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.

[Miss Didi]

That whole macrame thing (vests, belts, plant hangers) was so ugly--what were we thinking? I guess it was groovy in a hippy sort of way.

[A Citizen Reporter]

I sewed a fake fur bunny costume for my little sister one Halloween. I was much happier sewing Halloween costumes, because whenever I sewed an ensemble for myself, I was too sick of looking at it to enjoy wearing it!

[bannie]

I still love my Frito casserole recipe...and sweet and sour meatballs.

I guess high school wasn't a complete waste...even if it was in public schools! :-)

[Howlin]

I hated the day we had to wear them to school.

I was horrible, just horrible. Still can't sew!

[MHT]

Carnaby Street and miniskirts made a great impact upon style, and that look was basically in the mainstream by fall of 1967. I think that the appearance of the women is most telling. The underclassmen girls seemed more innocent in those early 60's but the seniors looked like they were ready for adult life. By 1968, the lines are more blurred--the underclassmen females have a more knowing look while the senior girls don't look as old as earlier seniors. Boys' hair length varied greatly according to the region of the country in which they lived but females, probably because they were more influenced by national media like Seventeen magazine, seem more consistent across the country. Without question, things began rolling in 1964, pivoted socially in 1967 and politically in 1968. (As an aside, panty hose [which were de rigeur because of the brevity of miniskirts] probably did as much to accelerate the sexual revolution as the pill. Suddenly disrobing was not a process and this was further sped up by bralessness.)

[Professional Engineer]

That's right...the MOON WALK! The REAL one.

Me looking at a real Apollo 11 Moon Rock in 1970.

[bannie]

What a picture!!!!!! You're so fortunate to have that!!!

BTW: I graduated from high school that year, you puppy!

:-)

[Not now, Not ever!]

Dick Dale and the deltones, the Studebaker Avanti, wake-a- thons, walk-a-thons. AM radio disc jockeys.

[Howlin]

OH, that is so cute!

[BunnySlippers]

you must be a man.

[SnarlinCubBear]

Graduated from HS 1965, married same year. First child in 1967, 2nd in 1969.

Read about VietNam in Time magazine and wondered what it all meant. Not being in college, I missed the wild child revolution and drugs. Went to church a lot, and had fun.

Hubby was not on top of the draft pick list because he was a student in a Bible college.

Early 60's were wonderful. Great music, good life style. The Beatles came, changed the music and did drugs and ruined it all.

I turned off the radio and enjoyed the church music.

Really, missed the 60's.

[Rte66]

I just want to say a big

to the 1960s veterans (and some spouses and support) on this thread!

Tax-chick's dad
USMCVet
lapdog
brazzaville/Michael Frazier
Al Gator
stumpy
Stashiu
antisocial
ExtremeUnction
Nam Vet
bert
PSYCHO-FREEP
BIGLOOK
alice_in_bubbaland's hubby
Zman516
Don Carlos

Apologies if I overlooked anyone - I just made notes as I was reading the posts!

[lndrvr1972]

And you had to get up to change the channels. I know in my house it was that way until 1984.

[daler]

My fondest memory of the '60s was the Polaroid "Swinger" camera.

And Bonanza on Sunday nights was in color.

[R_Kangel]

Ah Yes, The sixties.

I was a teen in the sixties and it is my belief that if all of the laws and so-called rights of today were enforced back then, the entire decade would have come to a screeching halt!

If anyone today gets offended, the entire country is forced to change it's horrible offending ways.

There was a famous quote made by the famous philosopher Mr. Spock (and no I am not a trekie) in the movie "The Wrath of Khan" that went something like: "The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few," which I have found throughout the years following that this simple statement of logic and wisdom actually holds true in life. However in todays self aggrandizing world it has actually been reversed and has pretty much become the law of the land in as much as it seems that all that matters today is that "The needs of the few, Outweigh the needs of the many."

Oh what a broken world we live in.

[BIGLOOK]

USAFSS?

[Loud Mime]

You're right!

Other observation: When I was in High School we kept hearing about former classmates dying or being injured in Viet Nam. I kept thinking "I'm graduating into this crap?"

[FreedomCalls]

Do you remember watching the Red Skelton Hour on Tuesday night January 14th, 1969? He explained the Pledge of Allegiance. It was a huge hit. Shortly thereafter, I remember getting it on a record embossed on a piece of cardboard from a cereal box. The quality was poor but it was audible.

Here's a site with a transcript and both wma and mp3 versions.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/redskeltonpledgeofallegiance.htm

[rimtop56]

Wow, it was very similar for me. Even when they started allowing girls to wear pants to school, I just almost couldn't.

Re: the sixties, looking back, everyone was so poor compared to today. I've often wondered if it was because of how relatively recently WWII had ended. When I think back on the homes of people who were considered relatively well off, they hardly had anything compared to now.

WWII was still big in the 60s. In the early 60s, they always played war movies on TV and at the movies. We went for a long time without a TV in my house. Well, we had a huge one that didn't work. Those big ones, called "consoles," were made to look like pieces of furniture, about 5-6 feet long, nearly 3 feet high, with ornate woodwork on the front. In the early 60s, before the hippies came into being, beatniks were the people who thought they were cool and that everyone else was "square." I admit I only saw them on TV. They would act very angry and intense, recite bad poetry in coffeehouses, and wear pedal-pushers (the girls) and turtlenecks (the guys). Pipes were in and considered cool. After the poem or other intense performance was finished, the audience members would snap their fingers instead of clap.

Of course, real life was not like that at all. Life was still pretty straight for most people. Toward the later part of the decade, the beatniks were replaced by protesters angry against the Vietnam War. I was a kid during the 60s, and I remember that every day on the radio they would announce how many Viet Cong had been killed versus how many U.S. soldiers had been killed. Somehow, there were always about three times as many of them killed versus us. There were lots of riots, too, by these angry types. Being a kid, I just thought that's the way life was, i.e. wars and riots.

Even though people on TV and in magazines would talk about liberation from old-fashioned values, real life was still straight for most people, as I said earlier. At least most everyone I knew. There was usually one or two "bad" girls and wild boys, but they were considered out of the mainstream and not acceptable.

[Syncro]

Most people got up to change the channel on their TV's.

That's what caused the baby boom.

People had kids so someone could change the channel for them.

The reproduction rate has gone down considerably since the invention of the remote control.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!