Are people under the impression that today - April 1st - is the 40th anniversary

[Bobbieo]

of the assassination of Martin Luther King. King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 on my 45th birthday. THAT, I will never forget!

[pepperbear]

1. I think that DR. King is in this week's newscycle because of the anniversary...

...so as to make it an anniversary week, which I think is fitting given the magnitude of the event.

[Bonobo]

2. You are 85!? Wow!

[Bobbieo]

4. Yup, 85 this Friday! Someone below is right, the good do die young!!!!

[mrreowwr_kittty]

5. Happy early birthday Bobbieo!

I hope you are as healthy as my bf's 88 year old mom. She's a lifelong Dem and a founding member of Planned Parenthood in Arizona.

[Bobbieo]

8. Thank you CB !!! I seem to be holding my own !!! I've been in AZ since 1944.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

9. Wonderful! I've been here since 1997.

My boyfriend is a 4th generation Phoenician. His great-grandparents were settlers before this was even a state! I love driving around with him as he points out various landmarks and explains the history behind them. His mother's family name is Christy. Apparently they owned a bunch of land around Phoenix, including the big cemetary in West Phx, which they donated to the state.

[Bozita]

3. Saw newsreel footage today showing Bobby Kennedy in the church during MLK's funeral.

The good do die young.

MLKs' assassination sure sent LBJ's Sunday blockbuster speech to the back burner.

1968 just might have been the worst year in this country's history, surpassing even 1861.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

6. In some ways it was a very good one too.

I was born that year, after all. :P

[Bozita]

10. My daughter was born amid the furor of the '68 Dem Convention.

1968 was simply unforgettable in so many ways for so many people.

On that birth night, visiting hour at the hospital ended at 8pm ET. I went home, turned the TV on, and cracked open a beer. I sat. I watched. I had another beer, and another. Watched some more followed by another beer.

Ended up with my head in the toilet bowl. Forty years later, I remember that night vividly. Well, vividly up to the fourth or fifth beer.

For the most part, 1968 was 11/22/63 stretched out.

The pain was the same. It was just stretched out over a greater period of time.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

11. LOL!!

They'd call for your head for drinking while preggers now. I'm fairly certain my mom enjoyed a few cocktails, along with a few cigarettes, while carrying me. I turned out fine.

Oh wait! Maybe you were the dad! Maybe I'm not so fine after all. ;)

[Bozita]

12. ummm, ...

My wife gave birth in the hospital. I was the one sent home to a teevee full of the late August Dem Convention. The first and maybe the second were beverages taken at the end of a personally historic day.

I blame all subsequent beers on the images appearing on my teevee screen. NBC, CBS, ABC. All of 'em. Each was covering the convention live. Change the channel and witness a different Chicago cop beating the shit out of people. Different networks, different cameras, different locations. It was the same on all channels.

My opinions about cops changed that night.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

13. Mine changed watching the LA riots in '92.

And further watching the coverage during the Katrina aftermath. I still think most of them are good public servants but I definitely believe in placing controls on the power they have.

[Bobbieo]

7. Somehow, 2008 seems to be working on the honor of being the worst year in histpry

[Bozita]

14. Hint: If you post again on Friday, we can all wish you a "Happy Birthday" again.

Let's do it!

[Hissyspit]

15. "Early morning, April 4, shot rang out in the Memphis sky..."

O.K. Bono got the early morning wrong. It was around six p.m. I but I always remember the April 4 part because he got that right.