(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

We are now at Def Con 1 in Donald Trump lunacy.

It must be Christmas in August, and the secret Santa is Donald Trump. He’s been busy handing out presents to Kim Jung Un and Xi Jinping.

But poor America, it seems, gets nothing.

Our President just handed China a gift wrapped with a big bow and, oh, incidentally,  making America weaker in the process.

Trump has ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” joint U.S. military exercises with South Korea, complaining that the drills are “hostile” to North Korea.

Hostile?

North Korea is a nuclear-armed dictatorship ruled by Kim Jong-un — the same despot Trump describes as “unthreatening and respectful.”

For all practical purposes, the U.S. is now siding with North Korea and Kim Jong Un instead of our democratic ally South Korea.

Who’s a Communist Now?

The party calling everyone who opposes them a Commie is now siding with a literal Communist dictator.

My head is simultaneously spinning and exploding.

But that’s not all that Comrade Donald’s order does.

The biggest winner from Trump’s latest piece of presidential lunacy isn’t Kim.

It’s China.

Big Winner

These military exercises are part of the American security presence that has helped restrain China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific for decades.

Decades.

Reduce them, weaken America’s alliances, and sow doubts among our allies, and Beijing gains without firing a shot.

They just hit the jackpot.

China is rapidly expanding its military and industrial muscle, competing with America in artificial intelligence and steadily increasing its influence throughout Asia.

So what does our self-proclaimed master dealmaker do?

He weakens America’s position.

He undermines our longtime ally South Korea.

He pleases North Korea.

And he hands China exactly what it wants — a diminished American presence in its own backyard.

Tough on China?

The jokes on us.

Nine long months.

At sea.

And nobody in charge can tell these military families when their loved ones are coming home.

Moldy showers.

Broken toilets.

No soap, no deodorant, no toothpaste.

Meals so meager they’ve been reduced to half a cup of rice and two tortillas.

Sailors so exhausted they’ve tried to jump overboard.

Six sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to jump ship due to horrific conditions during their extended deployment in the Middle East.

Imagine how deplorable things must be to want to jump ship.

Imagine thousands facing food shortages.

A Disgrace

Our military men and women are being treated like third-class citizens from third-world countries. Certainly not the United States of America, once the gold standard in caring for their troops.

Like everything in the deplorable Trump administration, things are no longer so golden but deeply tarnished

We are witnessing a Sea of change in Military Care

My Greatest Generation father, Sgt Marvin Edelstein, would be appalled. He would not recognize the U.S. military.

American troops were once the most well-cared-for troops the world had ever known.

The U.S. military has always invested heavily in the medical and material support of its personnel, maintaining an unmatched standard of care compared to other militaries.

Historically, the U.S. Military earned a reputation during WWII and mid-century for providing some of the best-fed troops in the world, backed by massive industrial logistics; calorie-dense rations like C and K rations and a societal commitment to troop welfare.

The boys came first.

How We Once Fed Our Troops

Military leadership recognized that high-calorie familiar foods directly correlated with physical endurance and psychological resilience of the boys. Vintage ad 1942

During WWII, we made sure American servicemen and women were well fed.

In this 1942 WWII era ad from  Armour and Company, the headline tells us why the average soldier gains 7 pounds during his first month in the Army, proudly showing the meals he gets.

“Uncle Sam, they proudly tell us, prescribes a pound of meat per day for every soldier in this best-fed army in the world.”

“The first concern of any good mother is that her boy gets plenty to eat.”

“And Uncle Sam’s Quartermaster Corps is just as solicitous for every man in our fighting forces today. Their meals are so nourishing and well balanced the average soldier gains 7 pounds during his first month in service.

“Some gain as high as 20 pounds.”

“And it’s not soft fat.”

“For ours is a meat-eating active army,” they boast.

“Every day each and every man in the service gets a pound of muscle-building meat”.

Vintage ad 1942

“No great new plants had to be built or financed by our government to feed our growing army. War found the meat industry ready.”

“Right now Armour and the other meat packers are shipping millions of pounds of meat, poultry and dairy products each day to the army alone.

Armour was also providing tons of food daily for our allies through Lend-Lease. And supplying a major share of the meat for our folks at home. Not always in unlimited quantities to the home front-our boys in the service came first.

