I would point out that there was no one "sixties" -- one's experience could vary widely depending on what part of the country one was in. Until about 1964, it was really just an extension of the 1950s, but even that could be wildly different: in San Francisco we had the legacy of the Beat Generation, but that was fringe. Parts of the country didn't enter the "sixties" until they were chronologically passed, and general norms and mores varied enormously from place to place.
I agree. What we think of as the 50's was really the late fifties and early 60's. And frankly, I think that what we think of as the 60's was really the late sixties and early 70's. But even then, that is only when referencing pop culture.
When discussing things like auto racing or baseball or anything else more quantifiable, the decades line up more precicely.
Agreed! Where I grew up in the midwest it was an extension of the 50s until about 1967. That year I remember the first anti-war activists trying to persude folks (just one or two, and they weren't getting anywhere) that the war was a bad thing.
In 1968 my family moved to California, where "sex, drugs & rock'n'roll" was already pretty big, along with a whole host of cultural changes (kids who afford better wore blue jeans to school, it was cool to defy authority, etc.). Major shock -- it would have been better had I moved to a foreign culture.
Ironically just months later the culture shift reached my hometown (where in 1964 the town voted 99% for Goldwater). A couple kids were caught with marijuana (one of them the weird kid with long hair) and it became headlines for months on end.
Haven't been back but I've looked at the place online, and it's evidently become something of a rather liberal town now.
I've always said the sixties were so drastic.
We went from "Leave it to Beaver", to "Laugh In".