Thank you for your service.
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.
"... him driving me barefoot with my feet on the windshield no air conditioning all widows and side vents open drinking a Coke with peanuts in it."
We had the same father? Wow, same here. Dad would let me steer as I sit in his lap, legs too short to reach the pedals. By the time I was 12 I could drive like a pro. Coke with peanuts, those were the days.
Thank you for your service.
LOL your comments remind of how high-tech we thought a Toast-R-Oven was!
Television- I remember it was a special event if my dad brought the TV upstairs so we could watch during dinner.
Saturday TV was predictable but fun- cartoons followed by 3 Stooges or Laurel & Hardy and Tarzan movies or Shirley Temple. Lots of war movies yes- ones where we kicked butt and won!
Growing up outside of DC, I remember seeing the riots in Anacostia (downtown DC). Terrible thing. A whole city block if not more got burned down as I recall.
I was in the Nav from '66 to '70, but I was a tin can sailor, which was just a tad bit safer than "the boats", as you know. Here's a swift boat salute from one old squid to another!
Mark for later reading.
Fast forward to the very end of the 60's. My last very clear memory was the peace march in Washington, DC in Nov, 1969. I was going to school in Philadelphia at the time and a huge caravan of buses went from Union Station to Washington to the march. There were probably about 200,000 people there. I remember the absolute intoxicating feeling that day-- and no, I wasn't drinking or doing drugs but you could definitely smell weed burning. We were sure that we were the smartest and the best generation to come along and if our leaders would only listen to us the world would be a wonderful place.
When I boarded the bus to go back to Philly my eyes and nose started burning like crazy. Turns out there were some kids on board who had gone to the Justice Dept. to demonstrate and had gotten tear gassed and it was still on their clothing.
Within the year I graduated from school, got married and settled down with my spouse to start a family and live a fairly normal life. The brunt of the 60's revolution hit my younger siblings as by 1970 drugs, free sex, abortion, arrests and eventually divorce blindsided my family. Only now am I beginning to appreciate what my parents must have gone through as they watched their younger children try to self destruct.
What does what mean?......
There was actually freedom.
Right! Shari Lewis!! Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse and there was another one -- can't remember its name. I loved that show! One year, I got the puppets for Christmas! I love this thread -- so many memories!
We got WLS in NE Oklahoma, too. "On top of old pizza, all covered with cheese, I saw my first meatball, till somebody sneezed ..."
I had to look up the lyrics, but here they are. :)
On Top of Spaghetti
On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.
It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.
It rolled in the garden,
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball,
Was nothing but mush.
The mush was as tasty
As tasty could be,
And then the next summer,
It grew into a tree.
The tree was all covered,
All covered with moss,
And on it grew meatballs,
And tomato sauce.
So if you eat spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball,
Whenever you sneeze.
Thanks for the reminder! :) And IIRC, Mr Greenjeans, with the duck who ate lettuce? :)
What happened in the 60s, stays in the 60s, okay?!
I have written a book about my memories of the 60's. (I graduated from high school in 1967.) I tried for a year to get it published and got some of the most flattering rejection letters from agents and publishers. I've since published a novel that sold about 12 copies, so maybe, since I've now been published, I will try again this spring after I do some updating and editing.
There were actually three parts to the 1960's - politically and culturally speaking, and they were quite different. As much of the activity of the 60's was fueled by the post WWII economic prosperity, it all came crashing down in 1973 after the crushing defeat of McGovern, the energy disruptions, and the frightening Yom Kippur War in Israel. Living in relative safety and economic security, provided by prosperous parents, permitted many of us to do very stoopid things, and get away with it.
Politically, in the wake of Watergate, most of the agenda of the 1960's left was implemented in the late 1970's.
The music was great - surf music, soul, rock, folk,a blues revival. The early 1970's music was mostly a parody of the later 1960's music. If you have any taste, you will hate James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, et al, as much as I did, and do.
The early 1960's were pretty scary. We seemed to be living on the verge of nuclear war. The Soviets were testing 50 megaton nukes, and beating us in the space race. By the middle 1960's we seemed to be a lot less worried about that. We focused more on cars and the opposite gender.
The late 1960's were ugly.
I recall the end of each broadcast night as you describe but before the national anthem, a recital of the poem, High Flight (with the blue skies and jets soaring amongst billowing clouds).
High Flight
-John Gillespie Magee, Jr
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God...
It was a decade ruled by Democrats.
"if you watch That Girl reruns, you'll get a pretty good idea of what a "career girl's" life was like in those years."
I have a friend from China who came to America when she was twelve, and "That Girl" was in its first or second season on TV at the time. She learned not only language, but mannerisms, and how to Be an American Girl from that show.
She says that she knew a very important word had to be "donald", whatever it was, because the lead character always said emphatically to her boyfriend, "Oh, Donald!!!" at critical points in the show.
LOL. Knowing some folks it wouldn't surprise me a bit.
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