“We are all out to win this war!”

Today, as Military Appreciation Month comes to an end, this is no way to treat our troops.

If we love our military, we should feed them like we mean it.

Like we always did.

Donnie, the Doll with the Quick Change look! Vintage Fredericks of Hollywood Wig Ad

Let’s get wiggy with Donald!

Another hair-brained business for Trump!

Donald Flips His Wig!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

When I was cleaning out my parents’ Long Island home a few years ago in advance of selling the 1955 shingled ranch house I grew up in, long-lost remnants of my otherwise well-documented childhood appeared as though hidden in a vault.

In a cluttered front hall closet nestled in between unopened packages of Sylvania flash cubes and tiny tin cans of Zippo lighter fluid, lined up in a row like soldiers prepared to do battle in barbecues and table lighters, were dozens of yellow cardboard boxes filled with slides.

Unlike the hundreds of multi-generational family photos stuffed haphazardly in clasp-closure manila envelopes, faded Welcome Wagon folders, and mounted with black paper corners in worn leatherette albums, all of which I lovingly looked at and committed to memory every time I visited my parents, I had not seen most of these transparencies since High School. The family Kodak Carousel slide projector was long out of commission, and so the slides lay entombed in their boxes for years, dust-free but forgotten.

Sally Edelstein, July 4th, 1962

As I held one cardboard slide up to the light of an antique porcelain lamp, I smiled in recognition.

Along with marveling at the deep reds, bright summer greens, and rich blues, so distinctive to Kodachrome, I remembered that flag-waving, earnest little girl decked out in patriotic red, white, and blue, wearing a cardboard Uncle Sam hat courtesy of Woolworths.

That picture from July 4th, 1962, so emblematic of my patriotic roots, had stayed in my mind long after I viewed it. That image would become the inspiration for the recent film I made, “I Am an American.”

Poster for “I Am An American” 2026

In 2018, when I discovered this slide, Donald Trump had only been in office for sixteen months, and the damage he would inflict on our nation was only just beginning. What I did not know, could not know, was the treacherous path our country was headed.

Now, when I look at this digitalized picture of this flag-waving, red, white, and blue idealistic seven-year-old girl who believed in the inherent goodness of America as she lived out her parents post war American suburban dream, it brings me to tears at the state our country is in.

Though the cardboard slides were long forgotten, the day these two photos were taken in my backyard in front of my bedroom window on Independence Day remained as vivid as the saturated Kodachrome colors of the slide.

The Smell of Democracy in the  Air

Every July 4th, our suburban development would be shrouded by the smoke of burning charcoal.

The sizzling smell of democracy was in the air. Besides a parade, nothing was more quintessentially American than a July fourth back yard barbecue.

Like some sacred Old Testament tradition of sacrificing an animal to please the Lord, every Independence Day, a burnt offering of seared flesh was offered up in homage to Uncle Sam. In that confident mid-century soaring bull market, Democracy was as vital to our health as a Delmonico steak.

The American Dream was flourishing and in full bloom

Dress For Success American Style

Just as I did every July 4th, I chose my outfit carefully.

This was not a day for zingy playtime colors. No Jamaica shorts in frisky plaids and saucy stripes or perky pedal pushers and tops with gay appliques. I quickly passed over the bouncy, easy-as-a-sea-breeze nautical numbers and chose the Betsy Ross prescribed red, white, and blue of our flag.

That Wednesday morning in advance of the extended family that would be coming to our backyard barbecue, my mother, Betty, was busy in the kitchen expertly wielding the EKCO red-handled fruit scooper, creating perfect little red balls from a watermelon, while my father, Marvin, was out in the yard cleaning the aluminum charcoal grill and strategically placing small American flags in the flower beds. Surveying his lush green lawn courtesy of the new miracle pesticides, he could be justifiably proud.

By the fall, the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring would burst that bubble.

Accoustic Warfare

It wasn’t long before the competing sounds of the Top 40 could be heard floating over the hydrangeas into our backyard, as all the neighboring teenagers were glued to their transistor radios in their backyards.

