The Early 60s in Retrospect-

What Needs to be Remembered

Copping a line from Charlie: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” The 60’s were coming of age. Seventy percent of today’s America missed it. They had not been born. Usually caught rolling their eyes, they heard about it, read about it, and they made it pretty clear, they’re tired of it. It’s understandable. It’s history in black in white. After submitting to the strict application of chronometric dating, that space and time ended almost 55 years ago. Still, it bled into the early 70’s, commensurate with the end of the last ice age. 

“Okay Boomers–You’re NOT going to start talking about the 60’s again are you?”

It was back in “My” day when love was freer than speech. Zigzag was not a symmetric pattern. Tie dye and bell bottoms were in. Madras and peggers were out. Cruising endured, music had soul, and somehow, somewhere, somebody turned on, tuned in, and dropped out. Some did, some didn’t. Most were spectators’, some were selective participants, a few would actually lead movements. In reality this trite return to yesteryear is just an exaggerated snapshot of the latter part of the decade. The decade’s earlier years were a lot different.

Where Were You in ’62?

The first wave of Boomers—the prodigy of the “Greatest Generation,” were just sixteen. Decked out in penny loafers, Jack Purcell’s, pedal pushers and corduroy lace up flats, they were just two years away from being newly minted high school grads. It was the time of American Graffiti not Woodstock. By appearance and attitude, they had more in common with the class of “57” than “67.” It was the time of the Rat Pack, The Manchurian Candidate, Doctor No, and Lawrence of Arabia. While Elvis was following his dream, teens were listening to Bobbie, Vinton not Dylan. Ray couldn’t stop loving, Dion was wandering, Chubby was twisting, while Dee Dee was busy mashing potatoes. The more serious cords would be left to Guthrie and Seeger. Over the black and white broadcasts of the CBS nightly news, Cronkite would tell the nation: “That’s the way it is”. LA’s seven VHF channels would sport the regions top three TV shows: The Beverly Hill Billies, Candid Camera, and Red Skelton. A colorized Bonanza carried NBC’s flag in fourth.

Color TVs and automatic dishwashers were luxury items. Newsflash, there was no Perma Press cycle on a clothes dryer. Seventy to eighty percent of Americans wouldn’t know, they still used clothes pins. Princess push button wall phones replaced aging rotaries. The tops of “Steel-Case” desks sported electric “Selectrics,” where manual “Underwood’s” once roamed. Whiteout and carbon paper still not included. By the way, twenty-two percent of adult Americans didn’t own a car.

In keeping up with the Jone’s, the attention of visitors would be divided between a Britannica laden bookcase, a coffee table covered in meticulously arranged copies of Life, Look, and National Geographic, and of course, a 21″ Magnavox screen housed in a mahogany console. Coasters, ash trays, and lighters would be relegated to the end tables. If company was coming, the TV trays and dad’s paperback Louis Lamour collection were no where to be seen.

The back to back recessions that ended the 50’s and started the 60’s were over while economists touted the growing need for professional and technical training. Those with blue collars dropped to 37% of the workforce. Even back then, blue shirts were being exchanged for white ones while the notion of merit began to erode the longstanding male patronage practices of the nation’s selective colleges. It was the time of William Wythe’s Organizational “Mad Men.” Fedora’s were still in fashion.

It was the heyday of IBM, 3M, and M&M’s. If the nation was seeing the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet, it was preferably in an Impala. Cookie cutter ranch style tract homes with enough wood paneling to deforest the State of Oregon kept the sawmills of Weyerhaeuser humming. The Feminine Mystique had yet to be published but the “Pill” had been available for nearly two years. Gender separation was alive and well; the boys were in “Shop” the girls were in ‘Home Ec.”

Glenn’s three laps in Friendship 7 pushed the U.S. in front of the space race. Missiles in Cuba extended the schoolroom practice of duck and cover. Try as he may, Nikita still hadn’t buried us, but Fidel’s pigs in the bay had already sent the U.S. a sobering message. Somewhat unnoticed, U.S. military presence in Vietnam had grown to 11,300. To date, Mao had killed 45 million of his own people whilst the CIA had ratcheted up its covert operations in Laos, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Where are these places? The public would slowly become aware of the Agency’s reach when U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was the subject of a prisoner exchange with a U.S. held Soviet spy. After its previous intervention into the governments of Guatemala and Iran, the Agency allegedly adopted the motto: “Practice Makes Perfect.” In the meantime, the White House had become Camelot while Hoffa made it clear that he and Jack were not pals. Back in California, the press was shocked and dismayed; it was not going to have Nixon to kick arounds anymore.

For kids and adults alike, the threat of nuclear annihilation was real. Mao and Nikita were the poster children of evil while the U.S. escalated its meddling in the affairs of foreign nations. To know what happened overseas, even the broadcast anchors had to wait for the news reels to be flown in. Allegedly in response to the Berlin Crisis, Kennedy authorized the doubling of military conscriptions. It would affect African Americans disproportionately with their Anglo counterparts. The Bracero program was phasing out while the fight for farm worker’s rights was just beginning. The term glass ceiling had yet to be coined, gender stereo type casting continued, dad remained the primary breadwinner while the label “Made in the USA” was America’s choice. Everyone was getting more with a Kenmore. For most, the standard of living continued to improve. Not so for those living in the barrio.

