For us DUers born after August 8, 1974, where were you?

[Mr_King]

I'm asking you DUers who are old enough to remember where you were when Nixon announced he was resigning, to share your stories with those of us who where either to young to remember, or like myself born years after that historic day. I'd love to read what you have to share with us. Thank you.

[steve2470]

1. bittersweet day for me, I was 15

sweet = He had resigned in disgrace. Good riddance.

bitter = He wasn't impeached, convicted and thrown out of office, and then later indicted and convicted of his crimes.

When Ford pardoned him about a month later, I swore off politics for a long time out of disgust.

eta: WHERE was I ? Hm...probably sitting at home, can't remember that part.

[RGinNJ]

2. I was glued to the tv in my hippy parent's living room.

We had the only television in the commune. Their were people crying and laughing everywhere. Great times for a 13 year old kid.

[irisblue]

3. A happy day for me

I watched him announce that he was resigning with my family on TV. I was driving home from work, making a left turn on to Clark Rd, when the radio newsbroadcast said he was getting into the helicopter. I smiled all the way home.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I was watching Nixon's resignation speech on TV, sitting in my living room.

I kept that TV as a souvenir for many years.

[Pab Sungenis]

5. DU'ers born after August 8, 1974, were in the womb or a glint in daddy's eye.

For those of us born before, it was two days before my 5th birthday, and I vaguely remember my parents watching the speech. I remember the Watergate hearings on PBS. I was so pissed because they kept interrupting Sesame Street to talk about Watergate, which I thought was a toothpaste.

[LostOne4Ever]

49. +1000 (nt)

[bluedigger]

6. I was at Boy Scout summer camp.

Completely missed it.

[burnodo]

7. I fell out of a tree and broke my arm

wasn't really thinking much about Nixon at the time

[likesmountains 52]

8. What? They would have been born after...

[bettyellen]

18. that's why he wants the older DUers to share a story with them....

[likesmountains 52]

42. So we would have been born before that date right? Not after.

[bettyellen]

43. Ah, see I read it that he's asking this FOR DUers born after- and you are reading that he's asking

the question OF DUers who were born after. It is confusing, huh?

[kcr]

55. OP isn't asking people born after. He's asking people to tel stories FOR the people born after. n/t

[southerncrone]

9. Was getting ready to go to my summer retail job.

I was home from college getting ready to start my sophomore yr in college. Was VERY glad. Goodbye to a paranoid, narrow-minded, power-hungry jerk.
Little did I know at the time, that I would look back at him 30 yrs later as "not a too bad guy". Wow! Bushes & Cheney & neocons were much worse in my mind. However, will always feel like "Tricky Dicky" was the beginning of our decline as a nation.

[thelordofhell]

10. Brad and Janet were on their way to Dr. Scott's house

Last edited Fri Aug 9, 2013, 12:16 AM - Edit history (1)

When their tire blew out and they had to walk to a castle up the road to use a phone...........

[Nevernose]

20. My daughter and I were just singing along

To that soundtrack on our road trip not two hours ago. Weird family, yeah.

[xfundy]

24. There's a light...

[GObamaGO]

69. Dammit Janet!

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. I was in Alice Springs, Australia when it went down....

Dad was stationed there and we were to be heading back stateside soon afterward.

The Aussies in Alice truly hated Nixon and it was big news when he left.

[BeyondGeography]

12. The news of the resignation broke earlier that day

So it was just a vigil until the announcement. Watched it by myself on a portable b/w tv in my bedroom downstairs. It was monumental. And I have to admit I was impressed with Nixon's demeanor under the circumstances. He kept it together, though he did pretty much fall apart the next day.

My GOP father was livid. Watergate was the beginning of our permanent political estrangement. I was all of 15 when Nixon resigned and I was as thrilled as he was angry. Thrilled that the system worked as well as it did (Nixon's own party finished him off; imagine that from today's GOP...) and thrilled that so many smug liars and crooks were outed and punished.

