, you can rally around the flag, even in Sturgis, and that can be enough to live on as your parents die of the Covid-19 you brought back from South Dakota and you get evicted from your domicile. You’ve still got your freedom, you’ve still got your gun to defend yourself, even though today’s wars are fought on computers, and even if you’re dumb and uneducated, you showed those people who thought they were better than you that ultimately they were not.

Dark days ahead. We’ve turned the corner on Covid-19, we’re on the verge of herd immunity and Scott Atlas knows more than Dr. Fauci!

And the truth is the bluish elite threw over civics decades ago, it was too busy getting rich, elbowing everybody else out, however hard they worked for the money. You just can’t do the right thing every four years, money can’t solve all problems, especially when it comes to hearts and minds.

So now, we’re like Eastern Europe. Azerbaijan and the Armenians are in a death duel. We can’t solve our country’s problems in a day, never mind a year or a decade, they’re baked in!

So, if you’re on the right, if you’re a Trumper, congratulations, you’ve got a better of idea of where this country is at than everybody in the media. And if Biden wins, you won’t take it lying down, you’ll take to the streets.

And the Democrats will be afraid.

Very afraid.

It’s nighttime in America. I’m afraid to go to sleep because I’m afraid to wake up and get the results.

It’s not the America I grew up in. Hasn’t been for decades. Income inequality, the opioid war… Reagan legitimized greed, and both parties drank at the trough. Clinton caved in to the right and cut welfare benefits. And Gore conceded after Roger Stone’s Brooks Brothers revolution and today, a president can even legitimize his followers shooting people and surrounding a Biden bus, scaring those involved to the point that rallies are canceled. After all, there are good people on both sides.

Check that, turns out there are only good people on one side. THEIRS!

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Tune in tomorrow, November 3rd, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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I thought it was real.

I know, I know, that’s ridiculous, but otherwise why make a movie about a female chess prodigy with such a harrowed background?

I’ve got no time for chess.

We all started with checkers, had no idea what the back of the board was all about until the backgammon craze of the mid-seventies, but that’s seemed to die out.

But chess has always remained.

It was something you learned to play at maybe ten, give or take a year or two. You were taught the rules, you played a few times to remember them, and either you were hooked or you were not.

I was not. I don’t have the patience for it.

Which made me think what I do have the patience for… I guess we all have our interests, playing chess is not one of mine.

But I did follow it. Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky was a big deal back in ’72, and this was when people still aligned Fischer with his Jewishness, which he ended up renouncing, and more.

But there were so many draws.

And unlike in the film, major chess matches were so long and boring, the time between moves, ugh.

But then we had Garry Kasparov, the best ex-chess champion, standing up for truth, justice and what we used to call the American Way, in Russia…like Tom Petty, he won’t back down.

But was I paying attention to chess in the mid to late sixties?

No. I thought maybe there was a female champion. It was possible. And watching the series I figured she O.D.’ed, or died in a car crash or something, and that’s why I never heard of her.

But in the final credits I read “The Queen’s Gambit” was based on a novel, so that scotched my belief, and also made me re-evaluate the series a bit, but I did enjoy it, it did maintain my attention, I did not find myself talking through it, I felt like I went down the rabbit hole into someone else’s story, and in an era where we’re all thinking about ourselves and our futures, it was a good respite.

It was the cinematography. Honestly, those days were not really that good. And if you lived through them, it’s hard to see them as period nostalgia. It’s one thing to put the fifties in a box, but the sixties were an explosive time when anything went.

So there were a few clinkers, like the push-button phone. I don’t know anybody who had one of those in the sixties. But one must say the cars were fantastic, they did their best to get that right.

So, the pills/the tranquilizers. Hmm… I know…

Oh, here’s the spoiler alert. If you’re gonna watch the series and haven’t yet, stop reading here. Or continue if you want this to be like a typical film/TV review, where they tell you most of what happens, where the trailer hits all the high points. Not that I’m going to be exhaustive, but I do want to discuss some of the plot points.

Like the aforementioned pills. How did she keep getting them in Kentucky, had she really bought that many in Mexico? So, they gave her insight and their only need was as a plot device to illustrate at the end she didn’t need them?

There were so many significant elements that were brushed over, but I thought this was a biopic and it was permitted, but since it was fiction, I felt we needed a bit more explaining.

Like Mr. Wheatley. Exactly why did he leave Alma? Was there another woman or not?

And what exactly was up with Beth’s mother and father, were they ever together, was he two-timing his wife or..?

And then the twist that the mother had been rich?

These were all significant points, but they were not fleshed out.

Never mind Townes and the homosexuality… There were so many plot points, maybe some could have been excised or the series could have been longer to make what happened more believable.

And exactly why was Beth so strange? So nonverbal at times? And what was her view on sex, etc.

Maybe the series hewed too closely to the book, they tried to cram too much into it.

But despite all the above, I very much enjoyed “The Queen’s Gambit,” and I recommend it.

Maybe because there are so many lessons, maybe because it has you questioning your own upbringing and choices.

Like do you obey authority. This was a big issue in the mid to late sixties, questioning authority. Which kind of has me wondering about the Trump folk, he says it, they believe it, why? I certainly don’t accept and believe everything out of Biden’s mouth, and it has nothing to do with the man, just that you’ve got to keep all politicians at a distance.

