Events that crossed my radar and memories, these many years later. This effort is aided and abetted by reviewing Wikipedia’s listings of each year’s events, in this case, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971.
These five years, as I aged from 8 to 13 in Florida and New Jersey, were pivotal in forming my personality, memories and tastes. They also happened to be crucial years in America and the world. They had a huge impact on who I am today and where the world has come.
1966
In the summer of 1966 we moved from Aruba back to Coral Gables, and I became immersed in American TV, first and foremost. I would come home from school in the afternoon and the TV would be on until I went to bed…and would stay on through Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show most evenings. The weekends featured Saturday morning cartoons, baseball’s Game of the Week and Wide World of Sports. Big new TV shows for me in 1966: Star Trek, The Monkees, Batman, The Time Tunnel, Green Hornet, The Girl from UNCLE and Mission Impossible. I also was catching up on shows I missed over the previous two years, so reruns were just as good as new episodes for me.
NASA’s Gemini missions continued, with four missions between June and November, 1966, and I watched each one. The news, now that I could see it more regularly, seemed to be a steady rotation of NASA, Vietnam and civil rights activities. The United Nations seemed to play a larger role in world affairs than today, and it was cool that U Thant from Burma was the Secretary General, a more interesting world leader than Lyndon Johnson.
1967
In January, 1967, the crew of Apollo 1 died in a fire in their capsule at Cape Kennedy and I remember how horrible that seemed. Expo 67 opened in Montreal in April 1967 and was heavily covered in the news. World’s Fairs were still cool and pointed toward a brighter, better tomorrow.
In June 1967, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the effect was seismic across the radio and even in our house where I think Laurie gave Dad a copy which I played over and over. It’s hard to overstate the impression that this was important music (with a suitably dense and confusing cover photo and lyrics inside) that needed to be studied and absorbed. Dad liked the stereo effects built into the songs which he felt gave his system and speakers a good workout. It was even better on headphones. Later that month, the Beatles debuted “All You Need is Love” on TV…another great song that wasn’t even on Sgt. Pepper’s (not to mention Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane which were released earlier in 1967). The Beatles seemed to be everywhere and could do no wrong.
The Six-Day War in Israel in June 1967 seemed much more serious than whatever was going on in Vietnam. It was all over TV and seemed to portend a new era of warfare led by advanced technology, jets and tanks. The Middle East jumped onto my radar as an arena that could lead toward World War III. I didn’t know much about it but it seemed like a serious threat; the speed with which Israel “won” the war was impressive (especially compared with Vietnam) but it also didn’t really seem like the end of the matter.
Campus protests against the Vietnam War mounted through the summer and fall of 1967, including a number of big marches in Washington, DC. There was lots of news coverage of hippies and draft dodgers and protesters and it seemed like they had a lot of legitimate grievances even if their hair was long and some of the protests went over the top.
Monterey Pop and the Summer of Love were underway in 1967 but largely off my radar screen. Laurie showed up with albums from the Jefferson Airplane and others but they were over my head. Meanwhile, race riots seemed to be popping up in cities all over the place in what came to be called the Long Hot Summer of 1967. These things all washed over the TV news; I didn’t really know what was going on, but clearly something important was happening and I was starting to pay attention.
By the end of the year, Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant album came out and Laurie or Sue must have brought it home. That’s another one I played obsessively, pulled in by the dry humor of Arlo’s antiwar anthem.
But, truth to tell, I paid more attention to entertainment shows on TV and baseball. 1967 brought The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, George of the Jungle, The Carol Burnett Show, Ironside and Mannix. The first two were big for me. The Smothers Brothers were subversive in their music and comedy choices. George of the Jungle was great stupid fun, but you had to pay attention to get the rapid-fire puns and references.
James Bond films came across my radar in 1967. I had been too young to see Goldfinger when it was released in 1964, but I think I must have seen it by 1967; it’s the first Bond film I remember seeing and it made an impression (especially Odd Job, for some reason). I caught up with the other early films on TV, eventually. In 1967, the spoof Casino Royale with Woody Allen and David Niven came out and I remember enjoying it with the family, and Dad got the soundtrack featuring Herb Alpert. I also saw You Only Live Twice later that year and was freaked out by the opening sequence of a space ship “swallowing” another and snipping the lifeline of an spacewalking astronaut. Those were the main films I remember enjoying. I was disappointed by others, including The Jungle Book and Doctor Doolittle.
Most of all, I fell hook line and sinker for the Red Sox and their 1967 Impossible Dream season. Carl Yastrzemski was my idol in his Triple Crown season. Jim Lonborg won the Cy Young. Tony Conigliaro suffered a devastating pitch to the head. There was a tight pennant race through September to the very last game of the season and a dramatic World Series that went 7 games against the St. Louis Cardinals and Bob Gibson. I watched as much of it as I could from Miami, reading about the games daily and in my weekly Sporting News.
