When I was 6 years old I had my first political shock.

It was the fall of 1956. The incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, was running against a Democrat named Adlai Stevenson.

We were paying a Sunday visit to my father’s parents in Spring Valley, New York. My grandparents had a second story apartment there, complete with plastic furniture covers (not comfortable), a corrugated plastic runner to protect the carpet (not pretty), and a bowl of fruit made of wax (not tasty).

But there was a weeping willow tree. It and a pond graced the entrance to the apartment building. The tree had a symmetrical dome shape and trailed its branches in the pond with the elegance of a ballet pose. It seemed to do nothing but drink and think all day.

My other good memory of the place was from the stairwell. It was a dark ugly thing of concrete but it possessed an echo. My mother often wore her screw-on brass carousel earrings when we visited there. The little merry-go-rounds swung from her ear lobes and the tiny dangling horses tinkled against one another. In that stairwell the echoing treble ring was like fairy dust in my ears.

The shock came at the end of that visit, as we were leaving. We’d said goodbye to my grandmother and left her where she always seemed to be: settled in her favorite chair and expecting attention from others. My grandfather, more active, still working as a milliner and one of the leaders of his union local, accompanied us to the car. We were about to back out of the parking area when he leaned in my dad’s window and asked, “So who are you voting for, for president?”

“Pop,” my dad asked/exclaimed, “have I ever voted Republican?”

I blurted. The words were out of my mouth before I heard them in my head: “Daddy: do you mean you’re not going to vote for the President?”

The only answer I got was masculine laughter. It was loving laughter and it satisfied me. I understood.

We pulled away from the apartment and listened to Gunsmoke on the radio all the way home.