The Friendly Memory Shattered

I don't think it's my earliest memory, close to it though; the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I remember it because it interrupted my favourite childhood television program, The Friendly Giant.

The Friendly Giant, for you Americans who were reared on Mr. Rogers or Captain Kangaroo, was a fantasy program about, of course, a friendly giant. He lived in a castle with his pet rooster, Rusty. They were visited daily by Jerome the Giraffe; a clippity-cloppity giant himself who poked his head through a castle window and waxed-theoretical with his hosts. Jerome and Rusty were puppets. Rusty lived in a cloth sack that hung beside the visitors' window, a perfect set-up for a three-way daily conversation and some flute and pipe music to boot.

Now all of this Friendly Giant intensive is really unimportant except for the fact that when you're a latch-key kid, you are used to your daily routine. Play time, soup and sandwich for lunch, your allotted television escapism. Let me alert you to the fact that in the early 60's, in Canada, there were two channels to choose from. Lord knows what occurred on the other channel. Every morning my pal, the Giant, was a necessity.

So, imagine my chagrin, let alone my confusion, the morning the news pre-empted my beloved Giant and told a tale about a heinous crime committed in Texas. My parents, father home for lunch, were in a state of grief and shock. Their peaceful, albeit cold war infused world, had been thrown into turmoil of a new kind. 

Deaths of magnitude were limited to the Buddy Holly's and Billie Holiday's of the day. Presidents and world leaders were supposed to rule, pass the torch, then fade into the limelight of championship football ceremonial kickoffs and appearances on the Bob Hope Christmas specials. Presidents' deaths were supposed to occur at Hyanisport or Martha's Vineyard; the family gathering for a quiet vigil as the elder statesman faded away. Presidents' deaths were not supposed to be violent, not supposed to be overly newsworthy, not supposed to pre-empt The Friendly Giant and leave me with a traumatic early-childhood memory.

Did that event shape my life? Seemingly. It could be human nature: that morbid curiosity which draws the collective imagination and concise recollection so vividly together. I have an indelible image of the young woman falling to her knees over her just-slain boyfriend. He was shot because of the National Guard sniper's visual misinterpretation of the yardstick the young man was carrying. The sniper thought it was a gun, so the story goes, and took it upon himself to single out the lad and end his life. Kent State.

Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Anwar Saddat, snatched from life's bosom, their final image being that of a body lying in a pool of blood. We are riveted by the chaotic and near-chaotic episodes we experience or observe. Perhaps it's their finality that we cannot conceive. The grief too great, the shock too bold; we must merely be emblazoned with the end result.

It is reflected in the different approaches toward society and civilizations which our music embodies so well. The call to humanity of the protest music. The intolerance of the hippies toward war. The relentless pleas of songs to "love."

In World War II, when a song reflected the situation, it held one of two points of view. One; the strength of the Allied forces, the cause it represented, the hope for freedom and prosperity. Two; a lost love, a recent love or family member overseas in the conflict, hopes, prayers, an aching melancholy. The themes rarely varied, the perspective was consistent and, at times, sentimental.

That changed with the 60's. The Vietnam War was, in many ways, an economical war. It drove the American machine, the enemy was a belief not an oppression. The songs reflected a much different idea. They didn't speak so much of the hurt and loneliness the conflict brought about, rather they questioned the entire fabric of war and its outcome...Why?

Why can't we all live peacefully? Why must we die fighting against something we really don't understand? Why must our lives, which are so valuable, be loosely tethered and sent into the maelstrom without choice?

Why can't we change? Why can't our leaders understand?

The poor souls returning from the Vietnam conflict were not greeted with the same warmth and hero-worship which World War survivors received. They were ostracized and diminished by a confused public receiving them. Must the situation be so horribly obvious yet so frighteningly unavoidable?

The images remain burned into my mind. Bring back the sanctity of the Friendly Giant in his proper castle and his innocent friends. Let my memories begin softly.