Posted on 01/09/2007 9:18:52 AM PST by 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.
I was on Romper Room in 1965
We have a celeb amung us.....
Oh yeah! My mom would send me over to Copp's department store for a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk and I'd have enough money leftover from the dollar she gave me to buy a candy bar or two!
I consider the "beginning of the end of the upside era in American History" (as you so aptly put it) began with LBJ's "Great Society" nonsense.
Ya, my husband got one of those because he had a cyst on his spine. They checked every six months or so to see if he got it removed. He got it removed in 1974 when they stopped calling the draft.
A couple of books will help you understand:
"The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe - test pilots and the development of the space program
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe - Ken Kesey and the San Francisco scene
"The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby" by Tom Wolfe - pop culture
A couple of movies that capture some of it:
"Bedazzled" - Dudley Moore, Peter Cook
"Casino Royale" - David Niven, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers et al
"What's New Pussycat?" - Woody Allen, Peter O'Toole, Peter Sellers et al
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
"Georgy Girl"
"The Party"
"The Pink Panther" and "A Shot In The Dark"
"The Art of Love" - Dick Van Dyke, James Garner
"How to Murder Your Wife" - Jack Lemmon, Terry Thomas
"The Great Race"
"You're A Big Boy Now" - one of Coppola's earliest films
"That Touch Of Mink"
"Breakfast at Tiffany's"
"Candy" - coming of age movie based on novel by Terry Southern; stars John Astin, Ringo Starr, Richard Burton, Marlon Brando, James Coburn
"Our Man Flint" and "In Like Flint" - James Coburn
"Beach Blinket Bingo"
"Ski Party"
"How To Stuff A Wild Bikini"
"Wild In The Streets"
"Monterey Pop"
"Riot on Sunset Strip"
Enjoy!
Neighborhood kids getting together to play ball without adult supervision.
Kids building forts and tree houses in the woods.
Exhilaration of 7th graders playing spin-the-bottle.
Getting whipped for staying out too late.
We always played the Alphabet Game with billboards. My dad made all the rules, though. No highway signs, no playing within city limits, so he could pay attention to driving.
I wonder if he really played. I was always tempted to cheat (because no one knew what letter anyone else was on, you kept it to yourself), but I never did.
The best was always to see a Quaker State Motor Oil sign - and you always did, but usually when you were on about C or D, lol. It was automatically Q-R-S-T-U.
I spent the late '60s in college - at Virginia Military Institute, not exactly Berkeley, SF State, or Stanford in terms of radicalism and hippieness. Gotta tell you living in San Francisco in the Summer of '67 after finishing my Rat year at VMI was quite a contrast -- those were my idealist days -- be a soldier so that people who weren't had the right to be hippies and go turn on, tune in, and drop out if they so chose. Make the disjunct worse: rattling around by myself in a 3 story Victorian in Pacific Heights and hanging in the Hashbury while taking a summer class at USF and generally enjoying myself. I'm sure all that's the source of my present insanity and failure to be fully liberally brainwashed by years of graduate school at UC at the Beach and UCLA.
You're spot on on the huge changes in California between our class '66 and the very next year '67 -- like one day it's American Grafitti and Miss American Pie (I'm sure it was in Santa Maria as it was in the Valley and in the small towns of the North Bay), and the next day everyone's wearing beads, listening to Country Joe & the Fish, and chanting Hare Krishna while pulling the crazy old swami through Golden Gate Park.
Spending the the entire summer day outside with my brother and friends.
Hot summer nights with no air conditioning.
Long, hot drives to see the relatives on summer vacation. No air conditioning.
The wonderful shock of walking into a store that was air conditioned.
Pet turtles.
10 cent comic books - then, they went to 12 cents.
Nickel packages of chewing gum - Beeman's was a favorite.
A long distance call was something dramatic.
Electric buses.
Nobody ever got punched in the face during a playground "fight".
Tree houses.
Worry about Russia.
Gosh awful colors and linoleum in the kitchen.
Only one bathroom in the house.
My Dad went to work. Mom cooked, cleaned, laundered, planned, helped with school, etc. Dad sometimes drank too much on Saturday, but is was okay. Mom picked up the bottles.
Cigarette smoke.
A lot more hats.
People dressed in their "Sunday best" to go to church.
For that matter, many did going to a professional baseball game.
Larger families and hand-me-down clothes.
Party-line telephones. Had to check to see if the line was occupied by someone else.
Gossip (at least at my Minnesota relatives). Ballplayers stayed with the same team. Mays? Giants. Aaron? Braves. Musial? Cards. Mantle? Yankees. Kaline? Tigers. Clemente? Pirates.
Weeds in the lawn. Dandelions everyhere.
A Democratic party that believed somewhat in national defense.
Universal belief in America.
Every hardware store in town sold guns and bullets. So did Sears. So did some auto parts stores. So did whomever wanted to and could afford the investment. They didn't need a Federal license to do it. But you didn't have to buy them unless you wanted to and had the money (or, you might be able to pay a couple of dollars a month on installment and they would hold it for you). You didn't need a license, either. Why would you need that?
High school kids took their rifles to school during hunting season so we could go into the woods immediately after school and not have to go home to get them. Nobody cared as long as you kept them in the coat closet in the back of the classroom. Nobody would consider playing with them, stealing them or shooting somebody with them. Nobody. Why would they do that?
I guess things have changed since the '60s, haven't they?
That was my life!
I graduated high school in 1961 in Dumas, Texas. I remember it well, we had heard rumors of a dangerous drug called reefer, but I don't think anyone in town had ever seen any until about 1965. By then I had been in the US Navy for 2 years and had 2 more to do. I remember my ship got to recover one of the Gemani capsules, pretty interesting. We had tapes sent to us by mail and got to listen to the latest hits (about 3 months late). When MLK got shot the black guys aboard ship started acting kind of mean and sullen. Whatever turbulance that was happening in the USA didn't really affect us for the most part. I do remember being disrespected by some college types in Virginia Beach, but we got that worked out. It did seem to be hard to catch a ride while hitchhiking in my uniform when I went home on leave. It got easier the closer I got to Texas.
Hope that helps you.
The Romper Room lady was much prettier than the "one" I had because I was older - Miss Frances on Ding Dong School. Ugh. Gertrude Stein-looking person.
I pumped gas at 16.9 per gallon, washed windshields, and checked oil. I thanked them when they left. I was 17.
Ahhh, the school cafeteria. Meatloaf Mondays, Hot Dogs on Tuesdays, Spaghetti on Wednesdays (awesome garlic bread), Hamburgers on Thursdays and cardboard Cheese pizza on Fridays (No meat on Fridays). All served with a fresh carton of milk.
Art Linkletter's "House Party." When he would draw somebody's letter to read or win a prize, he had the cutest little dollhouse he kept them in and I always wanted it!
banana-fana-fo-fana
Do you remember a band called the Humbugs?
We all went to North Shore High School, but lived in Sea Cliff, Glen Cove,
Brookville and Glen Head.
That was Brylcreem, not Vitalis
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