I also felt the anger that Nixon's downfall produced with the die-hards like my Dad, who were a bunch of volatile red asses to begin with. They're still pissed off about it. Just ask one.

[kiva]

13. You might want to change

'after' to 'before' in your header.

I was a year out of high school, a devout Doonesbury reader who just assumed Tricky Dicky would be forced out and he was...I was naive but lived in a time when it was possible to be naive - and sometimes it just worked out well.

[delrem]

14. A Canadian perspective: I was riveted to the news, following the story,

but I was also following the incredibly riveting story of Vietnam war protests e.g. from earlier (1968)
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/protests-at-democratic-national-convention-in-chicago

I was a politically naive "hippy" type. A Canadian weaned on the idealism of Lester Pearson's gov't up to '68, then on Pierre Trudeau's equally idealistic but a mite more socialist advances. Canada was a haven for US Vietnam-war draft dodgers and, in my view, won out by getting the creme de la creme of young american visionaries. Even so, it was clear that these immigrants came from a more violent society, had way more on their mind "war wise" than most Canadians of the same age. I was impressed by how so many of them took to Canada as a frontier, to build on and set roots in. A great many of them dispersed, moved away from the bigger cities and lived their dream.

Note that the '68 protests at the DNC targeted the Dem hierarchy, the Dem status quo, which at that time was indistinguishable from the Rep status quo w.r.t. to war and foreign policy. So today, 2013, I'm feeling a bit of deja vu.

When Nixon finally resigned I figured he was being scapegoated for Vietnam. I didn't *like* Nixon, but on the other hand the entire production of eliminating him was way too cute, way too well handled, for me to imagine it was an accident. I thought his own people turned on him and that a committee was probably in charge of sequencing the leaks to Woodward and Bernstein. Of course I didn't feel pity for him - after all, he chose to play the game and reach for and achieve the top.

[dflprincess]

15. I was out with two of my aunts and 3 of my cousins shopping for bridesmaid dresses for my cousin's

wedding.

One of my aunts (not the mother of the bride) escaped to the TV department to watch - my other aunt tried to drag us back to the bridal department by Auntie #1 yelled for all the store to hear "This is one of the happiest moments of my life and I'm not going to miss it!" And she grabbed my arm so Auntie #2 couldn't drag me off.

[Historic NY]

16. A bit of glee I was working for the YMCA summer camp...

out of HS. The only thing Nixon did was stop the draft, unfortunately he kill more soldiers doing it because of the negotiations and other delays and his bombing plans.

[hfojvt]

28. hey so was I

you aren't one of my little sisters, are you?

But I think MY grandfather may have been a Democrat. It was mentioned in HIS father's obituary that his father was a staunch Democrat (not really a good thing though in the 1860s or 1870s). But I don't remember talking politics with him or talking much of anything with him. And now that I think about it, he died in January of 1973, so he may not have cared to much one way or the other by then.

I was a young Republican kid, twelve years old, kinda hurt by the announcement as it meant the President had been lying to me. And to my child mind the President of the United States was supposed to be one of the good guys. My mom's oldest sister, my least favorite aunt, lived in Washington DC and was gloating about it. So that didn't help either.

It didn't make me leave the Republican Party though (not that I was part of it at age 12 anyway). I still rooted for Ford in 1976 even though it seemed like he was vetoing something every week.

[Rowdyboy]

19. I was 20 working a sumnmer job at a telephone pole transformer factory before Jr year in college...

on the 11pm-7am shift. Worked with another college student and we'd become friends over the summer. Every day was a new scandal that summer and we started saying hello by singing bits of songs relating to Nixon, Ford, impeachment etc. The day Nixon resigned I went to work with a huge-ass smile on my face loudly singing "California Here I come-right back where I started from!"

After our shift we got really high before going to our respective homes. Only a few days later I returned to my school and he went back to his and we never saw each other again. Sure had a blast that summer though!

