Throw Beck Thursday: What We Should Talk About When We Talk About Guns
Love them or hate them, chances are if you were raised in America someone in your family owned a gun. James Stafford tells his family tale of firearms, and of the event that holstered his forever.
I was raised in an era when two grandfathers was the norm, and they were known only as “Grandpa.” Context was everything: whose house we visited determined who was named Grandpa. They were men in a sense of the word that was fading quickly, each clinging to their cigarettes and their Coors from dawn to dusk, haunting fraternal lodges and fishing spots. Yes, and there in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, each man named Grandpa was well-armed, too, though only one owned the guns of dead soldiers.
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200. Can’t Happen Here
I was raised in the shadows of major events. We forget that the ’60s spilled over into the ’70s: Vietnam and Watergate, school bussing, the Equal Rights Amendment, Tiny Tim’s Tonight Show wedding to Miss Vicki. The early ’70s were every bit as tumultuous as the ’60s, just with a Carpenters and John Denver soundtrack.
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From the Stacks: Harry Chapin-Cats in the Cradle
My kids and I were in the car when Harry Chapin’s “Cats in the Cradle” came up in the rotation. “Listen to this,” I said, and I turned it up a little. “This is the saddest song ever written.”
“Why is it so sad?” my daughter asked.
“Just listen.”
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