sugarplumkitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sugarplumkitty) wrote2005-03-21 01:47 am
sugarplumkitty) wrote2005-03-21 01:47 am
I'm a child of the 1960's
This started out as a reply to someone.
The society you're raised in has a lot to do with how you interpret and interact with life. I consider myself to be a product of the 60's. I only remember a little of the late 50's. I remember John Glenn's space trip. I remember Hawaii becoming a State. MMMM! Pineapples! Hawaiian themed parties were quite the fad. I remember singing about a one-eyed-one-horned flying purple people eater in the back seat of the family car. My parents loved rock & roll. A Chuck Berry riff can take me back faster than anything.
In the early 60's I remember a common sight was of men who were missing arms or legs. There were also a lot of people with a shrivelled leg and a huge shoe from polio. One of my friends had a grandpa (or a dad?) with a number tattooed on his forearm. I think he must have been the one who told me communists baked babies to see how long they'd live. My parents certainly didn't tell me that and I really don't think they taught that in school to first graders. My friends and I sang WWII song parodies about Hitler and Mussolini and French women who didn't wear pants. We had no idea what the songs were really about.
We caught measles, mumps and chicken pox. That was just part of being a kid. The brand new polio vaccine was a big deal. Whole neighborhoods would line up to eat a sugar cube with vaccine in it. My cousin Doug was just a toddler and such a fussy guy that he refused to eat it and had to get a shot instead. Schools had vaccination day where they'd line us up and poke us. My best friend in kindergarten was in front of me in line. She fainted at the first touch of the needle. I was so worried about her that I hardly noticed my own shot. Usually I would panic at the sight of the needle. Mary Katherine didn't come back to class that day. The last time I talked to her she said she was still upset that she didn't get to color the clown picture we had as a reward afterwards. LOL
School included "duck and cover" drills. We were terrified of the "commies" because they were evil and wanted to destroy our happy lives. Red alerts meant we ducked under our desks or if we were outside, against the walls of the school building. We'd kneel down in almost a fetal position with our hands folded over the backs of our necks. You were supposed to put your head against the wall outside. Yellow alerts were when we had time to go home to be with our families before the "commies" came to attack us. We actually walked the routes led by teachers once.
Kids got paddled by the Principal if they misbehaved badly enough. I had my mouth taped shut on a regular basis by my first grade teacher. You know, if you lick the sticky part you can get it loose really fast.
Every kid on the block went inside when it was time for Mickey Mouse Club. I still know the theme song.
My family learned to do "The Twist" with the newly released Chubby Checker album "Dance Party." All four of us were shining the seats of our pants with bathtowels by following the directions. LOL
We saw all the Elvis movies the first weekend they came out at the drive-in. My mom had such a crush on him. I got to wear my pajamas so I wouldn't have to wake up to change when we got home. I never lasted much past intermission. Yes, intermission. The drive-ins always had double features and cartoons. They had playgrounds, too. Kids could play before the first movie and during intermission. One had a little steam train the kids could ride in a big circle. We loved it. The first movie was always a family flick. The second was often something more adult. Booooring. zzzzzzz
My sister and I were glued to the black and white TV to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I didn't know who they were the first night. I was an immediate fan and switched my TV crush from Ricky Nelson to Paul McCartney.
My sister and I also loved Friday night TV. Our parents square danced every Friday night, so we were on our own. We watched Alfred Hitchcock, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits even though we weren't supposed to. It gave me nightmares but I loved it! In later years, we'd watch The Addams Family and The Munsters, followed by the scarier shows. We were both terrified by the shows. We turned on every light in the house to make sure nothing was hiding in the shadows. When we saw the headlights of the car pulling into the driveway, we'd turn the TV off, run to bed and pretend to be asleep. Our parents never seemed to notice the TV was hot and that we were still awake. TV's got hot back then. They were all radio tubes inside. Every grocery store had a tube tester and sold the replacement tubes. They were like fancy lightbulbs.
Sunday night was Disney night. We never missed it.
I remember with vivid clarity the day President Kennedy was assassinated. I was 8 years old. I remember being upset when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed because I didn't know who he was or what a good man he was until then. I was watching the presidential campaign speech of Robert Kennedy the night he was killed. My family stared at the TV through the whole thing, crying.
I gave up square dancing for a year when The Monkees premiered on TV. They were the same night as the children's club I belonged to. My sister still went, so my parents took her.
