The ‘60’s was a great time to be living in Southern California. Sure, there was too much smog, but we lived in the world’s hottest economy.
It certainly didn’t hurt that the state and the region was run by conservatives for much of the decade. In 1961 Angelenos chose Sam Yorty, a conservative Democrat, for mayor, and in 1966, we put Ronald Reagan in the state house. In ‘64, we also rejected a Kennedy man, Pierre Salinger, and elected George Murphy, a solid conservative, to the US Senate. Our public schools, presided over by Superintendent of Public Instruction Max Rafferty, another hard-core conservative, were among the finest in the world.
Today, that seems like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
I saw a documentary, I think it was about the Zodiac killer, where they interviewed a detective who had worked the Zodiac case back in 1969.
He said something like "in '67, you were supposed to come to San Francisco with flowers in your hair, but by '69, you would have been wise to also be carrying a revolver."