My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business_ A Memoir - Dick Van Dyke [46]
I was all about living a kind, righteous, moral, forgiving, and loving life seven days a week, not just the one day when you went to church. I thought about it quite a bit, noticed the differences in others, and I shared my opinions when the appropriate opportunity arose.
I had a little bit of “defender of the universe” in me. I felt—and still feel—that there’s a higher intelligence up there, something greater than us, something we might have to answer to, and most people would be wise to keep that in mind as they hurry through their day.
And if there’s not a higher power, no one’s going to be worse for the wear for his or her effort.
Was there one way?
No, not as far as I could tell—other than to feel loved, to love back, and to do the things that make you feel as if your life has meaning and value, which can be as simple as making sure you spend time helping make life a little better for other people.
I decided if I could manage that I wouldn’t have any serious problems were there to actually be a Judgment Day.
I found a kindred spirit in the church’s youth minister, Charlie Brown. Bright, energetic, and forward thinking, he was active in Young Life, a group that ran summer camps for junior-high and high-school kids. The idea was to get kids on the right path. It was spiritually influenced but not religious; they didn’t cram religion down anyone’s throat. It was about walking the walk, and Charlie did that with a grace and conviction that impressed me.
It interested me, too. He was young himself. He surfed with the kids, he hung out with them, and he talked their talk.
At that time, being able to relate to young people was especially important. A younger generation was questioning traditions, biases, and social covenants. New ideas were surfacing and clashing with the old. It was clear that the world, as most of us born before World War II knew it, was in flux. That point had been driven home on November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I had returned to the set from lunch in the commissary with a few people from the show and immediately noticed a change in the atmosphere.
I will never forget it. The usual lightness in the air had disappeared, and the mood was somber and heavy. We all knew immediately that something had happened, something bad and dire. I looked around, trying to figure it out, and then someone asked if we had heard.
“No,” I said.
“The president was shot.”
“JFK?”
“Yes.”
We were all stunned.
I turned to Carl, John, Morey, Rosie—everyone. JFK assassinated? Dead? It was unfathomable. All of us shared an expression that conveyed the same sense of disbelief, horror, and tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes. We couldn’t do anything but stare at the television and mutter, “Oh my God.”
Later that night, I went to the recording studio and made my first album, Songs I Like. Although it was the last thing I wanted to do that evening, and I’m sure the musicians shared that sentiment, we went through with the recording session anyway, and the resulting album, at least to me, sounded that way.
In the months that followed, I found myself, like the country as a whole, in a serious frame of mind and searching for answers and meaning. Many nights I stayed up until two or three in the morning, talking with Charlie Brown about why Kennedy had been killed, why such an act of violence happened in our country, where it stemmed from, what it meant, and what we should do about it.
As was often the case, I heard myself asking questions that I had asked many times in the past: Who were we as a country? Who were we as human beings? What was really important in life? What do we tell our kids and future generations to make sure they do better?
As a middle-of-the-road Democrat, I knew where I stood. I was pro civil rights.