From 1964, with the Beatles and the Beach Boys, through about 1967, with Spanky and Our Gang and the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Then, the nasties started to show up, feasting on all the idealism and naiveté. Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray, Charles Manson, the Zodiac Killer, the Black Panther Party, the Weather Underground... the whole beautiful thing turned into a hateful disaster.
But for a few years...
I guess it was the period of recovery after JFK got shot. Kind of an Indian Summer of our culture.
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.