“Think of all the hate there is in Red China, then take a look around to Selma, Alabama …”
Boy, was Barry McGuire premature.
When McGuire released “Eve of Destruction” in 1965, he was warned that while he would probably have a hit record, his song was so pessimistic about the state of the world that he would never have another one.
Those of us who remember 1965 know it was a tumultuous time, with racially oriented rioting, Vietnam amping up, the Cold War scaring us daily and America still recovering from the Kennedy assassination. Still, when you look at the world the way it is today, the mid ’60s look like Mayberry by comparison.
I was 15 when “Eve of Destruction” came out, but my days that summer were spent either lounging around the neighborhood swimming pool or spending hour after hour playing sandlot baseball. Not Andy, Opie and Gomer, but close.
I’m not going to go into comparisons, but I’ll tell you one thing we didn’t have in 1965 — mass shootings.
The first one I remember that truly shocked all of us came a year later when Charles Whitman climbed to the top of a clock tower on the University of Texas campus and started shooting. He killed 15 people and wounded 31 others.
We called it unbelievable.
Today they call it Monday.
To be fair, there are few of the all-too-frequent shootings that match Whitman’s numbers. Just yesterday, though, two teenage boys reportedly shot and killed three people at a San Diego mosque and then took their own lives. The death toll might have been higher except that a heroic security guard got between the shooters and their targets. He was one of the three victims.
The mother of one of the alleged shooters had called San Diego police before the shooting to say she was worried that her son was suicidal. She said he and a friend had stolen “three of her weapons.”
If you’re wondering why I put the last part in quotes, it’s because she didn’t say they had taken “her three weapons.” What she had said probably meant she had more than three, although there’s no way of knowing how many more. But what is a parent even doing with three guns? And leaving them where a child can get at them?
The death toll almost certainly would have been higher except for the security guard, who just before dying radioed to teachers in the school portion of the mosque to lock their classroom doors. There were 200 children in the school and none of them were killed.
The imam of the mosque said the guard saved “many, many souls” by his action. His name was Amin Abdullah and he was the father of eight children.
I am reminded of a young Muslim man I wrote about a few years ago, who confronted a suicide bomber who was about to detonate in a large crowd. He clutched the bomber to himself and prevented anyone other than the two of them from being injured or killed.
It’s nice to know there are still heroes among us.
As difficult as it is to believe in a world of Donald Trumps, maybe we haven’t quite reached the eve of destruction.