The End of Nixon's World.

I rarely discuss politics, and I am not going to today, aside from in the most general way. Allow me to digress into a bit of personal history. How unusual! I will tell you my first childhood memory about politics. Did you expect real gossip?

I really, really, really hope Carol is reading this right now. She’s a fan from way back. She was there.

In a sentence I wouldn’t have written in 1971, I spend a lot of time talking to young people, mostly lesbian wannabes with daddy issues. Blame it on the divorce rate. Anyhow, the point of me bringing this up is that I always point out to them that the world has been through all this before. I lived through then and came out better. They will live through now.

Now, go and find yourself a good man and settle down.

Nothing is ever exactly the same.

I come to you from the bygone age of 1971 after a long detour in the 80s.

She blinded ME with science!!

The scene is set in Stamford, Connecticut, before the World Wrestling Federation came to town. It was August, 1971. Most of you weren’t born—yet. I was six. My boyhood chum, John S., and I were playing under a dining room table. I don’t remember what we were really doing. Like all children, our ears were open.

Some things never change.

We were surrounded by chair legs, and table legs, and our parents’ legs. Our parents were playing cards and talking about how Nixon had taken the country off the gold standard. It was heady news for boys that age. Another case of innocence was lost.

There are some things that can only be lost once. After the gold standard, all value is relative.

I am not saying that two young lads understood the working of the Bretton Woods system. Hardly. We listened to the conversation overhead as the adults, who presumably knew what they were talking about, discussed what may happen. The conclusion was, as it usually is, that the future at that moment was uncertain.

My whole life, I have said that we live in a world created by Nixon. This is for many reasons, not just taking the U.S. off the gold standard. Things have happened since Nixon was president. I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Over the course of my life, the world always had the same texture, the same rules. Nixon was here first. Nixon’s fingerprints are everywhere. I still find the world navigable. I may be wrong but, looking at the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal, we are leaving Nixon’s world.

Nobody liked Nixon, anyway.

Be careful what you wish for.

We will resume our usual New Orleans-centric themes tomorrow.

Cheerio!