My mother told me that she’d once heard my late father tell of the delightful and luxurious time he once had staying in the Taj Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai), as he was about to be shipped home at the end of WWII. Now, the place is a battle zone instigated by one of those thug bands that think blowing stuff up + killing people = victory (or its emotional equivalent). How macho; how dumb.

Forty-five years after JFK’s slaying, it’s still poignant to view the initial TV coverage. CBS happened to be the only network feeding programming to its eastern/central affiliates at that hour. As the World Turns was such a ratings powerhouse in those days, NBC and ABC didn’t bother to program against it.

Thus, the catastrophe that (according to some perverse nostalgists) jump-started 12 years of further catastrophes first came to the nation’s attention by interrupting the most sedate and reassuring TV series yet devised.

ATWT creator Irna Phillips had sensed that TV was, by nature, a more ambient medium than radio. (Former ABC exec Bob Shanks called TV “the cool fire.”) So she toned down the melodrama and the histrionics, and devised an extremely quiet, low-key drama, in which an average Midwestern family discussed its average Midwestern daily doings.

Thus, the media’s most lulling, calming tribute to Ike-era ideals gave way to Walter Cronkite telling us, indirectly, of that fantasy America’s violent demise.

This year, T-Day week sees the nation in another cusp between eras.

A “perfect storm” of economic collapse has yet to reach bottom.

An unneeded, unending war continues to destroy lives.

Yet tens of millions of us still bathe in the afterglow of that great joyous moment three weeks ago.

There’s a feeling in the social zeitgeist. A feeling of optimism, of unashamed sincerity. A feeling that we really can turn the corner on all our crises. A feeling that the world really canturn, into a better place.

I share this feeling, and hope you do too.