In answer to most recent question:  It takes me about 2 hrs a day (on days I publish my blogs which is from 3-5 times a week) to write, go thru correspondence and publish.

 

 

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and so we return to the 60’s

Meanwhile back in the states in April protesters (400,000) marched to the U.N.  building where Martin Luther and Dr. Spock spoke.  And in October Norman Mailer joined a march to the Pentagon.  November saw another casualty of the conflict when Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resigned due to conflict with the president over his Vietnam policies.  (he had testified earlier in the year that the U.S. bombing raids were not achieving their objectives).  1968 was ushered in with a late January Tet Offensive launched by the Vietcong for which American forces were unprepared.   Later in the same year Walter Cronkite (CBS news anchor and America’s “most trusted man”) told viewers his opinions on the war including it was a stalemate and asking the country to negotiate and end to the conflict.  In March hundreds of unarmed civilians including women and children were massacred in My Lai (we would not hear of this until 1969.  (by the way the Lt in charge (Calley) was tried and convicted for life in 1971–and was paroled after only serving  3 1/2 years)  By December 1967  there were 385,300 U.S Troops in ‘Nam with 33,000 in Thailand and 60,000 offshore.

1967 found me in nursing school but becoming more and more appalled by the state of things.  Protests were becoming common news.  Everyone knew someone who was drafted or someone who was avoiding same.  The protest was that the poor whites and minorities were being placed as cannon fodder as they could not afford to be in college which was one of the deferments for the draft.  We watched the death tolls mount but to most it was just another part of TV—they were numbers not actual human beings.  But then there were those of us that were beginning to realize that the guy setting next to us in English Lit if he flunked out could be dead in ‘Nam within the next year or less.  It started to hit home with a gut wrenching reality.

In August of 1967 Thurgood Marshall became the first African American to become a Supreme Court justice.  In June 1968 Bobby Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning for president. For four days in August in Chicago the Democratic party; who’s setting president Lyndon Johnson had announced that he would to run for re-election and whose most promising candidate had been murdered; faced chaos within the Convention Center, while Democratic ruled Chicago let their cops beat demonstrators  and charged several activity leaders of inciting riots.   In November that same year our first African American woman congressperson, Shirley Chisholm was elected.  Richard Nixon on a “law an order” platform won the presidential election in November by just 7/10 of a percent over Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Talk about chaotic.  Humphrey was perceived, by most of us out there as weak and unappealing, and Johnson had been brought down not by protests or violence but many feel by Cronkite’s opinions on the war—now that’s scary.  If we perceived Humphrey poorly we saw Nixion even worse as petty (You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more), dishonest (tricky dick–we had no idea how really dishonest he was till later) and those were his better points.   Many saw the Democrats as getting us into this mess in the first place and after the loss of Kennedy were rudderless and without a party to depend on.

 

1967 brought us the First Super Bowl with Green Bay playing Kansas City (hint the Packers won).  This was also the year that the Rolling Stone Magazine premiered in November.  In September of 1968 the Miss America Contest in Atlantic City was the sight of a Feminist demonstration (the first but not the last)  claiming that the values it represents were outdated.  Also in Atlantic City on the same day the first Black Miss American Pageant was held as the Miss America contestants were exclusively white.  Pepsi, one of their major sponsors withdrew from sponsorship of Miss America after this.

1967 was the Summer of Love heralding the “hippie movement” in and around San Francisco.   We all heard of the thousands that trooped to Haight-Ashbury and sang the song—“Summer time will be a love-in there” (Momma’s and the Poppa’s).  We were sure that we were different and that we were going to make a difference.  1968 I went to San Francisco but my long suffering mom who took 4 teen girls all the way to the golden state, then down California 1 and back to Michigan by way of Route 66, drew the line with Haight Ashbuy and so I missed that part of the era.  It was a heady era, we were sure that we were superior to those generations that went before.  We were sure that we were going to end the war and future wars as well.  We dressed in bright clothes and bell bottoms,  jeans that before had been what the working stiff, blue collar laborer wore became a uniform for those who thought themselves above conformity and denim would never be the same again.

1968 found Abbie Hoffman throwing fake currency from the gallery at the New York Stock exchange in protest and the SSFU Students striking at San Francisco University which resulted in the nation’s first ethnic studies program.

If we thought we were in trouble before we knew it now.  Nixon was president.  Thousands were dying in Viet Nam with a never ending line of replacements being supplied by the draft.  Kids were being abused in the streets for protesting in the streets of one of our largest cities while the press presented the gory proof and a major political party went on with business as usual only a few hundred feet away.   We were disgusted, frightened and very angry and many of our fellow students were to show that they could be every bit as violent as those they protested against.

 

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