About The 1960's

[launderess]

Was watching a program on PBS the other night about the black civil rights movement, and then another about various other "protests" and such that occured during the 1960's. It suddenly occured to me, does anyone ever have anything fond to day about that decade?

I mean all one ever hears about is war (Vietnam),white flight (out of the cities to the suburbs), inner city crime and violence, inflation, "hippies",assinations (two Kennedys, MKL, and several others) and often called by many the decade when the United States began to loose it's moral compass.

Wasn't there anything good going on?

L?

 

[panthera]

yes-

Oh my, yes - I remember A&W root beer.
The Monkeys (I was not in love with Mickey).
Kentucky Fried Chicken still tasted like chicken.
Cars were soooo big and Mustangs did it for me, and then came hemis and I was totally so in love.

There was a good feeling in the air.

Sadness, yes, I got that, too - but I read C.S. Lewis and the Hobbit and A Wrinkle in Time and Flatland.

And Star Trek!!

 

[ptcruiser51]

Having just attended my 40th class reunion...

We had a few 1969 memory-joggers in our program for the evening:

Chappaquiddick (Ted takes a long drive on a short pier)
Helter-Skelter (Chas. Manson & Company)
The Moon Walk (real or alleged)
Woodstock (music+sex+mud)
Richard Nader begins series of oldies revivals (do-wop lives!)
Cyclamates banned (Diet Pepsi hasn't tasted the same since)
Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki wed on The Tonite Show (not with Leno)
"Bubblegum" music hits the top of pop (Archies, etc.)
Beatles break up (Thanx a lot Yoko...)
Stonewall Riots (drag queens beat the crap out of NYPD)
Elvis returns to #1 on the charts ("Suspicious Minds")
Hurricane Camille slams east coast (floods!)
Boeing 747 introduced (Up-Up-And-Away)
Concorde SST maiden voyage (Up-Up-And-Away FASTER!)

I remember a kinder, prettier 1960s. Mashed Potato Time. Bubble-teased hairdos. Dial phones. Laugh-In and Ernestine.
Ed Sullivan. Jackie Gleason. Hi-roll shirts. Miniskirts. Twiggy. Rec-room dance parties. "Making out (and/or) getting felt-up". It wasn't all protests, war and murder.

 

[maytagbear]

Some things I remember of the 60s

Both of my parents living.

Primetime tee vee everyone could watch.

Jetsons, Flintstones in first run.

The Addams Family.

My older cousins playing Beatles records for me.

Our first automatic washer, a Whirlpool Imperial.

All my aunts and uncles....and cousins. Everyone being within a day's drive, and not scattered from Boston to Bellingham.

Post Oat Flakes. Salada brand fruit punch. Locally grown peaches that tasted like peaches.......

Falling asleep in the back seat of our Oldsmobile Dynamic 88.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[ronhic]

I would have loved to have been old enough to have experienced it....but turning 40 this year sort of prevents that....

 

[swestoyz]

While I wasn't a part of the 60's, I recently had a discussion with a sibling whom is going through school now. He mentioned that the 'feeling' of the way the 80's is being portrayed in history doesn't feel like it does when my family talks about the 80's. Sounds very similar to what or how historical media focuses on tangible points in history during any era: war, violence, culture changes; while it takes folklore or family memories to really learn what it was like to live during a certain time/era.

Ben

 

[zipdang]

My mom is a Pollyanna to her core. She always speaks fondly of the 1960s as the time when feminism really found its roots. She also waxes nostalgic about the Summer of Love and the counterculture movement. Maybe that was more of a West Coast thing?

 

[swestoyz]

While I wasn't a part of the 60's, I recently had a discussion with a sibling whom is going through school now. He mentioned that the 'feeling' of the way the 80's is being portrayed in history doesn't feel like it does when my family talks about the 80's. Sounds very similar to what or how historical media focuses on tangible points in history during any era: war, violence, culture changes; while it takes folklore or family memories to really learn what it was like to live during a certain time/era.

Ben

 

[toggleswitch2]

Wasn't there anything good going on?

Yes, so many of us were born then. As "square" as my parents were, it is MUCH appreciated now!

 

[butch-innj]

I LOVED the 60's !!

I got my license.....graduated High School.....realized that
I was actually and truly gay.....I got to see Sonny & Cher live at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City....I got to see the Supremes and Brenda Lee and Hermans Hermits and Bobby Rydel and The Kinks and I forget who else...all live in person at the Steel Pier. The I got to see Sonny & Cher again in concert in Philadelphia (had front row seats) and Dionne Warwick in concert in Philly too. Then after graduation I got drafted into the Army. Gawd, I hated KP ! I won't tell you what I did to my drill sgt in order to get taken off of the KP roster. (Don't ask...don't tell....and DON'T get caught ! )
I had a blast in the Army...even though I went to Nam.
Its all about attitude.
And, I got my 1st car in the 60's too.
An old beat up Chev Bel Air...what a car....white on the outside and cherry red inside. It just wouldnt die.
Ohhhhh yes, those were the days (when I HAD hair)
I could write a book.