If you lived in L.A .you could still cut the air with a knife while the ghostly remains of backyard incinerators slowly faded into oblivion. Helms Bakery trucks still roamed the neighborhoods. Rush hours were really rush hours yet the I-405 had not reached Orange County. Up at the Ravine, the Angels shared Dodger Stadium; the year Koufax pitched his first no-hitter. USC football was the consensus national champion while across town the “Wizard “ was starting his 16th season. The Bruin dynasty would commence the following year.

Elsewhere in sports, Laver won his first grand slam, Ward won the 500, Palmer beat Player, Nicklaus beat Palmer, Wilt scored 73, Maury stole 100, while the Celtics, Maple Leafs, Yankees, and Packers were declared world champions.

Meanwhile, Rachel was taking on Monsanto. The world would know that the spring was no longer silent. The movement to protect the environment was on. It would take another decade to remove DDT from shelves. “Getting the Lead Out” of gas, paint, and policy-makers pants, would take even longer. A polluted Lake Erie was dead and the Cuyahoga River still caught fire.

To the relief of school kids, the polio vaccine now came in Sabin’s sugar cubes. Even though published medical research proved a link between lung cancer and smoking, 42% of America’s adult population still lit up. In spite of themselves, life expectancy in the U.S. increased to 70.27 years: 73.6 for women, and 67.1 for the weaker sex. 

Freedom riders bought bus tickets from a begrudging Jim Crow, lunch-counter sit-ins continued, Dr. King experienced three squares a day in the Albany Georgia jail, while Delores Huerta and Caesar Chavez were in Delano founding something called the UFW. The Space Needle had opened, Marilyn had been found dead, and the very first Walmart, Kmart, and Motel 6 opened to the public. Carson took over the Tonight Show, Decca Records turned down the Beatles, while Warhol obsessed over a Campbells soup can. Telstar relayed the first live trans-Atlantic television signal, and silicone provided women with a new uplifting experience.

This is the world the first wave of boomers experienced. Color television, cruising, drive-ins, epic movies, rock & roll, the Nashville Sound, and hour-long phone calls on the extension. If you lived in southern California, you could throw in going to the beach, a trip to Disneyland, or taking a drive up to PV to see Bubbles and Squirt. Knott’s would be in there somewhere since the parents still preferred fried chicken and boysenberry pie. Lucy, Red, Jed, Andy, and the Cartwrights filled nighttime TV screens. Oscars were handed out to Sophia for Two Women, Maximillian defending the indefensible in Judgement and Nuremberg, and of course, the cast of Westside Story. This was the culture, the continuation of habits from the previous decade. 

Yet, a general uneasiness persisted in the many corners of America. Significant change to underlying societal morays was not readily apparent but to many of the older set, commies, non-whites, reefer madness, and the sexual inuendo of teenage music continued to tear at the fabric of the country. The reinforced silos of race and gender were solidly in place but beginning to show cracks in the foundations. The remnants of mud-slinging accusatory McCarthy style politics laid dormant but not dead. It would be revived during the ’64 Republican convention. The near decade old unsatisfactory end to the Korean Police Action still lingered; It’s memory consumed by a foreboding Cold War. Communists may not be behind every bush, but they certainly were massing inside and out. Was the nation going to be buried by the Soviets, overrun by the “Yellow Peril,” or just be consumed by mushroom clouds.

Every subset of every generation faces what seems to be insurmountable, if not overwhelming, problems. Souls continue to be tried. During this earlier time and place, the initial wave of soon to be eighteen-year old Boomers took their cues from the traditions of family, customs, and the remnant thoughts of a decade gone by. Yet there were these new leaders with younger faces to consider. They had a youthful bounce in their step. They had hair on their heads, were well dressed, poised, smiled, and looked directly into one’s eyes to inspire. They spoke directly to our generation.  JFK, RFK, and MLK, would take on the KKK. In their own rights, Jack took on Nikita, Robert called out an Alabama Governor, and Martin eventually found himself on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. To Dr. King’s chagrin, white indifference to the plight of people of color was still alive and well. 

Intentional or not, a sometimes-obtuse population was distracted.  Out of sight, out of mind. There was always another consumer product to buy, another time saving device or something that was the latest and greatest.  Still Malcolm preached violence while Baldwin was hitting his intellectual stride. The Soviet threat was real. Surface nuclear testing continued.

Time to go! Road trip anyone? How about to your favorite National Park?

As Charlie was saying: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Even in as little as five years, the front line boomers hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.

Next Up–An unspeakable assassination, “The Great Society,” civil rights, the right to vote, more assassinations, protests, and the peak of an unpopular war