Sam the Sham Samudio - July 2005
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.
Totally forgot about Mary Janes.
I really think the music was better also. Lying on the beach listening to Elvis wearing the most god-awful yellow swim suit but it did make you look more tan.
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Wasn't there a show called "Honey West"some woman PI with a mole. When they sang the theme song it ended with "the gal with the 38s". She always wore these really tight sweaters.
Backyard trash burners. In traffic, air so thick with unburned hydrocarbons, lighting a match was risky. Beautiful sunsets.
Playboy magazine, locking bathroom doors, cigarettes, more beautiful sunsets.
The Lovin' Spoonful, Spoonful by Cream. Anything by Cream. "Are you Experienced?" Hendrix, Clapton, and Jeff Beck. Psycodelics. Paisleys. San Franscisco. Surf's up. Brian Wilson. Fender guitars. Woodies, Playboy magazine, more woodies. Beautiful sunsets.
Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Huge concerts. Volume. Sound. Broken eardrums. "Take a piece of my heart away". Ten Years After. "what?", breath-taking sunsets.
Don't bogart that joint. Land on moon. "I should'a shot your ass in 'Nam". LBJ all the way! America, love it or leave it. First bumper sticker: "I found it". Sunset again.
Yep, thats it.
I went from 6 to 16, and watched it real time: A pile of assassinations (President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy), color TV, Krushchev, The Beatles, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, pot and LSD, students taking over college buildings and the '68 Democrat convention, Woodstock, men walked on the moon, complete political and social chaos, etc., etc. What's to tell?
In memory of that thread I present:
I hope so.
Don't forget the lovely plastic salad bowls you got with a tank full!
and the attendant washed your windshield and checked the oil while he pumped it for you!
The Rolling Stones were the bad boys though. Some of their music was considered very risque. I also remember Motown ... The Supremes and of course James Brown.
I remember Hip hugger pants, hot pants, bell bottoms and platform shoes with gold fish in the heels.
I remember the Vietnam war and I felt bad about the soldiers being spit on. I think the drugs came on later in the sixties and definitely in the seventies. Of course there was the pot and LSD. People were very experimental and open to everything. New age, tarot cards, but now that I think about it ... gays and transexuals were not in. We hadn't got that far yet.
My first concert was the Guess Who and after that Sly and the Family Stone. Of course this was my first encounter with pot, which I chose not to partake at this time. I did later, I did inhale and I did not like it. Just like cigarettes. Tried them and did not like them. End of story.
thanks for starting this thread. it's a marvelous trip down memory lane. I can echo most everyone's recollections; it was a simpler time for sure.
If one were to get a little philosophical, it was an exciting time for young people because you could actually see the culture and the country changing before your eyes. And it was changing to reflect the tastes and desires of this huge cohort of kids your age. Music, entertainment, technology, education, government, etc. were all changing rapidly because of us. Looking back it's easy to see how some could become enamored of their influence and believe that they were destiny's children and could "change the world".
We were an extremely protected and pampered generation. Probably the first time in history that kids could grow up with all their basic needs assured. Perhaps inevitably, this led to excesses, both personal and societal, that continue to cause problems today.
But it was a LOT of fun :-)
"We had three TV channels - at 11 PM the National Anthem was played against the background of Old Glory, while a formation of F-100 Super Sabers flew by. Then the screen went blank. "
That just brought back a memory, of sleeping over at a freinds, and us staying up just to see it.
I grew up in upstate NY (born in 64), and I remember some of it, pretty much what everyone else has said. As my mom said, it was all innocent then - the world still had hope, people were upbeat and honest, and you could trust strangers.
I look at our modern world, and marvel at all that we've done...and wonder why we're unhappier, nastier, more selfish, have no tolerance, little patience, and little respect for anything, and everywhere you look it's corruption and dishonesty. I dimly remember a different world, and I sometimes resent the aged hippies here in the Bay Area who champion the idiocy that they wrought. for despising such innocense, in the name of selfish gratification.
The putzes that had "better things to do" - like Clinton, Cheney, et al - missed the boat.
Seven T.V. stations in N.Y.C.; 2 (CBS),4 (NBC),5 (DUMONT),7 (ABC),9 (?) ,11 (WPIX), and 13 (PBS).
I had roots in Dumas! Did you know any of the Wells? Murphy's? or Salem's? Are we related?
Did you ever ride in the Dogie Days parade? We managed to visit relatives in Dumas one year during Dogie Days and ride in the parade.
Nah. SAC until '67, then AFCS.
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