How would I describe growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. I was 21 in 1969

Mostly life I found to be sort of terrifying in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1950s were mostly boring and terrifying (it alternated between the two) and of course I had great parents and I was an only child too. But, then again I'm telling you what my experience actually was. However, I really loved the wilderness whether that was the mountains or oceans or deserts. My father would take my mother and I often on weekends to some beautiful more remote place in a retreat especially away from the craziness of the city when we lived in Glendale and Tujunga in the Los Angeles area. We especially spent a lot of time walking on the Silver Mocassin Trail up in Twin Peaks area past Chilao in the Angeles Crest National Forest walking through the Ponderosa pines at that altitude around 5000 to 7000 feet in altitude. Later we would go to his best friends desert getaway (2nd vacation home) near Yucca Valley, California after I was about 12 years old too for weekends. I loved to ride motorcycles and a mini-bike I had with a 2 1/2 horsepower engine that could do 30 mph through the sandy roads back then there. It was called a "Bird" by Wren and was metallic blue with a red Tecumseh engine with a centrifugal clutch at that time.

But, there was this craziness to the 1960s that contained the Assassination of President Kennedy, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile crisis where we all almost nuked out worldwide and the worse thing was the Viet Nam War where 50,000 Americans died and the biggest group that died were exactly my same age. So, this whole decade was extremely traumatic for everyone (sort of like a mini-World War II) in it's own way.

I think the first time I felt my life might be okay was when I married and had a son in 1974. It wasn't perfect but being married and supporting my wife and child was actually the first thing in my life that actually made sense to me. The rest was sort of Chaos which we all put up with or else we died or ended our lives then.

Actually, the most peaceful part of my life has been since 1994 when I met my present wife. I went from almost dying by 1998 and 1999 to finally retiring and having some peace in my life like I had always prayed for.

So, I would recommend staying alive through all the chaos in life because sometimes it gets better with age like it did for me, first in 1974 and then in 1999 when doctors told me I wasn't going to die which was nice too.

By God's Grace