Tell me about the '60s (vanity)

[HungarianGypsy]

I am wanting to write a story based on a young adult in the 1960s. Since I was born in 1973 all I really know is what I studied in books. But, I want to get beyond love beads and LSD. I want to be able to write this as it really was. I know it's said if you remember the '60s you weren't really there. But, if anyone does remember I would appreciate reading your stories and facts. Thank you.

[linda_22003]

Charles Whitman at the University of Texas. I lived in a college town in Pennsylvania, and a new girl in class the next year had a father who had been walking across the campus when Whitman opened fire. He wasn't injured, but the pipe he was smoking was shot out of his mouth.

[Rte66]

Gloria was a gator song! On the floor!

[sionnsar]

"Dock of the Bay"

Steel Rail Blues.

The Beatles with their sissy long hair.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

"The Burger King wasn't gay."

Which reminds me, in the 60's "gay" meant happy.

[linda_22003]

"....and there was music everywhere"

A line from a song, in itself. It's true. There was swingin', and swayin', and record playin', and dancing in the street.

[4yearlurker]

I remember the girls walking home from school in a gang, each with a transistor radio with a little ear plug tuned to WFIL radio (Famous 56) and they all were singing "Build Me Up Buttercup."

We walked to school, walked home for a 1/2 hour lunch,and walked back to school again.

After school I would go to Helen"s Deli and buy a half a sub (fifty cents),16 ounce RC cola in a bottle(15 cents),One small bag of potato chips (10 cents), and two comic books at 12 cents each. Add that up and it comes to less than a dollar!

[NathanR]

And no doubt 4F

No. Rather 2S and 1Y. Don't know anyone who got a 4F. (I think that was more WWII)

[surrey]

I was in college, on Long Island, from 64-68 and hippies were VERY rare on campus and made fun of. By the end of 68 things were changing and I was very glad to be gone.

[Miss Didi]

"Dark Shadows", the first (only?) horror soap opera. Barnabas was a vampire.

Oooooh, yes, wasn't that on after school at 4:30?

Also men wore hats, especially to church.

School lunch was 30 cents and milk was three.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

I went to Catholic school and we happened to have the day off. I remember climbing a tree in a neighbors yard when a Mom came running out of the house screaming that the President was shot. The rest of the day all the Mom's & kids gathered on the street to ...cry. I will never forget that day or 9-11 for as long as I live.

[go-dubya-04]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.. No , wait, that was another story :-)
Seriously, I could not have had a better time to be a kid than in the 60's. I was born in Jan of 1959 and I look back at how idyllic growing up was then. You could ride your bike anywhere and not worry about being harmed; seemed like every mother was a stay-at-home Mom so all the kids' houses had fresh baked desserts and homemade sandwiches for luch every day. Little League baseball was very competitive (we kept score and only the best team got a trophy) but parents knew how to behave themselves. I can still remember when the World Series was played during the day and we would listen to it on a transistor radio during lunch and afternoon recess. Our favorite players usually stayed with the same team (baseball, basketball, hockey) for most of their careers, so you could really cheer for the same PLAYERS every year, not just the same team. We were the first people in our neighborhood to get a color TV and a rotary antenna that could better tune in the three networks.
Thanks for helping me think about those days. Good luck with the book!

[HawaiianGecko]

_hg

Needed re-posting.  Most accurate and succinct post in this thread.

Beach Boys on your AM radio.

Top down on your '56 Ford.

Your buds riding around in the day time, and your steady girl in the evening.

Bleeding madras shirts, white Levis, and penny loafers with no socks=the uniform of the day.

Saturday was for detailing your car in the park with the other guys.

Standing up for your little brother when someone picked on him.

Yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am was the way you addressed adults, and no smart mouth either.

Sunday dinner with the family, at the dinner table.

Respect for women, go to the door when you pick her up. Talk to her parents, and be a gentleman, and above all, have her home on time.

Gas was 20 cents a gallon for LEADED regular, but it was still expensive to me cause I only made 35 bucks a week at the drug store. I spent most of that on beer and girls.

When ever you opened a beer you needed a "church key".

Most of all....every thing was an adventure and life was good.

[Fairview]

Most people seldom, if ever, wore seat belts. But cars were built of actual sheet metal back then and were harder to destroy. A lot of teaching in the schools was done by showing "film strips." A diagnosis of cancer meant certain death, sooner or later. Lawrence Welk still had a TV show and my grandparents insisted on watching it on Sunday nights. Even then it made me want to hurl.

2001 seemed a very long way off. The scenes in "2001, A Space Odyssey" in which the dad goes on a quick day-trip to the moon and talks to his little girl on a picture phone seemed both exciting and attainable in short order.

Dick Tracey had a two-way wrist radio, the precursor of cell phones.

In the sixties people who were born in the late nineteenth century were still alive and available to learn from. I'm glad I had that chance and hope I can pass on some of their knowledge to my own children.

[sionnsar]

"Cherish" by The Association making it as a hit.

[GSWarrior]

I can remember when people were allowed to smoke cigarettes in movie theaters.

[Eva]

The sixties, for me, was the last time period, that education was valued, purely for the sake of education. We were told that a liberal arts degree was the epitome of a broad based education that would give you the skills to evaluate problems or issues and come to your own conclusion. I had a far better education in high school than most kids get in college, today.

Oh, and the key word was RESPECT, it was written on the blackboard the first day of school and drummed into us repeatedly, respect for teachers and administrators, respect for each other, and respect for ourselves.

[Carolinamom]

Men used Vitalis ("A little dab will do you" to groom their hair. Handy Hannah was the only brand of hair dryer available and most girls didn't have one.

[bankwalker]

hot chicks hitchhiking everywhere

[Rb ver. 2.0]

I had this one from Sears:

[linda_22003]

"Mom stayed home and made surprise dishes that she read in a magazine."

Sometimes the surprise was more of a shock.

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