Boomers

As directed by the Constitution, a presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen of the United States, a resident for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older.

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The date was November 22, 1963 a typical school day for a 7th grader in our Catholic school. We walked the 2-3 blocks to first attend Mass in the parish church then walked to the adjacent building with Sister.

We hung up our coat,hats, mitens and lined up our boots in the closet. Our small class (probably 30 kids) said the pledge of allegiance, hand over heart facing the flag and then sat in our seats.Finally our lessons would begin.

Yes, we attended Mass every morning and still went to Mass on Sundays to fullfill our obligation. The only day we didn't go was on a Saturday.

This particular day turned out not to be a typical day. Sister stopped the lesson and turned to the class to say our President had been shot and we would say a prayer. It was very scary and shocking. i knew our parents would be upset.

They were Kennedy Democrats. The nation was in shock. The Kennedy presidency was known as Camelot. Camelot was shattered.

We had never witnessed anything like this before-we had never expected that anything like this would ever happen.

John was the youngest President and the only Catholic to ever be elected President. It was a very sad time for our country.

Hs brother Robert was his attorney general. One day he would run for office himself. The voting age had been lowered to 18 and i had decided to vote for Robert. He was young like his brother & so good looking ( i thought at the time) plus he was a Kennedy.

Unfortunately Robert was also assassinated. I remember it vividly. Between the 2 horrible tragedies there were lessons learned;

we began to take more precautions about protecting our Presidents and candidates who could potentially be President.

Snce those days my criteria for choosing a candidate have changed dramatically. i know then the appeal was his youth. i will posit that people will usually vote for the candidate they most indentify with.

Then i was an adolescent female. I'm a boomer having caught the last wave in 1952. I heard recently-and it was news to me- that boomers do not know how to use computers. It could be; it could be that boomers aren't interested either.

I am and started with a C-64 made by Texas Instrumets. i know a smidgen of self taught html and i do mean a smidgen.

I know most of the components of a Desktop Computer and have fixed a few here and there for other people. i can set one up in 10 minutes or less depending.

I got my ham (amateur radio)license years ago and had passed the General Level test-i couldn't get the hang of morse code (CW)worth a lick so i ended up allowing my license to expire. Yep, even had a call sign and a whole box full of qsl cards mostly obtained from packet radio.

I consider the packet radio a precursor to internet/computer. We almost made contact with the MIR space station. i still have all the cards except that one we wanted most; from contact with MIR.

I was also informed that older folks are basically wealthy greedy people who don't want to retire.My parents were well off in their later years. i wouldn't say rich at all-not even close- but they were comfortable.

We were middle class when i was growing up. Nearly everyone was then. Some seniors continue to work now because they can't afford to retire. Others still feel productive and grew up with a work ethic that's hard to shake.

However, my parents money didn't drop out of the sky as it seem to be suggested. They worked their asses off for it like many of their generation did.

They didn't have credit cards then either. You saved and paid cash. You had to wait to acquire anything. There was no such thing as instant gratification; you had to postpone getting a home, a car, furniture etc until you had saved enough. Material goods weren't all you waited for.

My parents waited till dad returned from the war to get married. They lived with mom's parents while dad was building their home. They waited until they were married to be intimate. The people of their generation did not have an easy life when they were growing up and they learned to make sacrifices if they had to.

They wouldn't have had a clue what instant gratification was. BTW. They were married 60+ years till dad passed away. I don't think learning to sacrifice hurt them any; in fact it probably prepared them for what marriage requires. It certainly prepared that generation for whatever an imperfect life had to throw at them.

i felt my parents deserved whatever good things in life they obtained later. They had lived through the Great Depression and WWII.

Now i hope we have cleared the air on those points. Over the years i became conservative. Over the years my criteria for choosing a candidate changed to researching the people i would be voting for to some extent.

i don't mind an older candidate as long as they have the mental acuity to handle the job.

If you're checked out like Joe Biden it's a hard pass.

If you're a radical liberal who looked up to Marxists like Obama did it's a hard pass especially if you're associated with a domestic terrorist like Bill Ayers.

I wouldn't do a hard pass on a younger President just because they're younger. That was one of the arguments they used against JFK. They said he was too young.

i wouldn't do a hard pass on an older candidate like Ronald Reagan either. That's one of the arguments they used against Reagan. They said he was too old.

And the rest is history.

We are going to vote for Trump even if he is considered a convicted felon. We know he's innocent. We get what's going on here. In fact, we will be more determined than ever to get him elected.