I loved playing hide & seek after dark in the summertime when I was an older kid. We also played red light/green light and Mother May I. Kids were everywhere. I could pack a lunch and ride my bike places all day. It was safe to do that. We didn't lock our doors until the mid 60's.
I started high school in the fall of '69 and it was a let down that my sister was involved in the culture of that time when I was barely too young to take part. She didn't do drugs or anything. (odd for a Californian, huh?) I knew hippies and was a wanna-be flowerchild, but it was all over before I had a chance. Heck, even the hippies were settling down by then.
I remember gazing at the moon in wonder when Aldrin and Armstrong were on it. We were glued to the TV for that, too. They didn't know if the moon's surface would support the lander or swallow it up. What a relief when they landed safely! I held my breath as the first human foot hit the moon's surface. Apollo 13 had us all praying for all we were worth for a safe return. We cheered in our living room when they picked up their capsule from the sea and we saw them get out. After a couple of lunar landings, they stopped televising it much. I've never lost my fascination for it.
The boys from my age group were the last to register for the draft during Vietnam. My senior class' gift to the school was an olive tree to commemorate the troops pulling out. That was 1973. The tree is still there. It's huge now.
So, I'm not really of the hippie era. I'm from the transition period immediately after it. I came of age listening to recordings of Woodstock, with legalized abortion, the pill and wholly embracing women's lib. My age group was wilder in a lot of ways, more conservative in others. We were sexually active and took illegal drugs but didn't leave home to live in communes. I was much tamer than most of my drama friends and wilder than most of my slumber party friends. A wild night for us was T.P.ing someone's house. tee hee! That was fun!
I never even considered not working for a living. I've been self-reliant and self-supporting most of my adult life. The fact that I'm not working right now rankles.
The society you're raised in has a lot to do with how you interpret and interact with life. I consider myself to be a product of the 60's. I only remember a little of the late 50's. I remember John Glenn's space trip. I remember Hawaii becoming a State. MMMM! Pineapples! Hawaiian themed parties were quite the fad. I remember singing about a one-eyed-one-horned flying purple people eater in the back seat of the family car. My parents loved rock & roll. A Chuck Berry riff can take me back faster than anything.
In the early 60's I remember a common sight was of men who were missing arms or legs. There were also a lot of people with a shrivelled leg and a huge shoe from polio. One of my friends had a grandpa (or a dad?) with a number tattooed on his forearm. I think he must have been the one who told me communists baked babies to see how long they'd live. My parents certainly didn't tell me that and I really don't think they taught that in school to first graders. My friends and I sang WWII song parodies about Hitler and Mussolini and French women who didn't wear pants. We had no idea what the songs were really about.
We caught measles, mumps and chicken pox. That was just part of being a kid. The brand new polio vaccine was a big deal. Whole neighborhoods would line up to eat a sugar cube with vaccine in it. My cousin Doug was just a toddler and such a fussy guy that he refused to eat it and had to get a shot instead. Schools had vaccination day where they'd line us up and poke us. My best friend in kindergarten was in front of me in line. She fainted at the first touch of the needle. I was so worried about her that I hardly noticed my own shot. Usually I would panic at the sight of the needle. Mary Katherine didn't come back to class that day. The last time I talked to her she said she was still upset that she didn't get to color the clown picture we had as a reward afterwards. LOL
School included "duck and cover" drills. We were terrified of the "commies" because they were evil and wanted to destroy our happy lives. Red alerts meant we ducked under our desks or if we were outside, against the walls of the school building. We'd kneel down in almost a fetal position with our hands folded over the backs of our necks. You were supposed to put your head against the wall outside. Yellow alerts were when we had time to go home to be with our families before the "commies" came to attack us. We actually walked the routes led by teachers once.
Kids got paddled by the Principal if they misbehaved badly enough. I had my mouth taped shut on a regular basis by my first grade teacher. You know, if you lick the sticky part you can get it loose really fast.
Every kid on the block went inside when it was time for Mickey Mouse Club. I still know the theme song.
