for Tim Hermsen
We were young, younger than the calendar suggested, growing up in the ’50s and early ’60s, that schizoid time after our nation’s “good war,” where we learned to duck-and-cover when we weren’t running after ice cream trucks, hands filled with new coins, state fairs featuring the miracle of microwave cooking next to displays of backyard do-it-yourself bomb shelters, the sky above us filled with jets and rockets and Sputniks, our young president determined to fly even higher.