Annoyed, Marvin thought it was nothing short of acoustic warfare as rival AM radio stations vied for attention. Yowsah Yowsah – a veritable blitzkrieg of jive-talking riot of boogity-boogity-shoo– babbling DJ’s whoopin’ and hoppin’ and boppin’ exploding whoa, oh, oh, all -Ah-ah-ah- Americans top 40 hits you want to hear bop-shoo-op.

The teens were busy doing their own backyard grilling, which had nothing to do with franks and hamburgers.

Lounging on webbed lawn chairs, they’d be slathering on an oily accelerant like Johnson’s baby oil in hopes of getting a Coppertone tan. Skillfully maneuvering a silver metallic reflector, they hoped to help make those long summer rays burn deeply.

This air assault landed inside the house, too.

While the muted sound of Shelley Fabre plaintively longing for Johnny Angel snuck in through our kitchen screen windows, the honeyed voice of Ella Fitzgerald, courtesy of WNEW’s “Make Believe Ballroom,” filled our house. The cream Bakelite GE table top radio was always on in the kitchen when Betty was cooking.

Burger King

As the Big Band sounds of her teen years filled the kitchen, Betty was busily preparing the hamburgers for the grill, slapping the ground chuck into patties like she was Gene Krupa on the drums.

As head of the barbecue Brigade, Dad was the burger King.

Wielding his Big Boy tongs, his burgers were not the wimpy, buy ‘em by the sackful square cut steamed beneath a blanket of onions or the twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun kinds of burgers.

Those Golden Arches, the stuff of California dreamin, had yet to embark on their scorched earth campaign across the country.

Dad’s burgers were unwieldy mounds of ground fatty chuck cooked like a cowboy ’round the open fire, tamed with a spatula, then left to sizzle in peace.

Independence Day Speech

President John Kennedy at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1962

I wandered into the kitchen,  grabbing a Dipsy Doodle that lay in a melamine bowl on the Formica counter as  Mom finished up the last of the burgers.  Suddenly, she looked up at the clock and quickly moved the dial on the radio to CBS News.

In an instant, the warm, smooth voice of Rosemary Clooney was replaced by a now familiar Bostonian one.

Because it was July 4th, President Kennedy was speaking live to the public on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

His slightly nasal voice floated from the radio with a calm, educated authority, unmistakably New England; it was a voice that carried authority without raising its volume.

Confidently, he praised the American democratic system, which he said encouraged differences and dissent.  He offered inspiration when he spoke of the enduring relevance of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Pausing as he often did to emphasize important ideas, he addressed the beneficial partnership between the U.S. and the emerging unified Europe.

These were American values we cherished.

On that sunny, cloudless July 4th, America stood at the height of confidence, waving our flag and celebrating its ideals with genuine pride.

We believed in ourselves.

We believed in our future.

We believed in America.

No country so new and shiny could ever tarnish.

The Photograph That Started The Question

Sally Edelstein, July 4th 1962

Before the company arrived, Mom wanted to make certain that my father took a photo of me decked out in my red, white, and blue stars and stripes.

“Uncle Sam’s niece,” he jokingly called me.

Unlike my own Brownie Starlet camera, Dad’s more sophisticated Kodak Pony could take slides using Kodachrome 25 film, giving pictures rich, saturated color. It also offered an extravagant thirty-six exposures, unlike the measly twelve black and white shots I was used to.

Dad always counted frames, checking the small dial to see how many numbers were left. There was little room for error. Film and processing were expensive, so shots were chosen carefully. Every frame had value.

He would snap just two shots of me, the second one “taken just in case,” both of which we would not see until he finished the roll of film.

Several seasons could be captured in one tiny roll of film, and, likely, I didn’t see these July 4th pictures until way past Thanksgiving. Which meant, along with photos of my March birthday party and my flag-waving Uncle Sam get-up, the roll of film would include my Halloween outfit that year when I  dressed as Nikita Khruschev.

Less than a week after the crisis that brought the world to the very brink of nuclear destruction, my parents thought it a hoot to masquerade their children trick or treating as the culprits of that Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. My older brother Andy had first dibs on choosing masks, and he immediately claimed bearded Castro as his own.

Smile

Sally Edelstein, July 4th 1962

I waited patiently as my father adjusted his camera. With slides, there was no negative from which to make a better print later. The slide itself was the finished image. Exposure had to be accurate, and Marvin knew mistakes would be obvious on a projector screen.

