I remember very well what I was doing on Monday 3 November 1952. I was 10 years old and I attended an American school in Buenos Aires called American Grammar School. Because my mother taught at the nearby high school I was given a scholarship as she could not have paid the high fees.
With my friends at recess (it was a hot Buenos Aires summer) we were running around screaming, “Eisenhower in the shower!” I have no idea who had told us about the presidential elections on the next day but somehow our man was Adlai Stevenson and not the general from Addison, Texas.
What did we know about these two forthright men? We were innocent and oblivious.
I remember very well what I was doing one 26 September, 1960. I was in our pool hall (Juniors & Seniors had that privilege) of my Roman Catholic boarding school St. Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas. We were not playing pool. We were watching the first TV debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Because Nixon was not wearing any Max Factor makeup that UV light penetrating TV lighting was making him look terrible.
There was then a form of misinformation. People against Kennedy were saying that he would have to obey his boss, the pope in Rome.
We were happy when he won. In 1962 our school annual The Edwardian was dedicated to Kennedy, who was then President of the United States. I must also add that on a previous page there was a large colour photograph of Pope John XXIII. After writing this blog I read that dedication. It still stands particularly today 6 November 2024
In 1960, Austin was the most liberal city in Texas. In our school we had black students local Latinos and many more from Latin America.