My family learned to do "The Twist" with the newly released Chubby Checker album "Dance Party." All four of us were shining the seats of our pants with bathtowels by following the directions. LOL
We saw all the Elvis movies the first weekend they came out at the drive-in. My mom had such a crush on him. I got to wear my pajamas so I wouldn't have to wake up to change when we got home. I never lasted much past intermission. Yes, intermission. The drive-ins always had double features and cartoons. They had playgrounds, too. Kids could play before the first movie and during intermission. One had a little steam train the kids could ride in a big circle. We loved it. The first movie was always a family flick. The second was often something more adult. Booooring. zzzzzzz
My sister and I were glued to the black and white TV to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I didn't know who they were the first night. I was an immediate fan and switched my TV crush from Ricky Nelson to Paul McCartney.
My sister and I also loved Friday night TV. Our parents square danced every Friday night, so we were on our own. We watched Alfred Hitchcock, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits even though we weren't supposed to. It gave me nightmares but I loved it! In later years, we'd watch The Addams Family and The Munsters, followed by the scarier shows. We were both terrified by the shows. We turned on every light in the house to make sure nothing was hiding in the shadows. When we saw the headlights of the car pulling into the driveway, we'd turn the TV off, run to bed and pretend to be asleep. Our parents never seemed to notice the TV was hot and that we were still awake. TV's got hot back then. They were all radio tubes inside. Every grocery store had a tube tester and sold the replacement tubes. They were like fancy lightbulbs.
Sunday night was Disney night. We never missed it.
I remember with vivid clarity the day President Kennedy was assassinated. I was 8 years old. I remember being upset when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed because I didn't know who he was or what a good man he was until then. I was watching the presidential campaign speech of Robert Kennedy the night he was killed. My family stared at the TV through the whole thing, crying.
I gave up square dancing for a year when The Monkees premiered on TV. They were the same night as the children's club I belonged to. My sister still went, so my parents took her.
I loved playing hide & seek after dark in the summertime when I was an older kid. We also played red light/green light and Mother May I. Kids were everywhere. I could pack a lunch and ride my bike places all day. It was safe to do that. We didn't lock our doors until the mid 60's.
I started high school in the fall of '69 and it was a let down that my sister was involved in the culture of that time when I was barely too young to take part. She didn't do drugs or anything. (odd for a Californian, huh?) I knew hippies and was a wanna-be flowerchild, but it was all over before I had a chance. Heck, even the hippies were settling down by then.
I remember gazing at the moon in wonder when Aldrin and Armstrong were on it. We were glued to the TV for that, too. They didn't know if the moon's surface would support the lander or swallow it up. What a relief when they landed safely! I held my breath as the first human foot hit the moon's surface. Apollo 13 had us all praying for all we were worth for a safe return. We cheered in our living room when they picked up their capsule from the sea and we saw them get out. After a couple of lunar landings, they stopped televising it much. I've never lost my fascination for it.
The boys from my age group were the last to register for the draft during Vietnam. My senior class' gift to the school was an olive tree to commemorate the troops pulling out. That was 1973. The tree is still there. It's huge now.
So, I'm not really of the hippie era. I'm from the transition period immediately after it. I came of age listening to recordings of Woodstock, with legalized abortion, the pill and wholly embracing women's lib. My age group was wilder in a lot of ways, more conservative in others. We were sexually active and took illegal drugs but didn't leave home to live in communes. I was much tamer than most of my drama friends and wilder than most of my slumber party friends. A wild night for us was T.P.ing someone's house. tee hee! That was fun!
I never even considered not working for a living. I've been self-reliant and self-supporting most of my adult life. The fact that I'm not working right now rankles.
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Weird how fast things have been going the last 40 years.
When kids would read this entry it must sound like we're from the middle-ages.
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LOL or the stone age. Things happened so fast in those years, it's true. Even a few years can seem like a whole different generation. Just look at my sister and me. We're only four years apart and our experiences were completely different.
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Just one radio in the village to listen to the news.
hehe the horse-thing is quiet funny.
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I do remember studying astronauts in middle school, and it said that the Sputnik satellite was launched in 1958 or 1959. I was all excited because I thought Mom and Dad might remember it. Dad said he was too busy being a toddler. :D
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M
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My middle school chorus sang "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" in class almost every day--I can't even think about that song without it getting stuck in my head.
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That she wore for the first time today.
An itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini.
So in the locker she wanted to stay.
Two, three, four, stick around we'll tell you more
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(and no, I didn't have my caps lock on by mistake!) :D
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in a covered wagon.
Yeah, they were still using when it was the late 1800s.