Placing the Uncle Sam hat on my head and holding the flag, I stood still in front of my bedroom window,  tall and proud of being an American.

“Smile, Sally! Say cheese!”

Click.

Photographs were not just records of life—they were carefully chosen evidence of the life a family wanted to remember. Every click was a decision about what deserved to become memory and, just as importantly, what would remain unseen.

A  portrait of a patriot deserved to be seen.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

When I was cleaning out my parents’ Long Island home a few years ago in advance of selling the 1955 shingled ranch house I grew up in, long-lost remnants of my otherwise well-documented childhood appeared as though hidden in a vault.

In a cluttered front hall closet nestled in between unopened packages of Sylvania flash cubes and tiny tin cans of Zippo lighter fluid, lined up in a row like soldiers prepared to do battle in barbecues and table lighters, were dozens of yellow cardboard boxes filled with slides.

Unlike the hundreds of multi-generational family photos stuffed haphazardly in clasp-closure manila envelopes, faded Welcome Wagon folders, and mounted with black paper corners in worn leatherette albums, all of which I lovingly looked at and committed to memory every time I visited my parents, I had not seen most of these transparencies since High School. The family Kodak Carousel slide projector was long out of commission, and so the slides lay entombed in their boxes for years, dust-free but forgotten.

Sally Edelstein, July 4th, 1962

As I held one cardboard slide up to the light of an antique porcelain lamp, I smiled in recognition.

Along with marveling at the deep reds, bright summer greens, and rich blues, so distinctive to Kodachrome, I remembered that flag-waving, earnest little girl decked out in patriotic red, white, and blue, wearing a cardboard Uncle Sam hat courtesy of Woolworths.

That picture from July 4th, 1962, so emblematic of my patriotic roots, had stayed in my mind long after I viewed it. That image would become the inspiration for the recent film I made, “I Am an American.”

Poster for “I Am An American” 2026

In 2018, when I discovered this slide, Donald Trump had only been in office for sixteen months, and the damage he would inflict on our nation was only just beginning. What I did not know, could not know, was the treacherous path our country was headed.

Now, when I look at this digitalized picture of this flag-waving, red, white, and blue idealistic seven-year-old girl who believed in the inherent goodness of America as she lived out her parents post war American suburban dream, it brings me to tears at the state our country is in.

Though the cardboard slides were long forgotten, the day these two photos were taken in my backyard in front of my bedroom window on Independence Day remained as vivid as the saturated Kodachrome colors of the slide.

The Smell of Democracy in the  Air

Every July 4th, our suburban development would be shrouded by the smoke of burning charcoal.

The sizzling smell of democracy was in the air. Besides a parade, nothing was more quintessentially American than a July fourth back yard barbecue.

Like some sacred Old Testament tradition of sacrificing an animal to please the Lord, every Independence Day, a burnt offering of seared flesh was offered up in homage to Uncle Sam. In that confident mid-century soaring bull market, Democracy was as vital to our health as a Delmonico steak.

Americans were feeling triumphant.

Proud of their country, we were the envy of the world. Though the Cold War was heating up, creating an undertone of anxiety, in early July, the mood was upbeat.

The American Dream was flourishing and in full bloom.

In February, First Lady Jackie Kennedy gave a televised tour of The White House, Our House, lovingly restored, not gilded in his likeness.

John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth in February 1962

James Meredith is escorted by U.S. Marshals into the University of Mississippi after he is the first African American to be enrolled in previously all white Ol’ Miss in October 1962

Our young president, who had been in office eighteen months, was steering us into a thrilling New Frontier, making good on America’s promises to always move forward.

In February, John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, and JFK would commit us to going to the moon by the end of the decade.

We were trying to right our wrongs by finally integrating universities and ending decades of segregation in the South.

The nation was transforming.

No country so new and shiny could ever tarnish.

Yet, unimaginable tragedies loomed in the very near future.

Marilyn Monroe’s last interview, July 4, 1962 Photo: Allan Grant

Marilyn Monroe would be dead in exactly a month. But on this day in Los Angeles, she would give her last interview for Life Magazine. In three months, the Cuban Missile Crisis would bring us terrifyingly to the brink of a nuclear confrontation.

However, on that sunny, cloudless July 4th, America stood at the height of confidence, waving our flag and celebrating its ideals with genuine pride.

