excerpt

    It was the 1970s, and it was a suburban TV room where several adults had gathered to watch a debate between the nation’s two foremost intellectuals from right and left. Standing there as a kid I saw two men on a screen saying things I couldn’t understand, and a room full of adults with gazes locked, hanging on their every word, occasionally erupting into rebukes or bravos. I asked my mother about it the next day.

     “Oh, that was politics.”

     “What’s that?”

     “It’s how we find out where to go next. People debate where we are now, as a society and a civilization, and from that discussion we decide which way to vote on election day.”

    The first thought was wanting to be part of that conversation, the second thought was that it would have to wait until I got older because I was too young.