THOSE/THESE WERE/ARE THE DAYS MY FRIEND

This is me in 1968 in front of our half of the quonset hut that served as married student quarters at the U of Iowa when I was there on The G.I. Bill at The Writers Workshop and was running for sheriff of Johnson County, Iowa, on the Peace and Freedom ticket and supporting our candidate Eldridge Cleaver and thus contributing to the defeat of the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphey, and the election of Nixon and his continuation and expansion of the Vietnam War, among other destructive and deadly policies that he continued or enacted (history has revealed that Humphrey did intend to withdraw from Vietnam) that led to the rightward movement of the Republican Party that led to exactly where we are today in a country less violent and more tolerant than it was then but seemingly just as divided as then and where too many seem determined to repeat my mistake of confusing hope for reality and thereby contributing to a bad outcome.