We believed in ourselves.

We believed in our future.

We believed in America.

Dress For Success American Style

Just as I did every July 4th, I chose my outfit carefully.

This was not a day for zingy playtime colors. No Jamaica shorts in frisky plaids and saucy stripes or perky pedal pushers and tops with gay appliques. I quickly passed over the bouncy, easy-as-a-sea-breeze nautical numbers and chose the Betsy Ross prescribed red, white, and blue of our flag.

That Wednesday morning in advance of the extended family that would be coming to our backyard barbecue, my mother, Betty, was busy in the kitchen expertly wielding the EKCO red-handled fruit scooper, creating perfect little red balls from a watermelon, while my father, Marvin, was out in the yard cleaning the aluminum charcoal grill and strategically placing small American flags in the flower beds. Surveying his lush green lawn courtesy of the new miracle pesticides, he could be justifiably proud.

By the fall, the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring would burst that bubble.

Accoustic Warfare

It wasn’t long before the competing sounds of the Top 40 could be heard floating over the hydrangeas into our backyard, as all the neighboring teenagers were glued to their transistor radios in their backyards.

Annoyed, Marvin thought it was nothing short of acoustic warfare as rival AM radio stations vied for attention. Yowsah Yowsah – a veritable blitzkrieg of jive-talking riot of boogity-boogity-shoo– babbling DJ’s whoopin’ and hoppin’ and boppin’ exploding whoa, oh, oh, all -Ah-ah-ah- Americans top 40 hits you want to hear bop-shoo-op.

The teens were busy doing their own backyard grilling, which had nothing to do with franks and hamburgers.

Lounging on webbed lawn chairs, they’d be slathering on an oily accelerant like Johnson’s baby oil in hopes of getting a Coppertone tan. Skillfully maneuvering a silver metallic reflector, they hoped to help make those long summer rays burn deeply.

This air assault landed inside the house, too.

While the muted sound of Shelley Fabre plaintively longing for Johnny Angel snuck in through our kitchen screen windows, the honeyed voice of Ella Fitzgerald, courtesy of WNEW’s “Make Believe Ballroom,” filled our house. The cream Bakelite GE table top radio was always on in the kitchen when Betty was cooking.

Burger King

As the Big Band sounds of her teen years filled the kitchen, Betty was busily preparing the hamburgers for the grill, slapping the ground chuck into patties like she was Gene Krupa on the drums.

As head of the barbecue Brigade, Dad was the burger King.

Wielding his Big Boy tongs, his burgers were not the wimpy, buy ‘em by the sackful square cut steamed beneath a blanket of onions or the twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun kinds of burgers.

Those Golden Arches, the stuff of California dreamin, had yet to embark on their scorched earth campaign across the country.

Dad’s burgers were unwieldy mounds of ground fatty chuck cooked like a cowboy ’round the open fire, tamed with a spatula, then left to sizzle in peace.

Independence Day Speech

President John Kennedy at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1962

I wandered into the kitchen,  grabbing a Dipsy Doodle that lay in a melamine bowl on the Formica counter as  Mom finished up the last of the burgers.  Suddenly, she looked up at the clock and quickly moved the dial on the radio to CBS News.

In an instant, the warm, smooth voice of Rosemary Clooney was replaced by a now familiar Bostonian one.

Because it was July 4th, President Kennedy was speaking live to the public on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

His slightly nasal voice floated from the radio with a calm, educated authority, unmistakably New England; it was a voice that carried authority without raising its volume.

Confidently, he praised the American democratic system, which he said encouraged differences and dissent.  He offered inspiration when he spoke of the enduring relevance of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Pausing as he often did to emphasize important ideas, he addressed the beneficial partnership between the U.S. and the emerging unified Europe.

These were American values we cherished.

Photo  Op

Sally Edelstein, July 4th 1962

Before the company arrived, Mom wanted to make certain that my father took a photo of me decked out in my red, white, and blue stars and stripes.

“Uncle Sam’s niece,” he jokingly called me.

Unlike my own Brownie Starlet camera, Dad’s more sophisticated Kodak Pony could take slides using Kodachrome 25 film, giving pictures rich, saturated color. It also offered an extravagant thirty-six exposures, unlike the measly twelve black and white shots I was used to.

