jbg
Active Member
I just finished reading 1969: The Year Everything Changed by Rob Kirkpatrick. I picked this out at random while looking for Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam. I guess the grouping must be by sociology, a subject I rarely read about.
While 1969 is hardly the earliest year from which I have personal memories, (I was twelve at the time) it probably is the first year of which I have end-to-end recollection, including:
Very little needs be said about the lunar landing. It lifted the spirits of a very unhappy nation, and it was "a giant leap for mankind." As for the Jets and the Mets, "you gotta' believe."
On the negative side, my parents decided to give Nixon a chance. He quickly lived up to his reputation as a thug that believed in nothing. The sheer violence of the college campus uprisings was the start of the unglueing of the country. The students obviously lacked the maturity to run much of anything. Worse, at mine and my father's alma mater, Cornell, race and guns created a new, nihilistic element. Similarly while not totally new, the "hippy" culture drew many young people away from constructive engagement with society and their own future. As we know from the young age that rock stars died, starting with Joplin, Hendrix and Morrison, the damage from that era was lasting. "Free love" made imperative the loosening of divorce and abortion laws. This has been a decidedly mixed bag for all concerned.
During that era both me and my parents were quite the liberals, I must have begun my drift away, as even at twelve I was personally sickened by the overlay of violence, idleness and discord. Certain years stand out to me as pivotal and from time to time I will write OP's focusing on those. Almost all \ had some very good, and very bad aspects.
1972 is another such year but that is another topic for another thread and another day.
While 1969 is hardly the earliest year from which I have personal memories, (I was twelve at the time) it probably is the first year of which I have end-to-end recollection, including:
- Nixon's inauguration
- The Jets' victory in the January 1969 Super Bowl;
- A notable early-February NYC blizzard that brought ridicule to NYC's Mayor Lindsay
- Progressing through the spasm of violence on the Cornell campus that April that saddened my father, a Cornell alum;
- Some events that did not make the book that spring, such as a notable late-May heat wave and lots of July rain;
- An event I did not hear of till later, the Stonehenge Riots;
- The lunar landing;
- Chappaquiddick;
- Woodstock's love-fest;
- The Tate-LaBianca murders;
- An event I did not hear of till later, the Zodiac killings;
- The Met's "amazing" World Series victory; and
- An event I did not hear of till later, the Altamont fiasco.
Very little needs be said about the lunar landing. It lifted the spirits of a very unhappy nation, and it was "a giant leap for mankind." As for the Jets and the Mets, "you gotta' believe."
On the negative side, my parents decided to give Nixon a chance. He quickly lived up to his reputation as a thug that believed in nothing. The sheer violence of the college campus uprisings was the start of the unglueing of the country. The students obviously lacked the maturity to run much of anything. Worse, at mine and my father's alma mater, Cornell, race and guns created a new, nihilistic element. Similarly while not totally new, the "hippy" culture drew many young people away from constructive engagement with society and their own future. As we know from the young age that rock stars died, starting with Joplin, Hendrix and Morrison, the damage from that era was lasting. "Free love" made imperative the loosening of divorce and abortion laws. This has been a decidedly mixed bag for all concerned.
During that era both me and my parents were quite the liberals, I must have begun my drift away, as even at twelve I was personally sickened by the overlay of violence, idleness and discord. Certain years stand out to me as pivotal and from time to time I will write OP's focusing on those. Almost all \ had some very good, and very bad aspects.
1972 is another such year but that is another topic for another thread and another day.