Thirty-nine years ago on this date, Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency of the United States.

That evening I was at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Minneapolis, watching “Animal Crackers” starring The Marx Brothers.

They stopped the movie to pipe in the audio feed of Nixon’s resignation speech.

The crowd went wild.

They started the movie again. And Groucho sang, “Hello, I Must Be Going.”

The crowd went wild again.

It seemed altogether appropriate.

When I brought my date back home, her father sat sullenly in the family living room. He’d been a big Nixon booster since the late 1950s.

He would not speak to me.