I remember my uptown grandmother getting seriously and surprisingly angry at me when at the age of 9 or so I mentioned (we were driving down Broadway from their house in Washington Heights (I remember we called our grandparents' apartments "houses")) -- surprisingly angry that I said I wanted to be president when I grew up.  She (they were refugees from the Nazis who had several hair-raising escapes) said that was absolutely inappropriate for a Jewish boy -- that people would hate me and would hate Jews even more than they already did if I or any other Jew were president.  

I remember when Nixon resigned.  I was in the hospital after a water-skiing accident (thanks Doug) and the nurse (who had offered to sneak me beers) came in giddy with joy and said, "That wonderful man is going to resign today."  We watched him on TV (there were four patients in the room and the nurse).  Then the next day (fifty years ago today) we watched his self-pitying speech ("My mother was a saint") before he got on the helicopter.  It seemed like the country was going to get better now, and that the awful right was finally vanquished.