[JaneyVee]

21. Born in 1981, must've been surreal to watch a president resign, then

Get into a helicopter and fly off into the sunset.

[Jim Lane]

65. For me it was surreal that he was still trying to hang on in the weeks before that.

I had thought it was pretty clear he was a goner, when the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend impeachment with even some of the Republicans voting for it.

I must be one of the few oldsters who did NOT see it on TV, though. I was living in a summer sublet where my roommate and I each had a bed, plus we had a battered old couch that someone else had thrown out. That was our furniture. A TV was quite out of the question. I listened to the speech on radio.

[MiniMe]

22. It was my 17th birthday, but I was watching it on the news.

[truebluegreen]

60. Happy Birthday!

Me too, but it was my 19th. Truly outstanding gift.

[MiniMe]

80. I agree

And happy birthday to you too!

[applegrove]

23. Family friends who had lived in Washington during Watergate visited every summer.

I do remember them giving my dad a book called "The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew" at the cottage in Quebec. Of course it was all blank pages. I thought that was hilarious as a kid. Remember the two men talking about Watergate. I knew Nixon was bad.

[treestar]

33. My dad had John Denver Albums

One had a little blurb between tracks, "I'll sing you a song of Spiro Agnew, and all the good things he's done." And of course it ends there.

[applegrove]

46. LOL! Poor Spiro. To this day I know nothing

else about him except that he was vp.

[virgdem]

54. Spiro Who?

those of us old enough to remember will remember this "joke."

[Brigid]

68. Spiro Agnew.

Nixon's VP. Check out wikipedia; I'm not sure you'd believe me.

[virgdem]

81. I guess you didn't get the reference..

I'm well aware of who Spiro Agnew was. The joke at the time when Nixon chose him as VP back in 68' was to ask "Spiro who"? But thanks for the info anyway.

[Brigid]

82. I don't remember that one.

I've slept since then.

[HardTimes99]

25. Wow, a trip down memory lane. I was 15 heading into my Junior Year of high school, a year that

would mark my awakening in many respects: intellectually, emotionally and ethically.

The thing you need to remember about August 8, 1974 is that it represented the culmination of a two-year process. (Its roots actually lay even further back, in Nixon's and Kissinger's obsession with ending leaks, whence the 'Plumbers'.) In 1972, when the eponymous Watergate break ins occurred, I was in 8th grade in the Bible Belt (southwest Missouri) and the sole student in my Social Studies class to raise my hand for McGovern when our quite-liberal-for-the-town Social Studies teacher conducted a poll. From 1972 to 1974, there followed a steady drip-drip-drip of revelations, confessions, hearings, Senate hearings (Senator Ervin's) and House Judiciary hearings.

My parents were both Democratic Socialists and both avid Nixon haters - I remember that my mother had hated Tricky Dick vehemently going back to the 1950 Senate race when he red-baited the elegant and eloquent Helen Gahagan Douglas, the victory that propelled Nixon further into the national spotlight and ultimately to Ike's VP choice in '52. We lived on a small farm and had no television so listened to the various proceedings on radio. It was absolutely mesmerizing and riveting listening on radio and I can only imagine what it must have been like for those with televisions.

The day it was announced that Nixon would resign (the day before he actually resigned), I remember my mother walked around our small farm house cackling with glee. I remember asking her whether she thought Nixon would pull another 'Checkers speech' out of his hat at the last minute but my mother understood far better than I that this time Tricky Dick was really done for. Great days and the last time I remember the institutions of our democratic republic functioning the way our founders had intended. (Iran Contra, in many ways far more serious than Watergate, would come a mere 12 years later and would highlight the profound failure of institutional protections.)

Although we did not have a television, I spent some summer vacations at my grandparents' house in St. Louis. They had a television and I still remember seeing the major villains on some of the Sunday morning talk shows. I remember how creeped out I felt when I saw the slimy Charles Colson (before he himself became implicated in the scandal) and other asswipes from the time.

