Ell I always thought we were going to be annihilated by Russia, SO as a youngster all I thought about was the day the Bomb would fall on us, gotta get under a desk and cover your head that will save you from the commie bastards and their atomic blast--JFK, LBJ, Tricky Dick....
Okay....need I say more? I grew up during the era of the Vietnam war, heard the reports of the attacks, the death, the soldiers in huts in the jungle on the old black and white tv with its rabbit ear antenna while I did my spelling homework on the floor, my daddy cussed the war...and turned the channel to Lawrence Welk. Man walked on the moon or did he? IM not so sure...and then the cold war. Boys I had crushes on in school disappeared into the draft right after graduation...never to be seen again! We had peace rallies, and anti war protests, we made posters, "Ban the Bomb" "Stop the War" "Give Peace A Chance" "Make Love Not War"
We smoked pot and listened to heavy metal, we spiked our punch with vodka and black beauties...and we dodged the bomb...
We read stories about back room abortionists, "Legalize Abortion"...
When I was 9 or 10 we, my sister who was 7 and the boys next door, dug a bomb shelter. To us the threat was very real...We had seen the one below our Post Office and we had marched single file from the Elementary school down there during a "drill". It was such a bag of horse manure. Im watching this PBS special about the day the 60's died. It's bringing back harsh memories of how much we hated the "Establishment" Four Dead in Ohio...."Stop the Draft" then in the middle of it all here in the South race relations grew hot...even in a small town like ours there was racial stress...a march headed north up Highway# 1, sheriff Hector Debrulh turned a group of about 100 marchers around he set up a road block had deputies armed with shotguns and he told them they would not be allowed to march through our town...they turned around.
A few years later he called my mother said "do you know what they got our kids reading down at that high school"? They confiscated our reading assignment "the Scarlet Letter" they actually came around and took our books Away!! (freedom of the press?)
We were the baby boomers but I was on the tail end of it, I was a flower child who learned to play guitar and sing songs like "Leaving on A jet Plane" in the 70's we sat in the grass and complained about the war, the government, Nixon, Agent Orange, our parents and how they didnt understand us...we spun records on our players and we had our battery operated transistor radios...16 yrs old and we drove the family wagons after we did the dishes and took out the trash...down to the Burger Family and Dairy Queen, and we went to the drive in Theater, or the Little on Saturday night...we sneaked out with college aged boys and made out in the back seats and drank Vodka from a bottle.... we rolled our hair with soup cans.
"HELL NO WE WON"T GO" and we passed out.
Some of my girl friends got pregnant and had to give up their babies for adoption, they never smiled much after that...and they went right home from school no partying anymore...
We graduated! 1971 some went off to school some went to work, some got married, some died! Some became drug addicts, some were wife beaters some joined the military voluntary, some became guitar players in well known bands,,,,me I was 16 and ran away from home and hitched a ride to NYC and worked on the race track walking hots and galloping race horses and listening to John Denver!! Nixon re elected? Couldn't believe it, I wasn't able to vote till the next election.
Iranian Hostages we don't negotiate for hostages....finally Carter got them out...Iran-Contra....didnt know what the hell that was about...then we grew UP....became our parents working raising kids up with the Iran/Iraq wars, Saddam Hussein, and the Shaw of Iran...Read My Lips, our kids grew up and found hard times trying to find work, the America they have so very different from the one we gave them."growing up in little pink houses,
making out on living room couches,
blowing that smoke on Saturday nights
we're a little messed up but we're all alright"
Kenny Chesney-American Kids