When she first got married they lived in a sod shack until after my mom was born.
M
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I was born in '61. My brother in '52. May as well be from different planets.
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hippie born-again? That sounds like an oxymoron! LOL At least you had wonderful music during that period!
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so in parts, my reply:
heya...i saw a link in
"The society you're raised in has a lot to do with how you interpret and interact with life. I consider myself to be a product of the 60's"
YES! YES AND YES! tho i've not too many people in my life that relate to that. most are too young to know what you wrote of, i mean they 'know' about it, but it's not in their soul, they didn't experience it. and yeah that sounds so cliche, and maybe i am waxing poetic but my brain, my heart and my character are due to what i took in as a child. you just had to be there to understand.
every generation has levels of dichotomous aspects but the sixties were an explosion of dissension. it taught us to think. and query and 'question authority' yet retain the security to safely lie in our beds and wonder about the stars and create huge dreams and lives that are so richly woven. as a child i knew i had just missed being born into the coolest generation of all time, but as i grew older i realized i was even more blessed in that i could reap all the benefits of the 'generation that changed the world', yet not pay any of the consequences of excesses that future generations would endure. we didn't have to give up our dreams and assimilate into society, we were the generation that fulfilled the ideals and goals of the sixties. we are truly the blesssed generation. yay for being born just a bit too late, lol!
"I remember singing about a one-eyed-one-horned flying purple people eater in the back seat of the family car."
i *was* the lead in the "one eyed one horned flying purple people eater" in my linkletter-tappan tap dance class's production. beat that! lol...
vaccines really were such a 'big deal' for us. i so remember the lining up for the vaccine in school thing. i did have measels and mumps and chicken pox and that was the norm. everyone did. i never really thought about it before but noone does have measles or mumps anymore...thank goodness for chicken pox, the lone survivor of the great triad.
i never experienced a 'duck and cover' drills nor was i raised in a time of commie fear. i guess those four years dramatically altered what was to grow to be called the cold war perspective or at least what i was exposed to. sputnik was history. we were in the age of apollo. don't even ever think you can beat the usa...grrrr. lol! the moon landing was just the incredible icing to the cake we baked. i still am so amazed at the stars, a hubble enthusiast, the astronomy pic of day is my homepage, lol! we were raised to believe in the stars. thank the maker!
noone i know ever got spanked in school tho we got spanked plenty at home. or at least i did.
"Yes, intermission. The drive-ins always had double features and cartoons. They had playgrounds, too. Kids could play before the first movie and during intermission. One had a little steam train the kids could ride in a big circle."
hahaha...seriously, swinging and climbing was a prerequisite to movie watching. i also remember 'tuesday night family night' at the walk in. two movies, $0.50 for my mom, $0.25 for me, live intermissions (like a band or act) at the local theatre in pacific beach. my mom would always fall asleep somewhere in the second movie and i got to stay awake and watch the first movie over agian. to this day i feel gyped at not seeing more than one movie at a time at a theatre. it's just not right dernit! as is the $18.00 price tag to admit one...*makes squishy face*
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As a kid, only indoor movies I ever went to were Saturday afternoon matinees. I think my parents wanted to get some time alone. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean? eh?)
My parents both worked, so weeknights were to-bed-on-time nights. The only live act ever at a walk in theatre was when Captain Satellite made a special appearance. He was a local guy who showed the Three Stooges.. I think.
Oh, and chicken pox? They have a vaccine for that now, too.
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my mom also had a crush on elvis tho he was her young love. she was strangely elated by engleburt humperdink and *gasp* bill shatner. life stopped when star trek was on tv (i still hate that show, lol) plus i remember my mom being so "hip" to go to 'mission impossible' parties, lol! needless to say all those men make me cringe, i mean like my mom wanted to *do* them...ewwwwwww!
