I can remember watching Bozo the Clown and Three Stooges shorts on the grainy black-and-white TV at the home of my babysitter, Mrs. Eisenbeiss. But I cannot recall any specific images that flickered on that set, except the flag-draped coffin of a man everyone around me called The President.

I was raised in the Vietnam era among family that respected the flag, the presidency and the Democratic Party. My father had served in Okinamwa, my brothers Ed and Tom enlisted in the Army, and my uncle Earl returned late during the war as a decorated officer.

I was taught and punished when I did not by the nuns at Catholic school, fought with my siblings, built models of submarines, the starship Enterprise and the lunar lander. Occasionally, I also ran away from home with my belongings tied neatly in a handkerchief at the end of a stick, as I had learned was the style of every hobo worth his salt. I never got more than two blocks before turning back or being caught.

On the color TV that graced our living room, I twice in one year saw people scrambling to help very important men who had been shot. One was a very good black man, I learned. The other was a very good white man who was brother to The President I had seen buried not so long before. All three had helped immense numbers of people.

Around the fifth grade, I became politically aware. Until that time, I was just naively patriotic like any kid. I loved the president, whoever that happened to be at the time. I loved my country. And I loved the hats my father brought home one day, and I got to have one.

They were those white Styrofoam skimmers with red, white and blue ribbon encircling the crown just above the brim. I liked wearing mine and soon wore it out.

My hat had a McGovern/Eagleton '72 button stuck in it. That, I thought, was cool, too. These guys were on TV, and I had a little piece of their memorabilia in my buttoned skimmer.

Then I heard the anger in my father's voice and saw the disappointment in my mother's eyes when McGovern dumped Eagleton — a storied Missourian and U.S. senator — after the Republicans started ugly rumors about Eagleton's sanity in the wake of revelations that he had undergone shock therapy for depression years earlier.

At that point, I came to understand several things about politics.

First, that politics — like any competition for power — is harsh and no respecter of persons.

Second, that the GOP played dirty, always had and always would.

Third, that even though Missouri's favorite son was no longer considered worth having as a vice-presidential running mate, it was important to vote Democratic anyway.

And in the years that followed, I saw that Richard Nixon had no secret plan to end the war and no scruples to deserve the title of the man I had watched buried on that flickering black-and-white set at Mrs. Eisenbeiss's house. I saw Nixon resign in disgrace, brought down by two brilliant and lucky reporters.

I saw an earnest bumbler slog his way through difficult times only to lose to an earnest peanut farmer with so much concern for doing his best that he became lost in the details.

I saw an actor and ideologue with a common touch and no common sense destroy much of what government had achieved for America over 50 years.

I saw his vice-president ascend to power and fall from grace no more kindly and gently than he had ruled.

I saw a young governor proclaim hope, later give substance to his words and finally taste the ashes of scandal.

And in all this time, I have seen nothing that has ever changed the truth of those three lessons.