Here is what I observed in 1969. They were taking school administrations hostage. burning buildings, clashing with police, doing drugs, living in communes, and dodging the draft.
Men burned their draft cards. Women burned their bras. Men’s hair was long. Women’s skirts were short.
Middle class norms started to include wife swapping, typified by a movie called “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.” Country songs were about drinking, cheating, and divorce.
The crime rate was through the roof, typified by Charles Manson. The best of us went to Vietnam. The worst of us went to Woodstock.
The baby boomers are hellish liars and hypocrites because they have hidden most of what they did from their kids and the world. They demanded “sex drugs, and rock and roll,” later denying it, and became petty societal tyrants, generally insisting that no other generations be able to experiment or have any fun.
“Is she right? ‘Cause I know that’s the *popular* version of what went on there. “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9DO26O6dIg
“The baby boomers are hellish liars and hypocrites “
Get over it.
The best of us went to Vietnam. The worst of us went to Woodstock and spit on us when we came home.
I am a baby boomer.
I was eleven at the time of Woodstock, and wouldn’t turn twelve until late in the fall. I’ve never done LSD, cocaine, meth, or other hard drug and I’ve smoked pot on just three occasions, the last time about forty-two years ago. Unlike Bill, I did inhale but didn’t get high I guess because I had already been drinking.
I’ve been a Republican since I’ve been eligible to vote. I’m no saint, but I’m no tyrant either. I can’t recall advocating that other generations not be allowed to have fun. In fact, I’ve opposed the nanny state and it’s rules that prohibit fun for all in the futile quest for absolute safety.
I never mocked those older than me nor coined phrases like “Okay old timer.” I know history began before the time that I can remember, and that despite all the changes in the world human nature hasn’t really changed all that much over thousands of years.
I guess there’s just no app for that.
Overlaid on all that I’d add the three big assassinations in the 60s; the rising discontent about Viet Nam; the huge race riots that burned many cities in the mid-60s; and the invention of “the pill.”
i think “the worst of us went to Woodstock” is a bit extreme. People grow up and change.
That was a good, little read.
Memories. I thought it would never end. Every night the TV news showed this destruction you describe. The cops were called “pigs”. And in movie theatres if a cop was shown on screen, the audience would yell out: pigs pigs pigs. It was horrible.
Boomer here. Sex, not so much, but I would have done it if I could have I suppose, back then.
Drugs, no never did. Not even pot.
Rock and roll? Hell YES!
Boomer here. Summer of 69 I was entering my senior year of high school. No sex. Went steady. No drugs. You could drink legal at 18. So drinking was no big deal. Discos, dancing, rock &roll. Protests at lef wing colleves affected my college choice. Viet Nam on TV. Dont remember any Hong Kong flu.