"Sunday night was Disney night. We never missed it."
no no no! get it right....it was "mutual of omaha's wild kingdom"...then "the wonderful world of disney"...then "the ed sullivan show". sunday night ruled! and the disney we had wasn't stupid sit-coms, we had movies with haley mills and cats in outer space and that movie about the cat who thought it was a dog or vice versa...or my fav charlie the lonesome cougar and nature shows and learning shows...god "the wonderful world of disney" was the best show ever on tv! okay wait, other than the ed sullivan show. i don't remember the beatles but i remember eric burden and the doors and janis and like popogigio and the chinese acrobats and the spinning plate dudes and so on and so on and so on...but yeah mostly the bands. the music of motown, the english invasion bands, the local cali bands...i learned i disliked the stones from ed, oh and american bandstand. even lipsynched it rocked to see the bands of the sixties on tv, almost in person. (i was a kid, it's as close as i got)
i think the music of the sixties was the premier way the decade spoke to me, that and the images of the tv.
i totally remember seeing vietnam on the news every night. like every single night a real life war was going on on my tv. it showed me blood and loss and death and fire and oblivion. jungle warfare, things you would never ever see today. i vividly remember seeing 'm.a.s.h.' type extremely graffic live reports. these were images i could not understand but i absorbed em just the same. i also absorbed protesting and coups and waring police and riotous fires and destruction. all from the comfort of my mom's corner unit couch. i got so jaded as such a young age.
i don't remember the jfk assination but i very very vividly remember sitting in our car in our driveway in pacific beach and watching my mom cry while hearing some man talking about having a dream on the am radio. i remember his voice was so deep and impassioned and the crowd was cheering and i wish i could of understood what his dream was and why it made my mom so sad. i never knew this man nor that he was just killed nor what he stood for or how he changed the world but i remember that feeling of helplessness and i remember clearly that desire to always fight to change whatever caused that sadness.
i also clearly remember watching robert kennedy shot live on tv. i was playing with barbie and francie at the time and aligning all my enclopedias as a proper runway for my fashion show. then i saw a guy get shot dead. sadly by this time i'd seen so many men get shot dead on my tv it was just another evening. cept this time they were in suits in some building instead of the jungle.
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Watching the Vietnam war on TV was horrifying. I didn't know it then, but my uncle was over there. He was an Army Intelligence agent. My dad told me about it a few years before he died. That's all I can say about that, other than when my uncle returned, he took an early retirement from his life-long army career. Whatever happened over there was so awful, he couldn't handle it. My dad looked nauseated when he told me about it.
I hope my nephews will run away when Bush reinstitutes the draft. They're such wonderful, happy young men. I'd like them to stay that way.
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neighborhood hide n seek was a given as was all day bike riding and the insanity of riding our bikes down huge ass hills which were also semi busy residential streets and blowing thru those intersections at the bottom at about a billion miles per hour. plus we inventing dirt biking, tho then it was just us having fun but knowing we were gonna get the crap chewed outta us by our moms for being so dirty when we got home. i also used to do 'bike ballet' lol.
the monkeys were awsome as was the bananasplits, tho i hated hrpuffnstuff. i never loved davey jones (like marcia did) i was a peter tork fan (which prolly says a lot about my character, lol) i was a jan/peter fan, a laurie fan, a wednesday/lurch/itt fan, a marilyn fan, yadda yadda. we may not have grown up with bears with feelings or rainbow colored ponies but we had our heros too dernitall! (tho once nintendo surfaced all bets were off on what was omg'est and what wasn't. all hail nintendo!)
vietnam was greatfully a memory by the time i came of age but it's legacy endured. i am fully pro-military for myself but not for those i love. i clearly remember telling colin (my son) to 'draft dodge' if and when a draft were instated for this middle eastern / upcoming asian engagement. he said 'hell no' and i was stunned. i appriciate his patriotism and such but the loyalty to 'the call of duty' is just nonsense to me. run! run far away! you will be killed on the tv!
"So, I'm not really of the hippie era. I'm from the transition period immediately after it..."
hippies were the single huge-est influence on my life. i'm not sure why but my dad hated them "those damn hippies" i used to hear on our camping trips. unbeknownest to my dad "those damn hippies" were my idols. i soooo longed for their (supposed) life, their freedom, their amazingly bohemian societal ideals. their music shaped my being, their ideals became my beliefs, the minutia of their lives became my benchmark of importance. banality aside, insense *should* float on every waft of air, velvet and beaded gauze *are* viable fabrics for both clothing and home furnishing, love really *is* all you need and imagine-ing *is* the cornerstone of life. meat is murder, coorporations are the devil and if you can in any way, help your fellow man cuz we really are only here to connect with one another.
in closing...my friend
the witch docter he told me what to say....my friend the witch doctor he told me what to do...and i know you will be mine when i say this to you...oh baby...oooo eeeee ooooo ahh ah....
(btw, may i friend you?)
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