I found myself strangely moved while reading David McCullough’s account of Harry S. Truman’s presidency in 1947, as he helped Congress confront the Soviet menace in the aftermath of World War II.

I was just a snotty-nosed high school junior at the time, puffing on my saxophone and clarinet in “The Stardreamers” at school dances; playng such uplifting songs as “Open the Door, Richard!”, “Linda,” “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” and “Huggin’ and Chalkin’.” (Do you wonder how this memory-challenged geezer came up with those names?)

I remember well the experience of sitting in college classes at Kansas State College a few years later, competing with WW II veterans attending under the the GI Bill. They were serious students in contrast with us mere kids. What a difference just 5 years and getting shot at can make!

I remember the day in class, I don’t remember which, when one of those vets put his hand on my shoulder, as if to say, “let’s do a good job of this, kid, so we won’t have to go to war again.” At least that is the way I took it, in retrospect. Sounds sappy now, but I came from a sappy generation, as attested earlier.

What I wasn’t conscious of at the time was the political interplay between men who seem to me as giants compared to some of today’s politicos. General George Marshall. David Lilienthal. Vandenberg. Taft. George Kennan, and many others. I stand in awe of skilled historians like David McCullough for their meticulous recording of those perilous times for future generations.

I am interested in how the account might read to someone who was born post-war. I suspect a revisionist history may be telling a different story to the current generation. But maybe not.

Dave, wallowing in the past this morning.