Growing up in the 60's

[Magical Realist]

I wouldn't trade my childhood in the 60's for anything. Those were the days my friend. Saturday morning cartoons till noon. Unsafe toys like chemistry sets and BB guns. Trick or treating on our own for miles. Christmas tree forts and battles to plunder other forts.Summer nights playing outside till bedtime. Family nights at the drive-in triple feature. Firecrackers and roman candles and colored smokebombs. No video games. Just comic books and frisbees and Charlie Brown. We had it all. Those were the good ole days for sure. Any other 60's kids out there?

[C C]

Grandma of the sixties: "I'm living in an alien landscape. Who are these young people and their exotic appearances, customs, devices, interests and beliefs? What ocean vessel unloaded this generation of strangers?"

Lack of sanitary conditions and habits, zero knowledge of germs and many parasites, lack of refrigeration, etc would hardly make for a paradise in olden times. But at least one could live for decades without anything much changing. There might have been nostalgia in terms of past personal events and deceased family / friends, but not with respect to remembering and mourning during the later senior years a whole world that was lost and gone.

For at least a century and a half it's been an ever accelerating onslaught of progress / change disorientation. Like trying to hold onto a prized ice sculpture outdoors with the sun unloading its wrath upon it: "Why can't we keep it? Why does it have to melt away shortly after we become comfortable with it, when it acquires value to us?"

- - -

[RainbowUnicorn]

Magical Realist
not pointing this at you.

what you cant trade, cant be traded.
what you can trade you have likely already traded atleast once or decided you can never deal with trading it.

look at all these millions of rich people un-naturally saved by modern technalogical medical lifestyle choices.

what will become of us ?

all these un-natural things like vacines & Penicillin.
A.I.D.S Ebola Flu syphillis herpies cervical cancer.

why are the christians and muslims not embracing disaease as god intended ?

why are all these un-natural life style choices being used to create an abomination of the human species.

why OH why did humans start agricultural technology thousands of years ago !

it is all soo un-natural !

[Carol]

Watched the movie Grease with a friend last night.  I remember wanting to be a Beatnik but not knowing any.  Later I thought I was a greaser and I did strip a couple of cars with a friend to be hauled to the scrap yard for money.  He got a motorcycle as soon as he could afford one and became a Hells Angel.  We were separated by then.  But I enjoyed riding around with his brothers in Southern California until my father found me and took me to live with his family.  

Back then, good girls didn't but bad girls did and some of us stayed virgin until marriage.  Why else would anyone get married but to have sex?  No that isn't the only reason for marriage.  I didn't like living with my father's second family and he thought a girl should be married before leaving home, so within 3 months, I was married.  That was when girls went to college to find husbands and they were expected to stay home and be the good woman behind the successful man and care for the children.  I still think those values are very important.  But I didn't choose my husband as well as my mother and father thought.  Of course, he had a black leather jacket and wore motorcycle boots, and did buy a motor cycle when he could afford one.  That was after I got pregnant, and years before I got a washing machine.  

I got into the Hippie thing because my younger sister was into the hippie thing and we lived in a small Oregon, coastal town then without much happening.  The coastal town was still primitive and chopping our own fire wood was common. I loved the transition from the perfect 1950'tys mother and wife to the late 1960-1970 mother goddess.  The transition from the mother goddess to a liberated woman was horrible!    My husband was consumed by alcoholism and was taking his bad relationship with his mother out on me.  He also didn't want an educated woman and I love studying history and philosophy- we were a very bad match!  He didn't enjoy the Hippie thing or anything else besides hanging at the bar and flirting with the gals who were glad to please him.   He was charming and very good looking!  I can laugh at it now, but the trip was not fun after women's lib set in and exasperated the problems in my marriage.  

But yes, I can remember southern California and riding my bike all day, not coming home until people started turning on their lights.  Or playing in a field with neighbor kids and building forts.   We had moved from Hollywood to the valley and I was very proud of being a country girl, instead of a city girl.  Laugh, the valley had been mountain to mountain orange orchards and was turned into suburban sprawl with the GI bill.  It didn't take long for this beautiful valley to become mountain to mountain concrete and asphalt.  

Hollywood, California was like a glamorous old lady with too much make-up when I was a child.  It had a trolley that we could ride to the coast for 25 cents.   The city was full of glamor but it was old and outdated.  I have nostalgic feelings for that old Hollywood, and window shopping on the main street.  There was an exotic Asian store full of burning incense.  The Goodyear store smelled of new tires.   There was a Boys Club and down the block a Girls Club and back then males were males and females were females and we didn't cross those boundaries.   Little girls wore short skirts and could not go to school in pants even in the cold or winter.  That was really stupid to me because we were supposed to be modest and playing on the play ground sometimes exposed our underpants, besides our legs being very cold in the winter.   Women earned less than men, and I remember my mother complaining that a man was hired to do same job and was paid more.  That for sure was not right, as she was struggling to raise 2 children alone, but at least the school had a day care and a sliding scale fee.  That made it possible for mothers to work in Hollywood, where she was a keypunch operator- she put the holes in the cards that computers read.

[Secular Sanity]

Well, that might explain why you’re down with the whole Stepford wives thing, eh?

All of my grandmothers worked outside the home during the 40’s and 50’s. My mother did, as well, but I was embarrassed by her 1970’s cloths.  Bell bottoms with patches sewn all over them, satin jackets, and ugly pant suits. Egad, what were you guys thinking? The pendulum swung way too far in the fashion industry, that’s for sure.

I remember my grandmother showing me an old clip of her going toe to toe with Regis Philbin and Merv Griffin on women issues. She could make people look stupid without them even realizing it until it was too late.  I was saying " Oh, hell, ya!  That’s what I’m talking about!"  I had way more respect for her after watching it.

[elte]

Sixties was several years before my time outside playing.  Still though, we could bicycle just about anywhere we wanted on our Huffy stingrays, and could play outside until bedtime.  That still was a bit before helicopter parenting gained prominence.

[Secular Sanity]

Sixties was several years before my time outside playing.  Still though, we could bicycle just about anywhere we wanted on our Huffy stingrays, and could play outside until bedtime.  That still was a bit before helicopter parenting gained prominence.

Same here.  I grew up in a small town, though.