The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 15, Thread 17.

1. The Sixties
Sat, Feb 6, 1999 - 5:54 PM/EST
bec

This weekend's television includes the Impeachment trial and the TV movie on the 60s. Interestingly, they share a theme.

The underlying issue of the attacks on the President is the anathema that the cultural changes of the 1960s are held by the right wing of the republican party. Whether it's civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam war, the sexual revolution, the women's movement, the use of psycedelic drugs, the end of censorship in film and other arts, rock and roll; the right (such a good word for those who purport to know) wishes that none had occured.

The somnolence of the 1950s led to the revolution of sex drugs and rock and roll. And the world has never been the same.

Many of us are of the same generation. I don't expect most of us will watch the NBC special. I'd rather tape George Carlin tonight and watch him again.

But how did these years affect you if you were there. Both then, and now in retrospect. If you weren't there do you think your life is different then it might have been if the sixties hadn't occured? Do you want to go back to some (to me horrid) more simple past? Do you want some more sdrr?

2. The Sixtes
Sat, Feb 6, 1999 - 9:01 PM/EST
hawki78

bec,
I was just hitting my teens by the late sixties, but sdrr was alive and well in the 70's as well. Unfortunately, from my point of view, the 70's lacked the direct political action of the 60's but the idealism of those years was imparted to me by at least one of my older brothers and I've held on to that even into my "middle age" (what a horrible phrase!) I'm sure you remmber the saying "Don't trust anyone over thirty." If it hadn't been for a card from my brother showing dinosaurs sinking into the La Brea tar pits with the caption, "Don't worry. I know how you feel.", my 30th birtday would have been depressing beyond expression. Instead we had a lot of laughs.

As to the sex, it was great. But in this age of AIDS and drug resistant STD's it would be crazy to advocate the free sex we enjoyed 20 or 30 years ago.

Drugs? I think that was the biggest mistake we made in that time. We wrongly thought that just because "adults" disapproved, they must be good. But I experienced my best friend's suicide and too many wasted lives to believe that beyond my 20th birthday.

ROCK N ROLL! Oh man I still love it. Pop in a Beatles or a Stones or a Pink Floyd or a Jefferson Airplane CD; and I am transported back to that largely happy time.

Would I go back to that time if I could? Absolutely not, but I think I've carried the best of that time forward with me while I discarded the worst of it.

3. The Sixties
Sat, Feb 6, 1999 - 9:55 PM/EST
MAYORBOB2

I graduated from High School in 65. Spent a semester screwing around in College until I just drifted out of school. I knew that it was just a matter of time before Uncle Sam came calling with a draft notice, so I dodged the draft -- I enlisted in the Army.

Actually it gave me a chance to pick my military training rather than being handed a rifle and taught how to crawl around in tunnels. So I ended up as an Intelligence Analyst over in Vietnam, from May 1967 to August 1969...yes I extended twice over there because I didn't want to go to the primo assignments the Army had in mind for me (Fort Polk, Louisiana and Fort Bragg, North Carolina).

At any rate, I lived through Tet of 68 in Saigon, saw some duty down in the Delta, got shot at a few times and shot back in the general direction of where I thought the incoming was coming from. Believe me, no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole is just not hyperbole...especially if the atheist is getting shot at.

I returned from Nam in 69 and never went back. Most of my buddies from High School ended up either working for General Motors or Duponts. Most of them had families started by the time I got back. But a few weren't so lucky.

One guy, Paulie, was our class bully and had developed a reputation as someone you didn't give any shit to back then. He ended up going into the Recon Marines...he got a little to close to the blast radius of an 82mm incoming shell. Shrapnel up and down the right side of him...messed up his day and his head for life. He returned and just could never quiet the demons inside of him. Last time I saw him was our 15th year class reunion. I talked with him for awhile, mostly about Nam...everything else just tended to engender a glassy stare back at you. He ended up playing target practice with his skull a year later. I remember the last thing he said to me was, "Look at all you SOBs, you got it together and I'm just a piece of shit."