Dad always counted frames, checking the small dial to see how many numbers were left. There was little room for error. Film and processing were expensive, so shots were chosen carefully. Every frame had value.

He would snap just two shots of me, the second one “taken just in case,” both of which we would not see until he finished the roll of film.

Several seasons could be captured in one tiny roll of film, and, likely, I didn’t see these July 4th pictures until way past Thanksgiving. Which meant, along with photos of my March birthday party and my flag-waving Uncle Sam get-up, the roll of film would include my Halloween outfit that year when I  dressed as Nikita Khruschev.

Less than a week after the crisis that brought the world to the very brink of nuclear destruction, my parents thought it a hoot to masquerade their children trick or treating as the culprits of that Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. My older brother Andy had first dibs on choosing masks, and he immediately claimed bearded Castro as his own.

Smile

Sally Edelstein, July 4th 1962

I waited patiently as my father adjusted his camera. With slides, there was no negative from which to make a better print later. The slide itself was the finished image. Exposure had to be accurate, and Marvin knew mistakes would be obvious on a projector screen.

Placing the Uncle Sam hat on my head and holding the flag, I stood still in front of my bedroom window,  tall and proud of being an American.

“Smile, Sally! Say cheese!”

Click.

Photographs were not just records of life—they were carefully chosen evidence of the life a family wanted to remember. Every click was a decision about what deserved to become memory and, just as importantly, what would remain unseen.

A  portrait of a patriot deserved to be seen.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Sixty-one years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law as an amendment to the Social Security Act.

Two years ago, President Trump promised that he would “never let anyone touch your Medicare.”

Yesterday, this Administration announced dramatic cuts to Medicare, spiking prescription drug costs for up to 25 million seniors.

That’s some lousy anniversary present!

Not to mention a horrific betrayal.

The road to get these public health insurance laws on the books was a long and rocky one, but it is one of America’s crowning achievements.

On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson traveled to the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, to sign Medicare into law.

The location was very deliberate. It drew attention to the 20 years it had taken Congress to enact government health insurance for senior citizens after Harry Truman had proposed it.

As it had been for decades, it was a tough fight down to the wire. A look back is instructive, not only to show how long it can take to move a legislative dream to reality but also to illustrate how a president with a grasp of history and knowledge of how government works is crucial to making success possible.

In 1935, when President Franklin Roosevelt first tried and failed to get health insurance included as part of Social Security, Republicans, conservative Democrats, and the American Medical Association (AMA) were winning their fight to sink President Roosevelt’s proposal for health insurance. Congress was intimidated, and in August 1935, FDR gave up, signing the Social Security Act without health coverage.

Eight years later, in the midst of World War II, he once again called for social insurance “that will extend from the cradle to the grave.” And again, his proposal went nowhere.

On FDR’s death, Harry Truman became president. In his 1948 Message to Congress on the State of the Union, he said:

“Healthy citizens constitute our greatest national resource. In time of peace, as in time of war, our ultimate strength stems from the vigor of our people. ”

“This great nation cannot afford to allow its citizens to suffer needlessly from the lack of proper medical care. Our ultimate aim must be a comprehensive insurance system to protect all our people equally against insecurity and ill health.”

Congress still refused to budge.

Running for election in his own right that year, and trailing behind in the polls, Truman won an upset victory after demanding that healthcare insurance and civil rights be included in the Democratic Party platform.

That same year, Congressman Lyndon Johnson of Texas, whose home district was Democratic and liberal in a state turning increasingly Republican and conservative, was running for election to the US Senate.

He opposed Truman’s health care plan as socialistic and was elected. Socialized medicine or anything that even looked or smelled like socialized medicine gave members of Congress a chill.

I Like Ike. I Don’t Like Socialized Medicine

During Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, Congress enacted the Kerr-Mills bill for cases of “medical indigency” to cover elderly individuals who needed help with their medical bills but who failed to qualify for welfare in their states. But reformers regarded Kerr-Mills as inadequate, given the rising number of elderly and the rising cost of hospital care.

It went nowhere.

Medicare Stalls Again

In 1961 President John F. Kennedy made Medicare a legislative priority and chose Clinton Anderson of New Mexico to manage his bill.

