Life then was full of imperatives. If you were young, most of those were about mindlessly following traditions and protocol. If you lived long enough, you earned respect. We pledged allegiance and bowed our heads for prayer. The county sheriff rode a horse in the local parades and wore a cowboy hat. Unbelievably, his name was Star. There were southern men and northern men, and they were different. My family came from the north, so that made the most sense to me. But the confederacy still lived in the hearts of southerners, and truly they still wanted to fight the war. The speech of southern working men was hard and dangerous, I thought. They liked to squint their eyes when they spoke. They harbored a resentment at the influx of northerner occupiers that was taking place. I remember the harsh talk when Bobby Kennedy, then Martin Luther King was shot. They called him Martin Luther Coon and played racist songs from the Rebel label. You are not supposed to talk about that now, I guess, but it has never left me. We were not part of the larger thing that I saw on TV and in magazines, I told myself. George Wallace was running for President on the anti-segregationist ticket of the American Independent Party and was very popular in my neighborhood.
The laconic days were coming to an end. There was a new imperative challenging the old. You couldn't stay neutral. You had to choose sides.
I only found one good magazine to steal while I had my daughter at the doctor yesterday.
ReplyDeleteSmithsonian December 2008.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Indelible-Images-Moment-of-Reckoning-200812.html
Those Eyes. Those Times. What it must have been like... it is always exotic for us who weren't there. Even now my son finds the turbulent 60's a big mysterious "wish i was there."
We had a Fourth of July Parade in my home town of Lake Hiawatha -- I loved the wheel around carts that were stuffed with trinkets for sale. We saved our money to buy as much junk as we could.
But the parade stopped happening sometime when I was 11 or 12. Our neighborhood was changing too. Several Cuban families moved in from West New York. Their fathers called the kids in from playing- in Spanish. The mothers wore wigs and tight clothes and seemed at times frantic. And the smells of things cooking in kitchens and on grills became suddenly all mixed up.....
I dont remember much from the 60's born in 61 they were gone before I knew it. My main memory was the burning of the Beatles albums, we were in mississippi at the time and I loved the beatles, my hometown had it's own barnfire of beatle stuff, I about cried watching them all burn. I told mom we were not burning my records :)
ReplyDeleteThat and the war were the main things that I can remember. Now, the 70's things started getting interesting :)
thanks for the read,always in enjoy it, peace
dh
You're right - everyone started taking sides. Some say it was "the war", I think it was just that the Boomers (one third of the population) had reached the age of rebellion. And you HAD to belong.
ReplyDeleteworst of times...best of times...fine writing!
ReplyDelete