I love the oldies myself. The summer of ‘61 was one that is “seared into my memory!”
Same here. As of June 30, 1961, I had spent most of my life in a Los Angeles suburb and had never left the state of California or been more than 400 miles from home.
By the time of the autumnal equinox, I had visited the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park, learned to ride horses in Wyoming, flown in a DC-6 and a DC-8, eaten at Lindy's delecatessen in New York City, ventured outside the country for the first time--a refueling stop in Gander, Newfoundland on the way to Germany--and ridden in a train pulled by a steam locomotive, still widely in use by Germany's state-owned railroad at the time. It would be another year before I returned home.