Thanks for the chance to go disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. I was living in the graduate dorm at a university

The TV in the lounge was tuned to the Watergate hearings all summer, with all the political junkies crowded around it.

Somehow I heard rumors that Nixon was going to resign, so I joined the crowd in the lounge. A few people cheered, but others were simply stunned. I was in the latter group, because I knew I had just witnessed history in the making.

I stepped outside the dorm to go to the library. The sun was shining and people were going about their business. It seemed strange that the world looked so normal when something so momentous had happened.

[Gman]

27. In front of the TV at a friend's house smoking a joint

And blowing the smoke at the TV while laughing uncontrollably.

Funny thing now is at the time I'd have given anything to have Nixon instead of Bush. That thought still bogglesy mind.

[2naSalit]

29. I was watching on a color TV

at a bar in southern NH with a full complement of Nixon haters, drinking one of my first legal beers. I had been marching against the war in cities of the NE for some time before that and was happy to watch it. Interestingly, everyone was watching and flipping him off and calling him names with "Get out of our House!" and "Good F&*^ing Riddance" ringing out in true New Englander fashion from time to time. As soon as the words "...I resign" came out, the whole bar erupted in loud cheering, it was standing room only and people standing outside. Must have been over a hundred of us in that little bar watching history with a beer. We all saw it as a good day for the country and a righteous event in honor of all our brothers who were drafted and didn't make it back or the ones who did but not in one piece... I knew several from our area. New Englanders took their politics very seriously then, I don't suppose that's changed much since.

In hind-sight though, as my Native American companions say, he did a lot for them and their ability to be real citizens, and he did sign the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act... Makes me wonder just why he did those things when he was hell bent on enriching the polluters and war racketeers.

I thought Ford was a low-class shill and always will for his pardoning the toad... we were robbed of justice, just like now with the Wall St. crapola we have been paying for for all these years.

[roamer65]

30. Watching it on my parents color teevee.

Man did that man sweat.

[Brigid]

73. That's what cost him the 1960 election.

[BumRushDaShow]

31. Watched on TV

and sad that Dad, who had just died a month before, missed it.

[struggle4progress]

32. I was working on a ranch, and that day a few of us were supposed to slaughter a cow.

We got her in the chute, which had six or seven foot walls, and the cow decided she had better ideas about to spend the day

I learned something that had never occurred to me: an agitated cow can jump a six or seven foot wall. She took off across the open ground, and we went after her in a truck. The irrigator managed to shoot her down, and we found ourselves in proud possession of a dead cow, some distance from the slaughter house

I then learned that cows are quite heavy and, although possible, it is hard work for three guys to pull a cow into the bed of a pickup, even if the guys are in good shape and the cow is dead

We bounced our loaded truck back over the fields, dragged her into the slaughter house, hung her up, and proceeded with disassembly

Never having done this before, I learned more but was finding my learning experience less and less enjoyable as the day proceeded. Perhaps I should also mention that I was a vegetarian back then

Eventually we had sides of beef for the walk-in cooler and a well-hosed-down slaughter house. At this point, I was exhausted and filthy: I had been down in the dirt trying to move a former bovine; I had in various moments met quantities of fresh manure; I had been spattered with gore; and I had been grueling away for hours in the 100+ degree heat

I walked slowly back to the bunkhouse to clean up for dinner, which was approaching. One of the fellows came down the steps off the porch to meet me

"Nixon resigned," he said. "You're a mess"

I told him about my afternoon. It now seemed to me a metaphor. We worked to get that cow. And I felt like we'd gotten Nixon too

[HereSince1628]

34. I was at my post serving one of the NSA's military affiliates...

I was working a 'swing shift' 4 til midnight, so I missed the live announcement and it's first rerun on the late news.

