I was more of a Bobbie Jo guy but I remember those days. Life seemed normal. Well, except for that Manson thing and the Watts riots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CygYt8plAhc
And the assassinations. And the body bags from Vietnam. And LBJ and Billy Sol Estes and his tanks of anhydrous ammonia, so useful in later years for manufacturing methamphetamine.
But it was a great time, all things considered. Like you, I thought it would go on forever, or get better.
I think a big reason life seemed "normal" was because our parents were taking a lot of the load off us (I'm speaking for my age group, young teenagers in the late '60s). If you were older, I bet things seemed pretty crazy back then.
The whole Archie Bunker phenomenon was about America as seen by a man born in the 1920s or 1930s. We laughed at how he thought "normal" for us was nuts.