One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small Jefferson Airplane (before the Starship)

And finally the 60’s….but—-not yet the strange days that they would later emerge as being. In fact 1960 dawned with more of the same and even I at 13 remembered the distress at the shooting down by the USSR (More commonly known today as Russia) of a U2 Spy Plane—and the capture of Francis Gary Powers it’s pilot. Many years later I would hear a story from a retired pilot of his flights out of Alaska to spy on Russia, how he was shot down and how he walked many miles back along the end of the next to last to become a state for rescue. But Powers became a symbol of the evil Russians….the fact that we were spying on them seems to have not been an issue with us….but hey I was young and hadn’t thought of that yet

On the other hand 1960 was the year we did beat the Russians in something:: the Olympics and in this case the Ice Hockey game when we unexpectedly took the game from the Russians and won the metal. While I remember much talk about the downing of Powers I do not remember anything about the Ice Hockey….not exactly the victor a lot of us were interested in I guess.

But let me break the year down for you a bit better.

And the ones that mother gives you, don’t do anything at all

Vintage Greek Round Clip Souvenir

$20.00

For the first time (September, 1960) we saw our candidates on TV and that perception went a long way to give the more attractive and comfortable with the media John Kennedy the leg up on the then vice president Richard (Tricky Dick) Nixon. At 13 I found the talks very boring but there were a lot of people who had issues (in a country where all men were to be created equal) with a Catholic presidential candidate. Of course Kennedy won (our first multi-millionaire president) in November and the beat went on. And surprise, surprise the pope didn’t take over the country.

One of those candidates (I will let you guess which tricky one) had served on the House Un-American Activities Committee That had been famous for prosecuting so many famous Americans. The committee which was loosing powers (but would continue on, gradually loosing more and more power, until it was done away with in the late 70s) came under protest, in May–less than a week after the spy plane went down– by students and teachers demonstration in San Francisco—a sign of what was to come later on—and in typical later cop mode for the era– the crowd was controlled by fire hoses with many injury and/or arrested. The first of the African American Set-ins was held in Feb this year too at a “Whites Only” lunch counter In Greensboro—North Carolina. The same state that in April gave us the first African American Student Movement Committee.

Another group that would be of much more interest to the rest of us in the 1960s was in South Viet Nam….you know it would have made more sense to give one country to the communist and one to the non-commies (i.e. Korea and Viet Nam….but no we couldn’t subject a whole country to those bastards now could we?) But this group was made up of insurgents and communists and they began to operate by the end of 1960: December that is and would eventually cost so many lives ours and theirs.

Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall

1960 brought us the laser (May)—Light Amplification by the Simulated Emission of Radiation–which was pretty impressive except no one did anything with it for years, except Sci-Fi writers who immediately made it the instrument of choice for conquering the world and all that good stuff.

Another item which was developed and was used immediately was the Birth Control pill which was introduced in December and was reportedly only for married women….of course we all know how long that restriction lasted and though I am sure many doctors wrote it for the un-hitched prior to 1965—by then it had been accepted for the less attached of their patients. And because of that little item along with a lot of attitude changes and according to some the death of morality—we found ourselves in the Sexual Revolution—but that was yet to come so…..

And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you’re going to fall
Tell ’em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call

By the beginning of the 60’s Elvis was back (March) from the Army—I can remember hearing up dates on his life, his adventures in Germany and his promotion to Sgt. Free at last he quickly made 3 hits in the US (2 in the UK). I must confess though I was into Rock & Roll by now Elvis was never really to my particular taste.

I can remember other songs that year like Teen Angel—they were big into lost (i.e. dead) loves in the early 60s. I liked Bobbi Rydell’s “Wild One” and Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry”. and I loved Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang” as well.

Eddie Cochran was killed that year in a car crash. And it was the first Grammy Award Ceremony, but the LP winner wasn’t someone most of us teens thought much of Frank Sinatra–which showed our parents still had control of the pop music scene. It was also the year of Fats Domino and Ike and Tina (Turner) wed and Tina became the lead singer of the group—another lady we’d hear a lot more of later.

And call Alice, when she was just small

At the movies the big move was Psycho, the movie that would teach us that showers are scary places and closely followed by a western The Magnificent Seven where a group of misfits saves a Mexican town from marauders and made several of the participants stars. And there was also Exodus and the telling of the Jews securing their homeland,

And I did watch the latest dances and songs on Dick Clark’s American bandstand and for entertainment there was Alfred Hitchcock presents and like today we had Hawaiian Eye–just with Jack Lord—who I found interesting but too old to be appealing.

My Three Sons started that year and saw us all through the 60s and into the early 70’s, while The Andy Griffith Show introduced us to an actor who would be around in several forms thru the years and another actor, just a child in the 60s who would go from TV actor to Movie Director over the long years between then and now.