 

[xraytech]

Though I wasn't born inb that era, after talking about that time with co-workers who were new x-ray tech in the 60's it sounded lik eit wasnt all bad,
you were able to feed a family of 6 on $40 for 2 weeks and still able to feed the dog roast beef
-when they were students making almost nothing your weekly salary was enough for board, 3 meals a day all week, and enough money left for a show and bus fare to take you home on Saturday
sled riding down the streets on the cafeteria trays in the winter
regulation hospital issued starched white uniform dresses for the girls with hems so short that your bottom was visible when you bent over
hankey pankey in the dark room, and it wasnt looked down on because everyone did it
going on a date to the drive in, the burger stand and then to a near by farm to park.
party lines

 

[pulltostart]

I have EXTREME fondness for the early 60's! That's not to say that the later 60's were so terrible, but I can give you a whole list of things that changed for me in late 1963 and I have a definite preference for the earlier years. Definitely the "good ol' days" for me. The 1961-1964 GM full-size cars were damn good looking regardless of which body style you favored. Then - let's not forget those equally-good looking 1965 and 1966 Ford 4-door hardtops ("little limousine" as they called the LTD). And, as far as television, let's not to forget 'Rowen and Martin's Laugh-In' (sock-it-to-me!!!) Maybe not the best of times for everyone but speaking for myself, definitely more to think fondly about than the 70's.

Lawrence (Robert L. Osborne High School, Class of 1969)

 

[nurdlinger]

When the Truth Is Found To Be Lies

You know the joy within you dies.

These song lyrics sum up my relationship with the 60's. (spilled over into the 70's with Watergate) I became a teenager in 1962 and the next 10-12 years were a succession of events demonstrating that life would not be as had been promised during the 50's. I did not go to Viet Nam but I knew dozens who did and came back TFU. Amazingly only a couple of people that I knew were killed in the war. After that and Watergate I became so cynical about everything that I alienated my old friends and didn't make new ones. I for one am glad the 60's are 40 years in the past.

 

[chuffle]

I was a kid then...

...but I remember, and quite fondly:

Sunday evening drives in the wide-track Pontiac Catalina to a neighboring town (gasoline was cheap then) for hand-packed ice cream cones.

Buying 45 rpm singles of the latest songs by the Beatles or the Monkees (I think that they cost something like 48 cents) from the little record shop downtown.

My mother ripping up all of our old clothes in order to sew carpet rags, which were then rolled up, and taken to a little lady in the country who had a loom, and would weave our rags into colorful rag rugs for the kitchen and sun-porch.

Watching shows like The Green Hornet, The Munsters, Time Tunnel, The Mothers-in-Law, and (gasp!) My Mother, the Car.

Our first color television in 1968.

And of course, my mother doing the laundry in the Maytag wringer washer (an automatic did not come along until 1978).

Riding my bike with my best friend, from morning until supper time. Our parents never worried about our safety, even though we were on the road the entire time.

Since I was a kid, the scenes of war during the evening news terrified me.

Joe

 

[pulltostart]

The War

"The War" definitely dominated the late 60's. It's amazing how it also dominated the evening news each day. We, the viewing public, were bombarded by film and video's of the violence and killing night after night, month after month, year after year. I am not aware of any of anyone I knew who perished over there, but I know people who did serve in Vietnam and it really left a mark on them.

L

 

[jasonl]

I didn't exist one minute in the 60s

Since I was born in November 1970. But from old home movies of my family and some of my wife's family, it all had to do with family. Most of it being outdoor barbecues (the vintage grills, cars, and appliances shown on those old films are worth the price of admission).

Helen, on the other hand was born in 1968. She was in the womb when her parents went to an Elvis concert in Las Vegas. I'd say that counts as being there and yes, she is a HUGE Elvis fan probably because of that.

 

[bajaespuma]

You want to know if there was anything good about the '6

OMG. Here's a short list:

No Paris Hilton.
No Brittany Spears.
Kids aspired to become something other than "a celebrity"
Way fewer "celebrities" in general
New York City didn't look like a New Jersey Super Mall.
People cared about politics, issues, art, sports, science, history, more than how they looked.
9 TV channels, MAXIMUM
Little girls waiting for the school bus weren't dressed like cheap hookers.
Huge numbers of people became revolutionaries for good causes.
People traded in the stock market not only to make money, but to invest in American businesses.
We got to the moon.
Jonny Quest
The Flintstones
The Beatles
The Mamas and the Papas
Janice Joplin
Robert Redford
Eugene McCarthy
Betty Friedan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
David Frost
Peter Max
Walter Cronkite
Irene Ryan
John F. Kennedy
Flip Wilson
"Hair", the musical
Hair, my own.
The first time I got stoned on pot(and, BTW, I should have stopped there, it never got better)
Sex without fear of AIDS
The East Village.
St. Charles Kitchen Cabinets
General Electric Home Appliances
Color TV
Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Pontiacs and Chevrolets
Geneva Kitchen Cabinets.
Choc Full O' Nuts cafeterias
Horn and Hardart
Real Snooty French Restaurants
CIGARETTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(Still everywhere! and everyone I ever knew who died of cancer was still alive up until the end of the sixties)
Jiffy Pop
Good Humour
The First time you went to a McDonald's
No Health Insurance premiums
Doctors that still made housecalls
Coke syrup from a local soda shop
Pistachio Ice Cream that came from that shop in waxed cardboard "take-out" containers
The last of the old fashioned seedy candy shops
Cantonese Chinese restaurants that served delicious egg rolls that were made in-house with won ton soup
The pizzeria around the corner.
Ring Dings that tasted like chocolate
The local fish monger
The Verrazano Narrows Bridge
The World Trade Centers
Stereos
Laugh-In
Dark Shadows
Sweetarts
Tug McGraw
The first STD lecture at school
(Only in retrospect)school uniforms
A real Sabbath
Money as a means to an end, not the end itself.
The possibility of wealth from hard work and prudence
God

 

[chuffle]

What a great "short list." Really takes me back. Thanks for sharing.

Joe

 

[spankomatic]

Well done Bajaespuma!