[treestar]

35. Almost 15, and the whole family was vacationing in D.C.

Of all the luck, we were in the Rayburn Building looking for our Senator's office. Suddenly the building seemed to come alive with excitement. People were running around, talking. We took a subway that the Congresspeople could use to get from their offices to the Capitol.

We watched on TV that night in the hotel room.

[Shrek]

36. I'm drawing a blank

It must not have made much of an impression on me because I can't remember a thing.

I would have been a few days short of my 11th birthday, so I have memories of the time, just not that event for some reason.

[ananda]

37. OK, let's see.

It was the summer between my first and second year of teaching at a private
school in Houston. The next year, 1975, I moved to public high school.

In the summer of 73 I had been glued to the TV watching the Watergate
hearings. I know I kept up with it all over the next year, but I was teaching
then too.

I remember thinking of the resignation as historic but rather anti-climactic
and frustrating because Nixon was gonna get away with it and become a
resigned elder statesman.

The real news from my perspective was getting out of Vietnam and opening
the door with China.

I really disliked Nixon on a serious gut level, but compared to Reeps today,
he doesn't look so bad, and that's saying something.

[Bluenorthwest]

38. There was great rejoicing in my family. My Mom had had a run in with Nixon

when he was VP that added a personal twist to the great contempt the entire family had toward this politician definitive of his Republican Party. My Dad was a very happy man that day as well. Pies were baked, Tricky Dick jokes abounded.
For me, the Watergate hearings had been the best TV show ever, a great classroom and a place to meet the minds of my parents in a political context. My father was not much for the admiration of public figures but the hearings gave him a hero in the person of Barbara Jordan who he told me was exactly the sort of prepared and courageous American I should try to become as an adult.

[MindPilot]

39. For me It wasn't a memorable event.

Nixon's departure is not seared into my mind like JFK, Bobby, Challenger, Iranian Hostages, or even Elvis.

I was almost 21, recently returned from Vietnam, and way more focused on earning a living and getting laid. Now that I try to think about it, the situation was kind of ho-hum; the president did some bad shit and now he's leaving--that's how it's supposed to work. I did always think Nixon looked pretty goofy when he flashed the peace sign and did that big exaggerated wave.

Most of the hearings happened while I was overseas, so honestly I didn't really understand Watergate until a poly-sci class a few years later.

[blogslut]

40. I'd rather keep the personal details to myself

Let's just say, I was 13. I was with a large crowd. We were all gathered around a tiny B&W television. After Nixon's announcement, practically everyone cheered. I did not cheer.

I was sad. Not for Dick, but for the country.

In my opinion, it wasn't a great day. Our president had just resigned in disgrace. Our president was a criminal. I know it's important to see the world realistically but I still don't see that day as a joyous or proud day. It was a shameful day.

[LWolf]

41. At home.

I wasn't in front of the tv at the time. I'd been gone all day. My mom told me when I got home.

I'd just spent my entire 8th grade SS year on Watergate, so it wasn't unexpected. It WAS something to celebrate. His pardon was a shock to my young, idealistic self, raised on the civil rights movement, war protests, etc..

It was also a shock, a few relatively short years later, to see the nation elect another Republican. Again, I was naive.

[ohheckyeah]

44. It was the 70s....

I certainly don't remember where I was on any given day except the day I got married.

[Tikki]

45. My nixon resigns story: In the hospital...having surgery*...

Went in the night before and was sedated..went into surgery early A.M.
When I woke up from anesthesia later in the room and the television
was on and it had a Gerald Ford talking with a banner underneath him
that said President Ford.

The nurse said I looked genuinely scared when I asked, "Oh, how long have I been out?"
Everybody in the room laughed and told me that nixon had finally resigned. Everyone cheered as I did.

Got rid of two cruddy things that day.


Tikki
*gall bladder

[pinboy3niner]

47. "Oh, how long have I been out?" LOL!

Funny story!

[a la izquierda]

48. This was exactly three years before I was born.

8/8 is my birthday.

