The day he resigned (8/9/74) I was out campaigning for my very first time. I was 12, and I went with my Mom and my aunt to rural communities in Nevada to campaign for my aunt's reelection to the Nevada state house. My aunt was my hero in 1974. She ran and won as a Democrat in rural Nevada in, I believe, 1972, not the greatest year for a Democrat. She served in the state legislature for one term but was not reelected as they redistricted her into a larger more rural district that extended almost all the way down to Las Vegas along the western side of the state. Some of her papers are in the Special Collections of the University of Nevada, where she got her degree.
My aunt was not fond of Richard Nixon. She was to the left of my uncles, I am sure, and although I don't remember the political discussions I am sure we had, she was a democrat. In a big way.
My parents had a long distaste for Richard Nixon, too (well, they really loathed him). They had lived in the DC area during the Army/McCarthy hearings, and had been creeped out by Nixon at that point. My dad was a a Massachusetts liberal. My mom was from a long line of democrats, and, although they had been southern Dems, she and her sister (who never married, and defined feminism for me long before I had ever heard the term) were both progressives in the best way. Dad subscribed to the NY Times for decades, and followed the War and Watergate through their coverage.
So I knew how bad Nixon was as a person very early (in first grade we paraded around our classroom chanting "Humphrey, Humphrey, he's our man. Nixon lives in a garbage can!). And then I learned how much a mess the Vietnam War was, and was horrified when we learned the US was bombing Cambodia. Dad and I watched the CBS news every night, with Walter Cronkite. And 60 Minutes. I think I learned about My Lai from 60 Minutes. Could that be right?
I remember my Mom driving me to piano lessons, etc., with the Watergate hearings on the local NPR station. We were in England, staying with some friends of theirs in a small town south of London, and all they wanted to talk about was the Watergate hearings. They stayed up late at night to watch the recaps on the BBC each night.
But in the summer of 1974, we were out in Nevada. It was hot. It was dusty. We walked up to the doors of dusty trailers and knocked and my aunt would say she wanted to talk to whoever answered about the state and about her ideas. I don't remember what she said, or what the issues were. But I remember the sun, and how hot it was, and how anxious I was to get back in time to watch what Nixon had to say on the tv. We watched it in my grandmother's living room in Las Vegas. I was surprised that he would actually resign. I hadn't figured he would do that although I knew he was going to be impeached (for good reason, of course). I was pretty aware politically, but pretty naive as well. I was only 12, after all.