On the 1960s

I was 12 years old in 1960 and 21 in 1969. I believe that tone of the 1960s was set by the Viet Nam War, the Birth Control Pill, The Kennedy Assasinations, and The Assasination of Martin Luther King. Because of all these events and more it was the greatest time of social upheaval, unrest, insecurity in my lifetime. Whereas now is the greatest time of economic insecurity worldwide in my lifetime since I was born in 1948. But now is not the greatest social upheaval time. The United States experienced the biggest social upheaval in the 1960s and 1970s since the Civil War 100 years before. People who have been born since then might not understand just how great the changes were. Many many people I knew were so very different than there parents that they just left and never came back and spoke to their parents ever again. To understand how great a divide there was this must be understood. I was not like this. My parents and I stayed close throughout our lives. Family always came first. But this wasn't true for many that I knew then.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the single must terrifying event for those 13 days of any mass event in my life. Almost anyone then who hadn't already built a bomb shelter in their backyard got their shovels out and started digging during those 13 days in 1962. Some people stayed every night in their bomb shelters in their backyards during this time. When those 13 days ended people were very relieved but it was sort of like a mass post traumatic stress disorder set into everyone. There have been three events like this in my lifetime: The Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK's assasination, and 9-11. Each event traumatized the nation into strangeness. We all survived it but all these events have made the nation stranger but stronger after each event.

For example, almost no one I have ever talked to ever believed the government assessment of who actually assasinated   President John F. Kennedy. Since so many young people believed that whoever assasinated Kennedy ran the government after he died mistrust of the government was rampant. I think this is one reason that so many young people deserted or went away to Canada. They felt the Viet Nam War had nothing at all real to do with the United States. And I have yet to hear even one convincing reason that has ever made any sense to me at all as to why it was fought at all killing 50,000 Americans of my generation and wounding 250,000 and countless walking wounded that one often sees homeless on the streets across the U.S. even today.

Another element of social change in the 1960s was the birth control pill. It began to become commonly available to all women over a certain age (sometime between 15 and 21 years of age depending upon the state).  Before the pill women had little or not control over when or even if they would have a baby (especially if they were married). Women who got pregnant(and didn't want to be) often died from (coat hanger abortions) by unlicensed providers who were all illegal at the time.

I remember reading "Reader's Digest" in 1962 and what a furor that birth control pills were making in the change of women's mores and the sexual habits of everyone, male and female. If I were asked what the single factor was that allowed women to fight for equal rights at that time I would have to say it was the "time freeing" factor of being able to control if and when or whether any of them ever got pregnant, married or not.

However, it also gave many people sexual license in my generation and in some circles like coastal California, parts of New York City and Chicago and other progressive metropolitan areas it was not uncommon during the late 1960s or early 1970s for men and women to have had 100 or more sexual partners by age 25 if they were still single. However, this also scarred a lot of people emotionally who couldn't cope with a much more libertine life because they couldn't deal with all the new ramifications of so many partners. For example, what if one of the 100 partners was "the One" they should have lived with or married? But because of being so sexual active or sexually addicted they didn't notice the person that was just right for them? So this caused a great deal of problems for some who were not emotionally suited to have so many different partners.

 One experience typified some aspects of  1969 in Griffith Park (Griffith Park is to Los Angeles what Central Park is to  New York in some ways even though it is one the edge of Hollywood and Glendale and Burbank).

I was 21 and at a Love-In in Griffith Park. It is a big park and range of hills. The Griffith Observatory is there and also the Los Angeles Zoo. I used to ride there on my bicycle as a boy with friends starting in the late 1950s and catch crayfish in the streams running down the hills on the Hollywood side. However, now I was near the old Carousel and listening to the Youngbloods in concert that were by this time called the "Flying Burrito Brothers". They sang their song "When you come home to San Francisco"(at youtube it's called "Get Together"). I watched the police gather around the bands and the audience of the Love-In. They were all touching their batons getting ready to beat the audience with their batons. Buffy St. Marie began to sing with her unusual wailing American Indian type of sound that always made me think of the plight of the Native Americans. When the last song had finished the police began to wade into the  stoned crowd there gathered on the lawns of the park and began beating everyone they could with their batons. I was very scared for the many stoned people there but since I had just come for the concert I was clear headed enough to run for my life so I wasn't hit. I was just very scared for the  thousands of stoned concert goers in their teens and 20s. Many of those at the Love-In were Viet Nam Veterans just returning from Viet Nam. The polarization within the United States at this time killed many both in the United States as well as Viet Nam. 1969 was the single craziest year of my life and I was very very glad when it was over. And even gladder to get married in 1974 when my son was born. The 1960s were chaos in every way. I don't think anyone thought those times were good for anyone. Those of us who survived the 1960s young or old I consider very lucky.