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.

[Arizona Carolyn]

I graduated in 1963, too... there was drugs in our school, something called yellow jackets, reds, etc.. to this day I couldn't tell you what they were, a girl in my class died from an overdose my Sophomore year....

[Rte66]

Remember when KLIF had the "window on the world" where you could go down on Commerce Street and see the DJ's up there spinning records? We could write requests on big cards and they'd play them and do chatter with us down on the street between songs. I think that went on all night.

I was later in film school at SMU and a bunch of my classmates were DJs there, so we hung out a lot. I was even a stringer radio correspondent for them (McClendon) for a while, then TV - UHF Ch. 39 there.

There was a dirty joke that was started by one of my broadcast friends - he also DJ'ed down here in Houston on alternate weekends - at KILT. He, ummm, sometimes was tired and ummm, got his station call letters mixed up both in Dallas and Houston. *gulp*

[BIGLOOK]

Spent more than 2 years over there, didn't receive a letter for the last 18 months. A lot had to do with the situation that was occurring in the States. Got a packet of letters sent to me while back home months after I'd returned. All forwarded to home of record.

I was aware of the USO's efforts but they were overwhelmed and calls couldn't be coordinated. The Red Cross was for emergencies only.

[svcw]

We could not watch that or Bewitched..the occult you know. My parents what dweebs.

[Arizona Carolyn]

I think you have to look at the 60's as pre and after Kennedy was assinated. Pre was really a continuation of the late 50's and it was a great time to grow up, the music was good, families were really familes back then, most women were still staying home with their families (though my mother did work)... we were still more puritanical about sex and every teen wasn't doing it....

After Kennedy was killed the country seemed to reel under the shock of a President being murdered and our being able to see it on television. I don't think it mattered if you liked him or not, the shock permeated out country and it seems that is really when the hippy revolution got into full swing and the Vietnam War started heating up...

Music changed from the happy Motown sound to a different sound all wrapped around what was changing in the country.... I'd say the beginning of the 60's started out hopeful and the end of the 60's the anti-war generation was realling pulling us down, down, down....

[Rte66]

*Tell her I'll never lay her again ... I said a Louie Louie, oh, baby ... we gotta go now .. aye - yi - yi -yi.*

I think it was that one.

[Rte66]

What is that? An Isetta station wagon, lol?

[Liberty Valance]

[USMCVet]

About a tenth of us went to war for our country and most of the remainder launched into a mindless free-for-all of self-indulgence.

"Wow, that's quite a broad brush you're painting with."

Really? What did you think the perspective of those of us that went to war would be?

We had a coupla million good young men go risk their lives halfway around the world while everybody else just had a great 'ol time - we had some get deferments so they could make somebody else take their place in combat - we had others lie and whine and run off to Canada - and others yet decide they really did prefer the enemy and carried VC/NVA flags in the streets..

Not exactly a morale-booster, lemme tell ya!

I was deeply proud of all of those that did serve during the war and don't have any time at all for those that could've but didn't.

Every man has about one chance to see what they're really made of - and I got to see first hand that a whole bunch of our generation were about as manly as toilet paper.

A broad enough brush for you?

[Rte66]

Toni Fisher, more cry in her voice than Brenda Lee, even!

[Rte66]

It's gone!

[Rte66]

And Señor Wences. I wasn't a fan of the little mouse - coudn't understand him!

[gcruse]

"There was a dirty joke that was started by one of my broadcast friends - he also DJ'ed down here in Houston on alternate weekends - at KILT."

I saw a billboard in Orange, California once for a radio station that called itself K-Lite. It took me just a moment to realize why they opted for a five letter call sign, but as far as I know, it never occurred to anyone else.

[BIGLOOK]

Stay frosty, Marine!

[Mjaye]

Contrary to popular belief that it's possible, I graduated in the mid-60's without doing a single illegal drug (did smoke some and drink once or twice, though). Still haven't done any illegal drugs, including pot. I thought the whole hippie/love generation thing was bizarre, and my only conceding to it was going to a couple of coffee houses in So. Calif. where I grew up.

My very middle class neighborhood was more Ozzie and Harriet/Beaver Cleaver than not, and families mostly did eat together, in the same room, no less. The music was excellent, and girls got their skirt lengths measured by the VP at the Jr. High to make sure the hem lengths were modest enough.

I only knew of two girls who got pregnant, one married the guy in her senior year and the other was in Jr. high and sort of disappeared from the area. Nobody I knew ever spoke of an abortion, and anybody having sex sweated bullets over the responsibilities they expected to take if they got "caught".

I clearly recall the JFK assassination, terrible day, kids cried at the HS and many parents came and picked them up after school. The Cuban Missile Crisis was scary as all get out, couldn't have imagined more tension as the incident unfolded.

To me, the sixties were a fork in the road for many of us. Some kids ended up in the war, some went the way of Haight Ashbury, and others, like me, got married relatively early and were busy with family obligations while the love beads were blooming elsewhere. I feel privileged to have grown up at the end of the relatively innocent times, though I do remember worrying a lot over the Russians bombing us (air raid drills, etc.)

[KosmicKitty]

A lot better remembered than lived.

Lots of bad war pictures -friends' big brothers going off to 'nam.

My parents and their friends complaining about the country going down the drain.

Lots of long hair - lots of dirty long hair (though the 70's had bigger hair which was clean)

Lots of narcissism - basically kids thinking that they were just the most wonderful thing ever born & were somehow entitled to feeling special & deserving w/o doing anything but emoting about their "feelings" (thank you Dr. Spock)

The last of the big budget movie musicals (My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins to name a few)

Wishing I was 10 years older so i could have gone to Woodstock (Got over my fascination with hippies by being married to one for 6 years)

[Rte66]

Ooh ooh!

[k omalley]

I was a teenager in the 1960s. Dads went to work everyday while Moms stayed home but there was none of this working sixty hours a week stuff. For the most part, Dads were home shortly after 5 PM.
I was still in public school in 1960. We started each day with the Lord's Prayer and a Bible reading. After that I went to Catholic school so I don't know when they put a stop to that practice.
Divorce was very unusual.
Kids played outside most of the time in all kinds of weather and we were all very skinny.
I was in Catholic school the day Pres. Kennedy was shot. When it was announced on the intercom we all went to our knees and started to pray for him. After that it seems like everything started to change, faster and faster, and definitely not for the better.

[Gritty]

I bought my first gun from Sear Roebuck's when I was 14 for $35.00. It was an 1895 Chilean Mauser and came with 100 rounds of ammo. It's in my safe and still shoots like a dream.

Oh, that is funny!

I bought the exact same rifle in Sears as well, and I was about the same age as you! I already owned another surplus rifle I bought through the mail. It was a 7.35 Italian Carcano - a piece of cr*p I soon realized, so I needed a better rifle if I planned on dropping any deer over 75 yards. ;>)

If I recall correctly, I paid about $15 for the Mauser and they had a dozen or so of them in stock, all very nice condition. They also had other similar surplus rifles at around the same price but I could only afford one, so I picked the Mauser as it was about the cheapest (certainly not the lightest) and it was really solid and in the best condition. It was/is in almost mint condition and sits in my safe today as well. It can shoot better than I can. What a beautifully machined rifle from the 19th Century!

What a great country this used to be before the Kennedy's were murdered and before the Liberal control-freaks took over and turned the normal citizens into namby-pambies and the criminals into kings!

[Miss Didi]

We could not watch that or Bewitched..the occult you know. My parents what dweebs.

My father made my mother throw out a bag of Mary Janes because he wanted "no drugs in the house." He wouldn't believe us that they were only nougat candies.