[truebluegreen]

61. Happy Birthday!

Mine too, by 8/8/74 was my 19th.

[LostOne4Ever]

50. I don't remember anything before I was concieved

Sorry.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

51. We were literally dancing in the aisles at the Post Office I worked at.

[Douglas Carpenter]

52. I was in the USAF in Germany on my way to attend the Headquarters 2nd Weather Wings annual

picnic - just outside of Wiesbaden - I ware riding in the car with a Staff Sergeant named Randy Jefferies and we were listening on the radio as President Nixon announced his intentions to resign. It was one of the events like the assassination of John F Kennedy where time seemed to have stood still.

[Puzzledtraveller]

53. Was born in 73

[Zen Democrat]

56. Glued to the TV like everyone else.

My clearest memory of that day were the cheers from the multitudes outside the WH when the Mayflower moving vans showed up. That made the real.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

57. I was in the living room doing my homework...

Sprawled on the floor in front of the television (multi-tasking even back then). It's one of the most vivid memories of my childhood.

I had just turned thirteen the previous month, but Watergate fascinated me. I watched the televised hearings all that previous summer and started reading all the news magazines religiously. It was the beginning of my life as a news and politics junkie.

[Dollface]

58. At the Coral Gables bar in East Lansing Michigan. The packed bar listened quietly as Nixon spoke.

Then there was a huge roar of approval and applause as the resignation became reality. There was much toasting and revelry as the party went on. A good time was had by all.

[truebluegreen]

59. It was my birthday the day Tricky Dick announced that he would resign.

Home from college for the summer...I was vengefully glad and wanted to celebrate, "Take that, you cretin!".

Not so much my family. It only took a few rebellious teenagers to turn my father from a Nixon-hating ("that rat bastard&quot Kennedy voter in 1960 to a Nixon voter in 1968. It was all about lawnorder and respect for authority.

Sadly, he never recovered, even after the rat bastard had to quit in '74.

Happily, I never recovered either. Nixon showed me all I needed to see about conservatives, even though he doesn't qualify by modern standards.

[Motown_Johnny]

62. In D.C. on family vacation, I got to watch the helicopter fly away.

The hotel room did not face the White House so I didn't get to see it take off, but watched some of it on TV then went to the window and say the thing fly off into the distance.

I was 11. I have not been back to D.C. since but am going back in a couple weeks for the 50th anniversary of MLK's March on Washington / I Have a Dream speech.

[dbackjon]

72. VEry cool story

I will be in DC then as well (for the Gay Softball World Series), but hope to get to some of the King events.

[Motown_Johnny]

79. Hmmm....

It looks like we will miss each other by a few days. The GSWS starts on the 26th and although the MLK anniversary is the 28th I planned my vacation around the March on the 24th. I did this before I heard that Pres. Obama will be making a speech from the MLK memorial on the 28th.


I did this pretty much as soon as Rev. Sharpton announced his plans for the march. I really should have waited and took the next week off. Oh well.. whats done is done.


Anyways, if you make it to the Mall on the 24th I should be easy to find.. just look for the 24''X48'' banners that look like these....



https://pdf.buildasign.com//Proof.ashx?tcid=304E6B754E51466C6C63694F48395561454C667662413D3D&width=700&height=450&watermark=false&r=1376095390365



https://pdf.buildasign.com//Proof.ashx?tcid=423674536B39484779337152764C51714C57595936673D3D&width=700&height=450&watermark=false&r=1376095510224



Oh, and here is a link to the weekends festivities:

http://nationalactionnetwork.net/press/rev-al-sharpton-martin-luther-king-iii-along-with-labor-leaders-clergy-elected-officials-and-activists-to-march-on-washington-saturday-august-24-2013-for-the-national-action-to-reclaim-the-d/


^snip^


REV. AL SHARPTON & MARTIN LUTHER KING, III, ALONG WITH LABOR LEADERS, CLERGY, ELECTED OFFICIALS AND ACTIVISTS, TO MARCH ON WASHINGTON SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2013 FOR THE NATIONAL ACTION TO RECLAIM THE DREAM MARCH

[starroute]

63. I have no memory of it at all

And that's despite the fact that I'd been following the story obsessively, watching the hearings on TV, and so forth. After all that, the actual resignation came as something of an anticlimax.