Then there was Donny who was the State wrestling champion in his weight class (155 lb if memory serves). He was the only child of his Mom, who worked in a bank, and his Dad, a plumber who planned on teaching his son the trade one day. I never saw Donny again after graduation cause in late 1968, I got a letter from my Mom that Donny had been killed up at Cu Chi.

I did see his Mom in 1969 after I got home. I was in the bank cashing a check and she saw me. She just kept staring at me and said to me, "why you and not my Donny." I didn't really have any reply for her.

The Sixties to me were not about sex, drugs, or rock and roll. My Sixties were about Vietnam. They didn't include any protesting against the war, or burning draft cards (an unthinkable prospect given my upbringing and social class).

Well that's my recollection of the Sixties...I think I'll pass on the made for TV experience.

4. Born in 71
Sat, Feb 6, 1999 - 11:07 PM/EST
Noelle16

I wasn't here for those days, but to say that decade didn't affect our world today would be shameful. Yes indeed...
Sex. The free love/sex thing was easily imagined by people my age, and perhaps had it not been for that strange disease called AIDS that surfaced in my junior high days, the gen x'rs probably would have tried it. Surely, lots of us didn't heed the warnings about the virus and were irresponsible in our own experimentations with sex before marriage. The 60's, in my opinion, is where pre-marital/teen sex began to become a "normal" within society.

Drugs- Oh my. The drug use problem is still out of control here in the US of A. The eighties were a haven for drugs, (heroin and cocaine in particular) There will alway be marijuana use. Period. There is still LSD around, and even now new drugs are being used among the younger generation -exstacy is passed out at raves, and there is always somthing new out there.
I mean no harm in this, but what started out in the 60's as a way of expanding one's mind and helping people feel peaceful has turned into a raging bull and I see no real end to it. It is even evident in today's society, with the booming pharmaceutical industry. If there is something one can take that can ease the pain, make you smarter, stop bad habits or change the chemistry in your brain, you can find it at the drug store nearest you.

Rock'N Roll- the one and only thing that the 60's passed on that will be passed on throughout time. Truly some of the best stuff ever created! Nothing beats the music that was generated back then, and it will always be influence to everything put out in the future. Too wonderful for words!

Mayorbob2-your story is one I will not ever forget. Coming from a generation where the only wars I have ever experienced have been fully televised and therefore seemed unreal, My heart goes out to you, and anyone who has any sense of duty to this country or patriotism anymore. You , unfortunately, are a dying breed.

5. Salute
Sun, Feb 7, 1999 - 6:17 AM/EST
Tokin2

MAYORBOB2
I SALUTE you and all who served in thoes trying times.

6. When did the sixties REALLY begin?
Sun, Feb 7, 1999 - 11:26 AM/EST
dugwould

I was 8 years old on 1/1/60 and 18 on 12/31/69. But did the 60s (and all that the decade stood for) really take place in those ten years? The following is definitely hindsight:

What defines a decade are usually events that shape and change attitudes and beliefs. Did the 60s begin with:
Brown v the Board of Education (1954)
the beginning of our involvement in Vietnam (1959)
the JFK inauguration (1/20/61)
the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement (1961)
the Cuban missle crisis (10/62)
the JFK assasination (11/22/63)
the arrival of the Beatles in America (2/64)

I guess it all depends on your experiences and point of view.

8. What I remember about the 60's
Sun, Feb 7, 1999 - 3:44 PM/EST
P.J.

Dugwould's point is well made. When did it begin and when did it end? What is gone and what still remains? Free love is gone but distrust of government is still here. Bell bottoms went but returned. Same with tie-dyed tees. When we landed on the moon it mean't we were capable of anything. When our best leaders were shot it also meant we were capable of anything. When President Johnson lifted his shirt to show his gall bladder scar a mystique was shattered. There were lots of drugs but fewer drug deaths and crimes relating to drugs. A person's age seemed to define them. And people parked the car close to the local bar in case they couldn't walk when they left it.