Spiro Agnew

     Of the many things in this world I am not good at, current events has to be very close to the top of the list. And when I was in college I was even worse – which was really sad because during my freshman year there was so much going on: the young men my age were at risk of being drafted and possibly sent into the Viet Nam War, the Attica prison riot had just taken place down the road from where I lived, and the usual college-age passions and ideals were swirling all around me. Yet I hardly knew or pursued any details of what was going on.

     Studying for classes was my best excuse for not reading the newspaper.

     But when the most spaced-out druggie classmate I knew walked into the student cafeteria one day sophomore year laughing about the resignations of Haldeman and Erlichman, and snickering over the firing of John Dean, I was embarrassed because I had no clue who those guys were! I knew less about current events than the guy who was too stoned most of the time to remember his own friends' names! That incident made me feel like the most self-centered, uncaring, hypocritical flower-child in the universe.

     This was even more pathetically exemplified one afternoon my junior year in college. I had taken the bus downtown after classes to do a little shopping, and I was standing on the sidewalk on Main Street, probably waiting to catch a bus home. A man and a woman approached. One of them had a microphone, and they asked if they could interview me for the 6 o'clock news? That is when I noticed the cameraman behind them. I said okay.

     “Tell us your reaction to the resignation of Spiro Agnew.”

     “Spiro Agnew resigned?”

     Now, I did know who Spiro Agnew was – he was the Vice President for Richard Nixon who was the US President at the time.

    “Yes, Spiro Agnew resigned today. What are your thoughts on that?”

    “This is the first I've heard about it.”

    I was flustered. Were they kidding me? I had not heard about anything going on concerning the Vice President . Was his resignation brewing and I was just completely in the dark about it? Of course the Watergate scandal was the talk of the nation those days – I had not missed that at all – especially after figuring out who Haldeman, Erlichman, and Dean were. I could not recall Agnew being at all involved in Watergate. So why would he have resigned? I wanted to say to the microphone and camera, “Nixon's the crook! Why did Agnew have to resign?”

     But instead I replied that I had no comment. They asked for my name and address so they could put me on the television! I said absolutely not. And they replied that I would not be on television then – and I said okay!

    Later, when I told my parents about the incident, I thought they would scold me for not knowing about Agnew, but instead they were upset that they could not tell their friends that I had been on TV!

    Spiro Agnew resigned amid charges of tax fraud and bribery.

    Nixon resigned less than a year later due to the Watergate scandal.

    The War in Viet Nam ended during this time. And the draft.

    I don't think the draft will ever be re-instated in my lifetime.

    But even someone who is still as terrible at current events as I am recognizes when new wars like Viet Nam arise.

2007 Protesting the Iraq War in D.C.

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