What I do remember with crystal clarity is a few months earlier, when Butterfield revealed the existence of the White House tapes, and a friend remarked, "Nixon is now either the happiest man alive or he just shit his pants."

Of course, I'd been hating on Nixon for almost as long as I could remember -- from 1952, when I was five years old and singing "Whistle while you work, Nixon is a jerk," through years of Herblock cartoons, to 1962 when his promise that we wouldn't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more was the only thing that consoled me for the death of Eleanor Roosevelt that same week, and then the horrors of his term in office. So by 1974, it was more like, "Yeah, whatever, just go away already and let us get on with life."

[Ilsa]

64. I was a teenager, watching it on TV.

I was in shock, not fully understanding why he had to resign. Yeah, it was weird.

[tanyev]

66. All I really remember of that time is that when I wanted to watch TV it was full of boring old men

talking and talking and talking.

At least the resignation meant programming would get back to normal.

[CreekDog]

67. I was 3 and pretty much blissfully unaware of "news"

I would start becoming aware of it around the time when multiple pope's started dying and there were hostages in Iran. Do you have any idea how many cartoons I missed?

:hides:

[RebelOne]

70. I was born long before 1974.

And I remember Nixon's resignation speech. I was so thrilled to get rid of that man because I hated him.

[dbackjon]

71. Camping in the UP of Michigan

Gogebic State Park.

No TV - just radio news. Dad splurged and bought the local paper the next day.

[BainsBane]

74. You mean born before

Born after and they weren't around.

[arely staircase]

75. getting ready to start 2nd grade

I remember it being big talk around my liberal dem. household.

[MADem]

76. In a restaurant, where a television with rabbit ears was wheeled out and plugged in, so the patrons

could watch.

[Brigid]

77. I watched it on TV.

I was 16. My mom got mad at me because I was happy about it.

[Warpy]

78. I had been laid off

My boss had gotten the axe and they laid me off because it had gotten to the point there was no way to deny how ill I was and laying me off rather than firing was a kind thing to do. I'd finally gotten a diagnosis in July and was collecting unemployment while I struggled to get well enough to work again once the Nixon recession was over. I flipped on the set for the noon news and cheered out loud when they played his speech.

I really wanted to hit the local bar and join in what was shaping up to be a city wide celebration but broke ass people can't do that. So I just whooped and hollered and convinced all the neighbors I'd lost it completely.

Nixon is the only president I'd seen until that point who provoked signs in DC shop windows denouncing him and calling for Congress to get off it's collective ass and impeach the sucker.

I was back in Boston when he quit and I was jubilant when he quit and furious when Ford pardoned the crooked SOB.

[davidpdx]

83. I was too young to remember

Though it is noteable when I was born the doctor said "It's a Democrat"

[KinMd]

84. I was watching Nixon's helicopter lifting off that Friday, watching CBS

and Eric Sevareid (remember him?) remarked that a foreign ambassador had said to him that "In my country, we would have had tanks in the streets"

[Mr_King]

85. Thank you...

to everybody who shared their stories. I enjoyed reading them.

[cwydro]

86. My birthday was on August 9

We were in Spain. We were touring the presidential palace in Madrid. The guide told our mixed group (various nationalities) that in the dining room we were in at that moment - President Nixon had dined. Then she amended her statement to "I mean former President Nixon." We Americans all looked at each other. My parents and I went out and bought a Spanish newspaper. It had both Nixon and Ford on the front page. Something like "Nixon dimite, Ford Presidente!" I still have it.

[Mr_King]

87. Bump