Innocence

 from Children of Vallejo

  

Sarah listened to his acceptance speech at the convention and thought it was the best she’d heard. She followed the campaign closely and was struck by his ready wit and his grace under pressure. And of course, she thought he won the debates hands down.

            None of this prepared her for his inaugural address. When he said “… the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans …” she knew he was speaking to her. When he said “… ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country…” she felt the goose bumps break out all over.

            In November of 1963, Sarah was a Peace Corps volunteer working in a remote village in Kenya when she heard the news from Dallas. Until that day, she believed with all her heart that her generation would change the world and make it better, and she fought hard to hold onto that belief. Then came the war in Vietnam, and the burning ghettos at home, and the violent anti-war protests, and more assassinations. First, Martin was shot dead, and then Bobby. The decade that began with such promise now had a single, enduring icon: a body bag.

Sarah came home and married well and settled into her life as a wife, mother, and schoolteacher. She was thrilled by the bright and eager faces and the boundless energy that filled her classroom every day. Her station wagon was always loaded with kids, carpooling from one event to another. It was a full and busy life.

            But in the quiet times, alone with her thoughts, she felt despair settle in like a fifty-pound weight on her chest. Her despair was for the children and their future. Her belief in a better world died, finally, with Bobby Kennedy on the kitchen floor of the Ambassador Hotel in 1968.

_____