And the music! When the TV showed “Hullabaloo” and there were the Vogues, singing “You’re the One”… They were just a brief moment of time on the radio, I never really thought I liked that track, but I loved hearing it in this series. It made me go to Wikipedia, to look the act up. They predated the Beatles, they were a vocal group when that was still a thing. And Drew Carey resuscitated “Five O’Clock World,” but still one cannot explain how great it was to hear that track on the radio.

Back when you sang along.

And “Along Comes Mary,” with the drug reference front and center!

When that track came out, we thought the Association was a cutting edge group testing limits. Little did we know they’d ultimately be seen as a lightweight pop act, maybe unjustifiably. But that intro, it encapsulates the west coast, paisley, sky’s the limit ethos. And it’s funny with these cuts how they bring back a specific listening experience, in this case driving with my mother and sister to visit my mom’s parents in Massachusetts.

And “Classical Gas”…

At first I thought it was a soundalike, but when I realized it was the real thing, I smiled. We pooh-poohed some instrumentals, but we always liked “Classical Gas,” and Mason Williams worked on the “Smothers Brothers” show, back when the talent tested the limits of the execs and that was a big thing because there were only three channels.

And being scorned in high school, wanting to fit in and ultimately realizing you don’t want to.

And intelligence/genius coming with a cost. Beth ultimately fit in nowhere, except with her chess peers, who were all damaged in their own way. Chess players are depicted in this series like poker players, who knew you could make such a good living, then again maybe it was just the best who cashed in.

And Beltik losing his passion for the game. This’ll surprise you. Or surprise those around you. You do something every day for years and then you don’t want to do it anymore, possibly forever. Sure, it’s legendary with swimmers, talk about a thankless, isolationist sport, but even with high profile endeavors, they consume your life and then you realize you’ve got no life. Even worse, you find out nothing can replace your old passion.

And is ordinary life better? Is it more fulfilling to be surrounded by coworkers at a supermarket than to be lionized, yet alone.

And you’ve got rock star behavior. People at home are salivating for recognition, and Beth punts on “The Tonight Show.” These geniuses are different from us. Sure, we’d cope if we had their success, but we don’t.

But the feel, that was the genius element!

It really felt like the pre-internet sixties, without even answering machines. If you weren’t home when someone called, you missed it. If you regretted something you said or did and wanted to call the other person immediately on their smartphone, you could not, you just sat at home alone, or paced the floor with your thoughts.

And travel was exotic and most people could not afford it.

And it’s your relationships that will get you through, you’re nowhere without them.

And, as great as you think you are, you can’t make it without the help of others.

And some of us are just destined to live unfulfilling lives. You grow up with such hopes, and then you have a few defeats and you just can’t get the gumption up anymore, no one is paying attention, you’re already over the hill. After high school it’s up to you to make something of yourself.

And Jolene did. But the squash was a bit much. That was truly an elite sport back then. Really, still is.

So, you’re engrossed with the images and the story and this is not the world you want Trump to bring us back to, but you are entranced by the innocence, thinking back to what you were doing at the time.

Yes, I was alive and conscious in ’66. Even though watching this series that seems amazing. I had parents, but there were limits, I had hopes and desires, I had to keep them to myself for fear of them being quashed. Hell, I think I had to move to California before I could truly be myself, truly be free. Then again, today everybody is so intertwined you cannot escape judgment unless you refrain from going online, which is an impossibility, even doctors text appointments these days.

So, we’ve got an educational system that wants to drain your creativity, make you conform. Money is the holy grail. Who you are, your individual choices, are pooh-poohed. Either you’re a winner trying to keep the others down, or you’re a resentful member of the underclass, and the twain shall not meet, whereas they did in the sixties. But, watching this series it made me think of parents who told us they walked six miles through the snow to school. We had it harder back then. Having a car to drive yourself to school was a rarity, now it’s de rigueur, youngsters cannot understand how we lived, even though it seemed so present, so up to date back in the sixties.

And sure, “The Queen’s Gambit” is about the triumph of women.

Then again, Alma is suppressed, and ends up being enveloped by alcohol.

And realizing you’re just not good enough, like Benny, that’s a hard thing to swallow.

So, “The Queen’s Gambit” takes you on a journey, removes you from everyday life, and that’s enough, but there’s so much more.

There are the vagaries of life, how stuff happens that you cannot anticipate, that deliver roadblocks, and also, occasionally opportunities. And how one person can be such a significant influence upon your life, even though you don’t foresee it.

And how you only get one life, and you get to choose how to live it, or else you let it happen to you, which sometimes isn’t fulfilling.

There used to be movies like “The Queen’s Gambit.” But they never grossed as much as the high concept fare with superheroes and special effects, so they stopped being made, they moved to television, as streaming series. But they’re even better on television, because the creators can go deeper, tell more. Like I said above, I wanted to know so much more about the lives and motivations of some of the characters.

Here’s hoping you’ve got a Mr. Shaibel in your life, who nurtures your dream.

Here’s hoping you give officiants like Mrs. Deardorff the middle finger.

Here’s praying that you’ve been taught to keep your eyes open and make your own life, that you’re not beholden to others’ expectations, that you can be the real you.

That was the message in the sixties.