If you remember the 60s...

[Miso Blu]

I was 8 in '68 and remember during the Vietnam war the GIs in their gear riding in the back of Army trucks passing us on the interstate. My Dad always waved to them. If there was one hitch-hiking or walking on the side of the road we always offered them a ride.

Walter Cronkite reported the riots in Detroit on the nightly news. It was the first time I learned of racism. The KKK was very much around and active. Just about everybody where I come from knew one klansman but you didn't talk about it. I remember "whites only" signs on bathrooms.

Go-Go boots and Doris Day. The Beachboys on the radio. Motown from the neighbors window on summer nights.

[engineman]

I was 30 with a wife and 2 kids. We viewed it as a fad that would pass. We did not participate in the goofy scene.

[sera]

Unsettling !

1959, growing up in Oakland, California couldn't comprehend why students were being sprayed with water hoses trying to attend school. JFK murdered. From doing what was acceptable to do your thing, incomprehensible

Positive. Graduated from high school, 1964 women finally had the opportunity to be more than a teacher, nurse or secretary. One didn't have to go to college to get a Mrs. degree; not be considered an old maid after a certain age.

For me, it seemed when the Beatles invaded, 1963, a new era of music began. Yes, there has been a few good tunes, just remember. Big Band tunes, 1950 music my Pop played.

The song that comes to mind, Those Were the Days My Friend, we thought they never end....

Fun to look back, though happy to live in the present.

[ChessieMom]

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

Was there shock that things could change so quickly in 20 years?

What things are you referring to? You mean from say, 1965 to 1985? I don't think anyone is shocked by changes in 20 years. I mean, you sort of expect it.

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

Did people think the end of the world was here? Did people think humanity was doomed because of the long hair, the civil rights, the drugs, and rebelling youths? Or was it considered just a fad that would blow over and go away? Did all these things seem to happen in another galaxy and your world was never impacted? Or did you come eyeball to eyeball with all the change that was going on?

The end of the world? LOL. No. Not even ever a thought like that. No one cared about long hair. Civil rights? I was probably too young to think much about it. I lived in FL in the early 60s and honestly don't remember much about any rebelling or civil rights stuff.

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

What were your experiences and those of your parents and especially the experiences of other older people like during this time? What did you think of those times?

My parents were like anyone else's. I didn't have any special thoughts about the times. I was a kid. We don't think like that. I liked the music, still do. I think a big difference from my parents "time" and us kids "time", is that we wound up loving music so much. My parents generation was pretty different - in that regard at least.

[NW4me]

A few recollections:

I recall following instructions during school "bomb drill" (getting under the desk).
In hindsight, I don't know how the teachers and other knowledgeable adults
could pretend to take those seriously. What difference would it make to be
under our desks at the instant we were vaporized?

But I don't recall being frightened about the threat of war.
Perhaps kids are naturally optimistic, or at least not prone
to think too far outside their own immediate lives...
I think I was more worried about the school bullies
than the prospect of war.

One facet of children's' lives that's completely changed
from then to now: at the elementary school I attended,
almost all the kids walked or rode bikes to school.
One kid on my street was driven to school by his mother;
I thought he was a sissy for that, and probably taunted him for it.

Now of course, it seems to be the norm for kids to be driven to and from school by parents
(though how two-job households manage that is a mystery to me).
I find that distressing, secondarily because it deprives kids of a bit of autonomy,
but mainly because it reflects a distrust of public space on the part of adults.

[katharsis]

I was born in 1953. What stood out for me, starting in 1967 when I was a freshman* in high school, was the fact that so many young people were completely rebelling against almost everything "the establishment" stood for, along with concern for the environment. The MAJOR points/highlights as far as I was concerned were the antiwar protests, the music, the clothing, the language ("far out", groovy", "outasight", etc., plus 'everyone' was called "man", as in "Far out, man")and the emphasis on personal freedom and especially sexual freedom.

The low points were the Kennedy and King assassinations.

Even though I was a "goody-good", I loved the 60's, and I didn't speak to my parents for a week when they refused to let me attend an antiwar protest when I was 16. (However, I did not do ANY drugs until 1976, and then it was just marijuana a couple of times.)


*What are freshmen called now, and especially if one is a female? Freshperson? Freshwoman? LOL.

[aliasfinn]

I came along at the tail-end of the 50s so I was just a punk kid during the 1960s. I was born in St. Louis but we quickly moved to California. We were there when Manson was doing his thing and I remember how scared my parents were, along with everyone else's so all the kids had to walk to school together. It normally would be just me and an older sister walking down a long creepy alley each morning.

I remember my mom and dad watching the news when Kennedy was assassinated and my mom crying. I remember my dad watching the moon landing on TV when I wanted to watch cartoons. We usually got sent to bed early on school nights but I recall my parents always watching this one-legged talk show host named Joe Pine, or Pyne.

For some reason we always had a big jug of water delivered. Never experienced any earthquakes but when we moved back to St. Louis there have been quite a few tornadoes.
I much preferred the cars, the music and the TV shows back in the 60s.

[JRR]

Originally Posted by NW4me

A few recollections:

I recall following instructions during school "bomb drill" (getting under the desk).
In hindsight, I don't know how the teachers and other knowledgeable adults
could pretend to take those seriously. What difference would it make to be
under our desks at the instant we were vaporized?

But I don't recall being frightened about the threat of war.
Perhaps kids are naturally optimistic, or at least not prone
to think too far outside their own immediate lives...
I think I was more worried about the school bullies
than the prospect of war.

One facet of children's' lives that's completely changed
from then to now: at the elementary school I attended,
almost all the kids walked or rode bikes to school.
One kid on my street was driven to school by his mother;
I thought he was a sissy for that, and probably taunted him for it.

Now of course, it seems to be the norm for kids to be driven to and from school by parents
(though how two-job households manage that is a mystery to me).
I find that distressing, secondarily because it deprives kids of a bit of autonomy,
but mainly because it reflects a distrust of public space on the part of adults.

To this day I still remember my seventh grade home room teacher telling us this one day during the Cuban Missile Crisis. "There is going to be a nuclear war and many of you are going to die in it and even if you don't your parents may die trying to save you".

Good Times.

[CalWorth]

There was no reliable birth control available to teenagers. There was no right to choose. I remember as a kid seeing the older girls walking around in the heat of the desert in heavy coats. Then they would "disappear" for a few months. Then they would return, without the coat.

[Grlzrl]

Originally Posted by JRR

To this day I still remember my seventh grade home room teacher telling us this one day during the Cuban Missile Crisis. "There is going to be a nuclear war and many of you are going to die in it and even if you don't your parents may die trying to save you".

Good Times.

Now my kids' 7th grade science teacher told his class "The world's going to end in 12 years because of climate change and it's your parents' and grandparents' fault. 7 years ago. No doubt he is still saying that.