1968
In January, 1968, the Vietnam War Tet Offensive, North Korea’s capture of the USS Pueblo, the first rumblings of the Prague Spring and the beginnings of the 1968 Presidential campaigns all wafted through my consciousness. We were a Huntley-Brinkley (NBC News) house, rather than Walter Cronkite on CBS but we watched the evening news religiously. In general, the world in faraway places seemed to be falling apart on a daily basis.
In my little world in South Miami, though, maybe the biggest TV event January was the debut of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In which was a funny and subversive show even though it replaced one of my favorites, The Man from UNCLE.
The February Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, were covered extensively on ABC TV (in color!) and was my first exposure to lots of winter sports. French skier Jean Claude Killy and US skater Peggy Fleming became big stars through their gold medal performances.
At the end of March, President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not run for re-election which seemed like a momentous decision even to me. Johnson had never been loved in our house, but his announcement seemed like a weight lifting off the country’s conscience and a sense of new possibilities and leadership. He represented the old guard and it felt like time for something new. Just a week later, however, on April 4, Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis and suddenly the country seemed to convulse backward. Riots began in black neighborhoods in many northern cities. King was likewise not revered in our house before his death, but his assassination seemed palpably evil.
In movies, both 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes came out in early April with their divergent views of possible futures. 2001 had a much bigger impact on me and I remember being mesmerized by its vision of space flight, so tangible and detailed I was ready to get on the next Pan Am shuttle to the space station. I later gobbled up Arthur C. Clarke’s book, one of my first science fiction reading forays.
In June, things seemed to go from bad to worse when Bobby Kennedy was killed on the campaign trail in LA. That horror was followed by tumult in the presidential races through August with the Republican Convention in Miami that nominated Nixon and the chaos of the Democratic Convention in Chicago with more riots and protests. Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia crushing the Prague Spring. It seemed like the world was coming apart at the seams.
Sports remained a sanctuary of sorts. The Red Sox didn’t do as well in 1968 but it was the year of the Detroit Tigers, with Denny McLain winning 30 games and the Tigers going on to defeat the Cardinals in another dramatic World Series. Meanwhile, the Mexico City Summer Olympics got underway and ran through October. The Games offered a glimpse of the world maybe coming back together, but politics even intruded there with the Black Power Salute of sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos.
In November, the election of Richard Nixon seemed like a foregone conclusion against Hubert Humphrey, but it didn’t really seem like that would settle anything. More momentous, it seemed, the Beatles released the White Album later in the month but I remember being confused and dismayed by the hodge podge of songs over two albums. Even the Beatles seemed to have lost their way a little bit.
There was finally a bit of saving grace in 1968 with the Christmas flight of Apollo 8 to orbit the moon. There was continuous coverage of the flight from liftoff to splashdown, America’s return to space after the tragic fire of Apollo 1. The Earthrise picture and broadcast from the moon were tremendously hopeful. Maybe the future promised in 2001: A Space Odyssey wasn’t too far away after all.
1969
On January 12 I attended Super Bowl III at the Miami Orange Bowl with Uncle Joe and Dad. The New York Jets and Joe Namath defeated the Baltimore Colts in a major upset. It was the first and one of the few football games I attended but it was a big one.
In March, Laurie was home in Miami and went to a Doors concert where Jim Morrison allegedly exposed himself. Laurie, who always complained about being too short to enjoy concerts, couldn’t see anything.
Later in March, my (second? third?) cousin Bunky Henry (Leecy’s son and Woot’s nephew) won his only tournament as a professional golfer, the National Airlines Open in Miami. We didn’t attend but we were all set to watch the final round on television when it was preempted for coverage of President Dwight Eisenhower’s body being brought to the U.S. Capitol. This is the closest I can think of any member of my extended family ever being on national television. Such is my proximity to fame.
Within a few months between April and June, CBS pulled the Smothers Brothers show for being too controversial and NBC cancelled Star Trek for low ratings. The Smothers Brothers had become a favorite of mine, especially for its music, irreverence and the oddball presidential candidate, Pat Paulsen. Star Trek had also been a favorite even though its episodes were getting more and more ludicrous. Losing them both was a blow.
We watched coverage of the Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 missions in March and May as NASA tested the mechanisms needed to land on the moon. After nearly two years of no flights in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire, NASA was in high gear to beat the Soviets in getting a man to the moon and fulfill JFK’s pledge. Media coverage was nonstop and seemed like one of the few really positive things going on. Meanwhile, Nixon had been inaugurated, the Vietnam War rumbled on and the Beatles seemed to be in disarray as John married Yoko and Paul married Linda Eastman. There was a massive oil spill and lengthy cleanup in Santa Barbara, and the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland burned; people slowly started to care more about the environment now that things seemed to be truly going to hell.
In July, Apollo 11 took off for the moon and we along with the nation and the world were riveted. TV coverage seemed to be nearly continuous for the 8-day mission. I must have been off from school because I remember watching almost everything that aired from our home in Coral Gables, though I can’t say that I remember any real specifics of where, when or who we were with for the moon landing itself. But to my 11-year old self this was about as exciting a thing as ever happened. In many ways, it remains so.