Though public opinion polls suggested strong support for the bill, Anderson faced powerful opponents, including the House Ways and Means chairman, the American Medical Association, and Senate Finance Committee chairman Harry Byrd of Virginia. The bill’s opponents prevailed, narrowly defeating the bill in 1962.

Again

It was reintroduced in 1963, and following Kennedy’s assassination, Anderson worked painstakingly to build solid, bipartisan Senate support.

Lyndon Johnson’s big win in the 1964 presidential contest increased support for these programs. Johnson coaxed, cajoled, badgered, buttonholed, and maneuvered Congress into enacting Medicare for the aging and Medicaid to help low-income people.

Finally, 62 years ago, on the morning of July 30, 1965. President Johnson loaded up two planeloads of dignitaries and headed toward Independence, Missouri, the hometown of former President Harry Truman.

He intended to sign the bill at the side of the man whose original proposal LBJ had dismissed as socialism. Now he revered Truman as “the real daddy of Medicare.”

At the bill-signing ceremony, President Johnson enrolled President Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card. This is President Truman’s application for the optional Part B medical care coverage, which President Johnson signed as a witness.

After signing the bill, Lyndon Johnson turned to Harry Truman and signed him up as Medicare’s first beneficiary. It was high drama, touched with history, politics, sentimentality, showmanship, and compromise.

Another witch hunt in Congress.

Watching a dedicated public servant like Dr Anthony Fauci being raked over the coals by ignorant, repugnant Republicans is repulsive.
And a disgrace.

A rabid Rand Paul is in a frenzy in his attacks.

Emboldened by anti-vaxxers who view science and facts as evil. Covering their eyes in fear, they choose not to see, they choose not to hear, they speak no evil, which to them is science.

Dr Fauci, who helped lead the US response during the COVID-19 epidemic in the dark, delusional days of  Donald Trump’s first term, invoked the Fifth Amendment amid plans to testify before the Senate committee and will refrain from answering.

Anthony Fauci is a hero in my house, whose tableau watches over me every time I wash my hands.

I’d like to wash my hands of all these science deniers and revenge-filled Republicans.

In 1926, while flaming youth roared and thousands mourned the death of Rudolph Valentino, my grandparents, Sadie and Arthur Joseph, were overjoyed at the birth of their second daughter, Betty Francine, my mother.

Always a joyous Bastille Day Birthday, this jazz age baby would have turned 100 today.

This sepia-toned photograph and the baby it documents are now a century old. Mounted on thick cream colored board, and embossed in gold on the back is the name of the photography studio: B. Bloch 543 Fulton Street, Brooklyn.

Today, holding this well-preserved one-hundred-year-old picture in my hands, a whole story unfolds in my mind of the day this photo of my future mother, Betty, was taken.

Unlike today’s iphones when we can effortlessly capture every nuance of a baby’s life, a formal baby portrait was a special occasion. And it required patience.

Mr B. Bloch knew when to release the shutter.

A Baby is Born

In July of 1926, while mother and newborn baby were rooming together at Mt Sinai Hospital in New York for the standard 14-day maternity stay, her husband, my grandfather Arthur, got down to practical business.

Making an appointment for Betty’s official baby portrait.

An amateur shutterbug, Arthur wanted the best for Betty, and B. Bloch was the man.  This popular, well-established studio in the heart of downtown Brooklyn had been well respected since the late 19th century and was often booked months in advance. Arthur made the appointment for late autumn.

The studio located on bustling Fulton street Brooklyn, not far from A&S Department Store is already alive by 10 o’clock that November morning when the Josephs arrived in a taxi from their home in Crown Heights. The electric trolley cars were clanging their bells, the autos honking,  the elevated train rumbling overhead, its steel wheels producing a familiar metallic roar.

After walking up a flight of polished wood stairs, they stop at the frosted glass doors with the Bloch name in elegant gold script.

In the well-appointed waiting room, decorated with Persian rugs and dark oak wainscoting, the family settles into the soft upholstered chairs with carved walnut arms.

Adjacent to them stands a large mahogany cabinet displaying dozens of mounted portraits and silver trophies from photographic exhibitions.  Sadie scans the cream-colored walls filled with dozens of framed pictures, all beautifully lit, of young women graduating from Erasmus Hall High School,  soldiers from the Great War, college graduates, and a bride holding lilies.

