Memory, as the poet said, fails me at length. I had this issue in '74, but remembered a grainy picture of Nixon, a screenshot from the TV as he gave his resignation speech, and the typeface large and white. Maybe it was just my hatred of Nixon, one borne mostly of the war I just avoided being drafted for (I was in the last year of the draft, but had a high number). I wanted to make this a little more jarring than it was.
It was good enough that I kept it proudly in my stack of RS magazines, the old newspaper/tabloid style RS started with. The newest issues went on top of the stack, but always below this one.
Even if my memory is faulty, it's still my favorite magazine cover.
I was watching him make his goodbye (grainy, is right if I recall) at the Lobby Bar of the Statler Hilton Hotel in downtown by the Harbor Freeway...I was a young buyer, visiting Los Angeles and getting drunk after a day in the Gift Market/Brack Shops..it delighted me Nixon was out (and I celebrated, more than was good for me).
ReplyDeleteIt's my first political memory. I thought he was King. Saw him leave on the TV at my friend Katie's house. I asked why he was sad, and her dad said, "BECAUSE HE LIED!" Okay then.
ReplyDeleteThe primary reason I loved that cover is that years earlier I'd had some McGovern buttons. My mother found them (I was one year too young to vote in '72), and it would have been better if she'd found a joint (seriously).
ReplyDeleteSo I enjoyed his resignation far more than I might have just because I despised his politics. Of course, I was reading Hunter Thompson at the time, too.