....and the Unraveling......

I think it was about 1972. Our son Todd was about three years old and I was a stay-at-home mom. We lived in our first house in Middlesex, NJ with Dave commuting to work in NYC. It was a fun and busy time during our young marriage. We had friends and neighbors.....but as stay-at-home moms know, mothering full time means a lot of time spent with little ones and a lot of time talking to pre-schoolers. It sort of "limits" the day-time conversation.

So on Thursday mornings Todd and I went off to our public library. It was pre-school story hour for him and Mom's Conversation Hour for me! The librarian, Elsie Nelson, started the activity and most weeks about a dozen familiar faces gathered, took chairs and talked. Elsie often had a topic to present....or sometimes it was just mothering-talk with ideas and suggestions. And then there was a break-in at an office building in Washington DC....the Watergate.

Within months Watergate led the discussion on most Thursday mornings.....for about two years. We didn't have the internet but we had newspapers, radio and TV coverage. And the little "threads" kept coming......each week or so there seemed to be another lead. Another sense of amazement....questions about what happened, who was involved and what on earth was going on in America?

And there were a lot of now "famous" quotes:

"People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook Well, I'm not a crook." - Richard Nixon.

"The fact of the Watergate cover-up is not nearly as interesting as the step into making the cover-up. And when you understand the step, you understand that Richard Nixon lied. That he was a criminal." - Bob Woodward

"What did the president know and when did he know it?" - Howard Baker

"Watergate is a sad and tragic incident in our history. They were wrong, dead wrong, those men at Watergate. Men abused power, but the system still works. Men abused money, but the system still works. Men lied and perjured themselves, but the system still works. - John Wayne

"Watergate was unique because it allowed the public to play its democratic role in expressing its outrage at the presidency. And as a result, for the first time in history a president resigned. - Samual Dash

"From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one- is above the law." - Leon Jaworski

"Watergate showed more strengths in our system than weaknesses....The whole country did take part in quite a genuine sense in passing judgment on Richard Nixon. - Archibald Cox

And finally, in August of 1974 we watched history being made as Richard Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign.  Gerald Ford took the oath of office and then made a remark that became - and remains - a famous political quotation: "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."

Deja vue all over again.....the unraveling....one thread after another......