I guess it was in August, 1969, that we moved from Coral Gables to Short Hills, through I have no real clue. We arrived in New Jersey in time for Miracle Mets season when they won the pennant and World Series for the first time. Dad was able to get us tickets in the Exxon box seats every now and then at Shea and Yankee Stadiums. At that point, the Yankees were terrible but it was fun to see the Mets. I only sort of adopted them; I actually rooted for the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. But the Mets won and it was fun to see their success after years of ineptitude.
Otherwise, in August, events like the Woodstock Music Festival and Manson family murders took place on the periphery of my awareness. Woodstock became a much bigger deal for me several years later in Hong Kong when I finally bought the 3-record album and played it (and eventually played along with it) to death. The Manson murders didn’t make much of a dent on me other than the particularly gruesome news reports, but even decades later it seems like those murders just won’t go away.
In September, the Beatles released Abbey Road and the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid came out. I remember both seeming like bright spots, bits of optimism amid the chaos.
In general, I started listening to more radio in New Jersey. I couldn’t afford to buy records on my own, but I had a little transistor radio I listened to whenever I could and a surplus of New York radio stations to choose from. In October, I remember listening for hours to discussions on whether Paul McCartney was dead.
In November, Apollo 12 went to the moon and we watched almost as devotedly as we did Apollo 11, but you could tell the national level of enthusiasm was not the same. Meanwhile, almost as much media coverage was gobbled up by news of the My Lai Massacre and cover up. As if things were not bad enough in Vietnam, now there was an official US Army atrocity to protest against.
The year and the decade were capped by deaths at the Altamont Concert in California which immediately seemed like the end of an era. I didn’t particularly care for the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead or Hells Angels, but they all seemed like manifestations of dark forces in my little suburban mind. The 1960s were over.
1970
I struggled through my first winter in New Jersey and 6th grade at Hartshorn Elementary school. Sledding on the golf course in our backyard and making fires in the family room fireplace were fun but I don’t remember a whole lot else with fondness.
A bright spot came in February when Ed Sullivan premiered a filmed performance of the Beatles’ “Let It Be.” I remember watching and feeling like the old boys could still make magic. Even Mom and Dad rather liked it. Nevertheless, a few months later the Beatles officially disbanded. The 1960s were very definitely over.
In March, Crosby Stills Nash and Young released “Deja Vu” and someone (Laurie?) gave it to me for my birthday. I’m pretty sure this was the first album that I actually owned. There were lots of other records in the house but none of them were mine. I played it over and over, particularly liking “Teach Your Children” and “Our House” before growing to appreciate other cuts like “Helpless” and “Woodstock.”
On March 7, I saw a partial solar eclipse in our backyard New Jersey. That was relatively cool. In April, however, Apollo 13 blew an oxygen tank on its way to the moon. We watched in fascination as they made their way back home, but even NASA was not so magical anymore.
A week after Apollo 13 landed, we celebrated the first Earth Day. This actually made an optimistic dent in my psyche. We made a big deal of it at school and I remember being introduced to Tom Lehrer’s “Pollution” on the radio (though it was recorded in 1965).
Just in case the optimism became too widespread, however, the following week Nixon announced the US was invading Cambodia, meaning an expansion of the Vietnam War. This immediately led to more student protests and the Kent State massacre in early May. I began to worry about whether I would get drafted in six more years.
Looking over the rest of the Wikipedia events in 1970, I’m a little surprised how few made an impression on me at the time. I recall being sad but not particularly devastated when Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died of overdoses within weeks of each other — it seemed a unfortunately logical outcome for their rock and roll lifestyles.
Otherwise, world events seemed to get somewhat smaller in my life. Maybe to some extent I became more consumed in my own little world of school, baseball, tennis, beginning to feel a little more comfortable in New Jersey and generally being a 12-year old. Even the World Series, won by the Baltimore Orioles, was a little less interesting to me. I admired Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell and their teammates, but I was not as invested. I was listening to more music, mostly on the radio, and watching a little less TV. Then again, I think the world was taking a little bit of a breather after the tumult of the 1960s. Flower power, hippies and the Beatles were all gone. It seemed like time to start growing up and get serious.
1971
The new year started in much the same vein. Apollo 14 went to the moon and returned without drama or really a whole lot of interest. The Vietnam War expanded into Laos but at least some US troops were coming home. Massive antiwar protests continued in US cities, especially Washington, DC. War and genocide flared in Bangladesh but at the the US wasn’t directly responsible for that. The conflict would spark the August 1 Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison as one of the first all-star benefit concerts.
I, however, was largely in my own world through the rest of the time we were in New Jersey. That summer, we packed up everything and headed out to Hong Kong.
Related Post: Bill: Coral Gables and New Jersey
Related Post: Cultural Memories, 1963-1964
Related Post: Cultural Memories, 1971-1974
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