Wanderers in Wonder

In 1968 he won the presidential election running on a pledge to end the conflict in Vietnam…he expanded the conflict by bombing Laos and Cambodia.

In 1968 he won the presidential election running on a ‘Law and Order’ platform…then there was Watergate.

In 1968 he won the presidential election running on a pledge to unite the country and then…

‘Tin Soldiers and Nixon’s Coming,

We’re finally on our own,

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.’

Richard Nixon was raised in a Quaker household. He was taught that all men were equal. He would reach out to minorities throughout his political life, and yet…he would help develop the Republican Party ‘Southern Strategy’, subtly and not so subtly, playing on the historic racism of the South to win converts to the Republican Party. 

We spent the afternoon at the Nixon Presidential Library. Wandering through the rooms and galleries, reading from the different displays one is reminded of what an ENIGMA this man, Richard Milhouse Nixon, truly was. We all know of his failures, and yet…

2 December 1970 – – – President Nixon signed the legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency.

15 December 1970 – – – President Nixon signs legislation returning the Blue Lake, sacred to Native American, to the Taos Pueblo.

29 December 1970 – – – President Nixon signs into law the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).

31 December 1970 – – – President Nixon signs into law the Clean Air Act.

1971 – – – President Nixon and the Justice Department successfully defend, in Federal Court, the ‘Philadelphia Plan’ which required the hiring of minorities and the use of minority owned businesses in the awarding of public contracts. 

5 July 1971 – – – President Nixon signs into law the 26th Amendment.

3 February 1972 – – – President Nixon reaffirms his support for the Equal Rights Amendment in a letter to the Senate.

February 1972 – – – President Nixon spend eight days in China, opening a door that had been closed for a quarter of a century.

26 May 1972 – – – President Nixon finalizes negotiations on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with the Soviet Union, the first nuclear arms reduction agreements.

23 June 1972 – – – President Nixon signs into law Title IX.***

21 October 1972 – – – President Nixon signs into law the Marine Mammals Protection Act.

28 December 1973 – – – President Nixon signs into law the Endangered Species Act.

A truly enigmatic man.

Peace…Wanderers in Wonder

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Inaugural Ithaca College Women’s Crew team on the 25th anniversary of their NCAA Small College National Championship win at the Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia (1977). Mary Ann standing far right. Without Title IX this may never have happened. After all, a few years earlier Mary Ann had to swim on the Men’s Swim Team in high school.

Mary Ann and Andy getting ready to take to the water in a pair in celebration of the 25th Anniversary.