It could be Betty’s future laid out in photos.

Mr B Bloch

Mr. B Bloch, a distinguished gentleman wearing round spectacles, his gray hair carefully brilliantined, comes out to greet them, ushering the family into the studio.

The portrait studio is astonishingly bright. A skylight spans much of the ceiling, and the daylight is soft and slanting. Electric Mazda incandescent studio lamps stand at the ready.

It is hard to tell who was more captivated by the sights, baby Betty or her father Arthur.

My grandfather’s eyes light up, immediately drawn to the camera that dominates the room. An enormous 8x 10 Eastman view camera of polished mahogany mounted on a heavy Century Studio Stand. Brass controls gleam in the light, and the enormous bellows extend nearly two feet.

Arthur silently notices the simple backdrops now considered sophisticated. Unlike earlier baby portraits, there are no elaborate props like painted gardens, lace curtains, painted castles, or sentimental accessories. Everything is understated, with simple textured backdrops.

The photographer wanted the viewer’s attention on the subject herself.  Nothing should compete with the baby.

Baby Betty Is Ready For Her Close Up

Betty was dressed simply, no bonnet, no lace, or oversized ribbons, and was seated on a wicker chair, intended for babies and toddlers. Plopped down, she sits on an enormous cushion overstuffed so the baby would sink ever so slightly, preventing her from sliding forward.

The photographer waits until she is settled naturally, rather than in a forced pose.

Very few babies smiled in photographs before the 1930s because exposures still required some stillness. Instead, Betty is looking calm and curious, almost evaluating the photographer. There is a dignity in that expression, and she is treated almost like an adult sitter.

The photographer recognized it. Instead of making her laugh, he photographed her exactly as she was.

It was all about waiting. Nothing happens quickly.  Photography in 1926 is an act of observation rather than capture.

A Moment Captured For a Century

My future mother Betty 1926

Bloch watches her for several minutes before even uncovering the camera. The room is warm from the steam radiator that hisses softly as steam cycles through the pipes.

Then Mr Bloch disappears beneath the black cloth, studies the upside-down image while you hear only his voice from inside.

He slides a film holder onto the back of the camera. Removes the dark slide. There is a pause everyone is silent for perhaps 3 seconds.

Betty’s eyes drift toward the camera lens. For one brief moment, she looks directly into the camera. Not smiling, simply curious.  Observant. It is an expression impossible to manufacture and an expression I would recognize in my life with her. Bloch gently squeezes the rubber bulb attached to the shutter release.

A nearly inaudible click.

One eighth of a second and a lifetime preserved. To be held in her daughter’s hand a century later. Shared on the internet in one hundred years.

Bloch smiles with the satisfaction of experience.  “I believe,” he says, sliding the film holder from the camera, “your daughter just made a very fine portrait.”

Afterwards, there is no instant result, no preview. The negative disappears into the darkroom. Nothing can be seen yet. My grandparents trust the photographer’s confidence.

Before they leave, Mr. Bloch shows them samples of embossed presentation folders and mounted prints. They order several prints for grandparents and aunts. The order is carefully handwritten into the ledger. The finished photograph will be ready in about 10 days.

A Moment in Time

The picture captures a child born into the optimism of 1926. The portrait is more than a family keepsake; it stands at the threshold of an era.

Smack dab in the middle of the roaring twenties, eight years had passed since the end of the Great War, and Americans were ready for fun. Our president, Silent Cal was keeping mum as the economy skyrocketed. Consuming goods as never before, folks were running down to Florida in get-rich-quick schemes, while Miss Texas Guineas, the boop-boop-de-doop speakeasy girl, beckoned us “to live it up.”

Now, looking back a century later, we know the history that lies ahead. That Betty does not. That quiet, direct gaze embodies the innocence of a moment before the upheavals that would shape the rest of the twentieth century.

In retrospect, knowing the upheavals that would follow, the Great Depression, another World War, and the Cold War, the moment becomes poignant.

Inside the studio, time has briefly stood still.

A few seconds of light were fixed onto a sheet of film, preserving not only the likeness of my future mother, Betty, but also a family’s confidence in the future, their faith in the American promise.

I cherish this picture as I cherish my mother. Today and always.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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