Watching Walter Cronkite: Reflections on Growing Up in the 1950s and 1960s - Hardcover

Kutscher, Austin Ken, M.D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1884092810 ISBN 13: 9781884092817

Publisher: Gordian Knot, 2009

Synopsis

In Watching Walter Cronkite, Austin Ken Kutscher, M.D., reflects on how our lives were shaped by the transformative events of the 1950s and 1960s. As we celebrate our first African-American president, Barack Obama, in a world where American soldiers are still fighting wars halfway across the globe and where the threat of nuclear weapons still exists, generations both young and old need to understand the past events that were so instrumental in shaping our lives today.

Watching Walter Cronkite had its beginning when Dr. Kutscher realized his teenage daughter was part of a generation, born after 1980, oblivious to issues that have been the foundation of their parents' ideals. Using the historical events of the era of the '50s and '60s as a backdrop, Dr. Kutscher has fashioned a moving memoir of his experiences as a public school and college student, as he tried to make his mark in the world after his Mom had died of breast cancer. He shares not only his personal joys and sorrows, but also the parallel adolescent reminiscences of his wife, Mary Ellen. Their personal journeys are representative of everyday Baby Boomers who were never featured on the CBS Evening News. As Dr. Kutscher recounts our country's pains during the '60s — a decade filled with a tragic war and social and racial injustice — he also brings to life the electrifying feelings of the music of love and protest and the scientific achievements of our nation, not to mention the spirit of the New York Mets' "Miracle" World Series victory in 1969.

Watching Walter Cronkite will resonate deeply with older generations of Americans, as they recall the dizzying array of events that unfolded nightly on their TV screens—including the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement, the counter-culture, the Woodstock Festival, and the crowning achievement of the 1960s—the Apollo XI Moon landing.

By chronicling our lives against this historic period, Dr. Kutscher hopes we can find peace and redemption in the turbulent times through which we are now living—and that we can explore, as did Neil Armstrong, our own "Sea of Tranquility."

About this title

About the Author:

Austin Ken Kutscher is a practicing cardiologist in Flemington, New Jersey. He and his wife, Mary Ellen, have two children, Philip and Jannie, and a dog, Zen.

Review:

"Austin Kutscher has written a memoir that not only delights in the ''60s suburbia, but also brings thoughtful insight to the current mind-set of the Baby Boomer Generation."-Ed Harris, Actor/Director (Ed Harris)

"As a historian, I took special interest in Ken''s take on the major events of the 1960''s. He touches on almost all of them, but thankfully he isn''t a Zelig or even a Forrest Gump. Watching Walter Cronkite is a coming-of-age memoir to which high school and college students can readily relate. It is a narrative that a skilled teacher can use in an American History or American Studies course."-Eric Rothschild, Retired Chairman of History Department of Scarsdale High School and 1990-91 Distinguished Social Studies Educator of New York State (Eric Rothschild)

"As a Marine infantry officer during the 1968 Tet Offensive and a veteran who experienced the effect that Walter Cronkite''s nightly news reports had on the public''s attitude towards the war and its warriors, I was deeply moved by reading Dr. Kutscher''s Watching Walter Cronkite-a "coming-of-age" memoir that reads like a novel and provides a poignant "flashback" of the decades that largely shaped the world we live in today. And as a retired secondary school administrator, I highly recommend this book for educators who want a valuable resource to help students understand the complexities that face all Americans during this most tumultuous period in American history."-Nicholas S. Romanetz, Colonel USMCR (Ret) (Nicholas S. Romanetz)

About this edition

• Publisher: Gordian Knot
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1884092810
• ISBN 13: 9781884092817
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 401