“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.”

— Jane Austen, “Emma”

Whenever I need to describe the time frame of my elementary-school years, and respond “the ’60s,” I suppose it sounds like a very turbulent and tempestuous time to be a kid. It wasn’t, really. Not for me or most of those I grew up with, anyway.

I fondly remember eating Cap’n Crunch or dunking toast into hot cocoa while reading the Democrat & Chronicle at the kitchen table every morning before school; first the sports section, of course, then the opinion page when I had time. “Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things” by Sydney J. Harris was my favorite column. It’s the reason I’m any good at all playing Trivial Pursuit. That, and reading Collier’s Encyclopedia at the kitchen table. All seemed quite well back then, we had run of the entire community, our bikes took us everywhere we needed or wanted to go, and the front door was left open all day until bedtime.

But then, when I was about 12, I first noticed the flag-draped coffins being rolled onto the tarmac through the wide-open doors of gigantic C-130s on “The Evenings News With Walter Cronkite,” and everything changed. A........

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