I'm feeling nostalgic - walking down memory lane.... Marlo Thomas (top) had the same hairstyle/ makeup that my big sister had in high school (graduated in 1970). My dad looked like the guys in the Rat Pack - he always had a drink in his hand and my mom, a cigarette. Our station wagon was similar to the one here - they were huge like boats. But they held all the big families, and took us on fun road trip vacations when no one ever worried about gas prices.
My hometown, San Antonio, hosted Hemisfair in 1968, and it was a big deal for the city. I remember wearing fun, bold, bright, colorful clothes there, and buying my first peace sign necklace. It was the first time I'd ever seen a 'food court' - booths of restaurants together like that. And I can still smell the food... The photo with the girls in orange and yellow is actually from Hemisfair, and my mother's clothes of that era looked just like that.
In the mid-sixties on vacation (family road trip) I remember listening to the radio of the riots in L.A. and the civil unrest. It was a scary time since right in a row, President Kennedy was killed, then Martin Luther King, Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy. Every baby boomer knows where he was the day Kennedy was shot and what they were doing at the exact moment it happened. It changed the world as we knew it, like 9-11 did for the next generation.
During dinner, we watched the tv show, 'Laugh in' with Dean Martin (and other Rat Pack members on occasion) and Goldie Hawn. It was soooooo 60's... My best friend had moved to California in '67, and she visited me to see Hemisfair in '68, and I visited her in '69. We walked to the infamous street corner of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in the height of the Hippie days, and it's a day I'll never forget. I felt in my bones that it was a historical moment in time.
There was a huge influence from England, the London invasion, of pop music groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and the Doors. Twiggy (also English) was the 'it' top model in Seventeen Magazine and started the skinny/anorexic look still popular today... The early part of the decade was innocent with the Beach Boys and Gidget, but as it progressed and the national murders happened, the unrest started. The Beatles ushered in the drug era, and the Vietnam War started. My generation didn't believe in the war, and fought it. "Make Peace, not War."
In sixth grade, all of my friends and I got white go-go boots, and thought we were SO 'groovy.' We didn't have the worries we have today... Most parents stayed married. Gays stayed in the closet. Kids could ride their bikes all over the neighborhood, and NO one worried about it - ever. We went to the Texas coast every weekend in the summer, and could walk the beach, and the island, and NEVER have to worry about being abducted by a pedophile. Cops were different. They understood that kids are kids, and didn't throw them in the slammer over silly pranks. Back then, boys would take cars for 'joy rides,' and get grounded by their parents but not thrown in jail. It was such a simpler time. And I am so fortunate to have been young then...
I feel bad for my children to live in these times, although they don't have those experiences to compare this to.
It seems the world has gone crazy. Black is white, and white is black. And it seems like time goes faster, not just because I'm older, but because it just is. People were more moral back then. Doctors cared and weren't just in it for the money. Americans had a 'can do' attitude, instead of looking to the government to solve our problems. Company owners had a heart, unlike now where so much greed has set in, that loyal employees of over 25 years are canned without even as much as a 'thank you for your service.'
Church goers were respected, not mocked. People spanked their children, and didn't leave disciplining for the schools. The media were not nearly as biased as they are now, admitting they have their own agenda. People could be trusted. Kids actually played outdoors instead of on electronics inside. You could go almost anywhere in the world, and not worry that they would try to kill you if you weren't their religion. We could cross the Texas border to Mexico, which is impossible now due to the drug cartels...
Yes, the world has changed, and not in a good way... But the sixties for me are sweet memories, and still bring me 'sunshine on a cloudy day.'
Peace.
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