My new favorite Frank Sinatra reference; he IS everywhere.

From Phil Ochs' introduction to "Ringing of Revolution" from Phil Ochs in Concert (1966):

This song is so cinematic it's been made into a movie, starring Senator Carl Hayden as Ho Chi Minh.

Frank Sinatra plays Fidel Castro. 

Ronald Reagan plays George Murphy. 

John Wayne plays Lyndon Johnson, and Lyndon Johnson plays God. 

I play Bobby Dylan -- the young Bobby Dylan.

When President Reagan was shot...

...I was a senior at Xavier University in Cincinnati, and I heard about it around 3:00 PM, while walking through Hinkle Hall and passing the office of John Getz, professor of American literature and one of my favorites!, who was intently listening to the radio.  I popped my head into his office, made a crack approximating "Is this what faculty do all day, sit around listening to the radio?" to which he replied "Reagan's been shot."  (In the picture, he's the one on the right...and, nota bene, the picture was taken several years later.)

More personally (and significantly), this was shortly after returning from Spring Break in Estero Island off the western coast of Florida, where a group of us lived for the better part of a week -- at the family summer cottage of our friends Cathy and Mary -- on a steady diet of Product 19 cereal (in single-serving boxes) and Pabst Blue Ribbon (on a really good sale at the local Winn Dixie).

 

It was also here and then that I first set eyes on the woman who would become my wife.  Yay!!!!!

And a few weeks before I would graduate.

30 years ago?  Yikes.

And WOW.