One way to consider how life has impacted you is to pick a decade, any decade. Then, think through what happened to you during that time block.
Recently, I was asked to describe my life in the 1960’s. One way to do that is with a list of news items from that decade, roughly 60 years ago. So, here we go!
A 1960’s Timeline for the U.S.
1). 1960 Democrat John F. Kennedy won the U.S. Presidential Election, defeating Republican Richard Nixon. The Pirates won the World Series on a walk-off home run. The median U.S. home price was $11,900. A typical new car was $2,750.
2). 1961 The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed, U.S.-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union launch manned space flights. The minimum wage was $1.00 per hour. A gallon of leaded gas was 31 cents!
3). 1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis created world-wide tension. The first Wal-Mart store opened in Arkansas. The University of Mississippi was desegregated.
4). 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. Two days later, Oswald was killed. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. We first used zip codes in the U.S.
5). 1964 U. S. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The U.S. military became much more active in the Viet Nam conflict.
6). 1965 Martin Luther King, Jr. led a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Medicare was created during the Johnson administration. A new, 1200 square-foot, ranch-style home in the U.S. sold for around $21,500.
7). 1966 The minimum wage in the U.S. was $1.25 per hour. Tuition at a public, four-year university was around $450, or in current dollars approximately $3,500.
8). 1967 The Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs played in the first Super Bowl. That year saw the first successful heart transplant.
9). 1968 Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray. The Civil Rights Act was passed. A Big Mac at McDonald’s sold for 49 cents. By the late 1960’s most new homes in the U.S. had central air conditioning.
10). 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon during the NASA Apollo 11 mission. The Woodstock music festival took place. Sesame Street first aired. New cars were around $3,500 and gasoline was up to 35 cents a gallon.
How I experienced those events
The block of time covered in the 1960’s was when I was between the ages of ten and twenty. Thus, late elementary school years through my first two years as a university undergraduate.
I graduated from high school in 1968. The house I grew up in, during the 1960’s and 1970’s, did not have central air conditioning. I started working part time while in high school. Those part-time hours gradually increased while I was in college.
If you look through the events list, several things we take for granted started during that decade. For example, high schools and universities in the U.S. were integrated. Wal-Mart stores first opened. We began using zip codes for mail.
More specifically, I remember some of those events because I saw them on television. I saw the home run that won the 1960 World Series, and also watched the first Super Bowl – both took place on a Sunday afternoon.
As a 19-year old, with my family, I sat up at night to watch the first moon walk.
The Cuban Missile crisis meant some people were building bomb shelters in their backyards in case of a nuclear war.
Kennedy was assassinated when I was 13 and in junior high school. A school administrator made the announcement over the intercom at school, near the end of that school day.
My high school and early college years took place during the Viet Nam War. There were many protests during those war years, especially on college campuses. The Kent State University killings of four students by the Ohio National Guard happened in 1970, during one of those war protests.
I had a college deferment so was not drafted, but I did have a draft card.
The end of the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, in my opinion, was similar to what happened recently in Afghanistan. The U.S. simply pulled out after a significant investment of time, money, and human life.
How I turned out
Now, I suspect that I was much less impacted emotionally or politically by the events of the 1960’s than some of my peers for several reasons.
First, I was heavily focused on getting through college as that degree was extremely important to my parents. I’m a first-generation college student. That focus on education began in high school. Although I wasn’t an exceptional student, I performed well enough to get into a local public university.
Second, my work schedule consumed much of my free time. Why? Because I was motivated to have some spending money and become more independent. Thus, I started working weekends, then some week nights, while in the 10th or 11th grade. That work-school pattern continued when I was in college.
Third, as one of the most serious nerds in the high school class of 1968, I really didn’t have much of a social life! No smoking, or drinking, and only one girl friend (briefly) while in high school. I wasn’t an athlete or a musician, so zero activity there. In fact, my poor social skills, combined with interests elsewhere, didn’t leave much time to build the necessary interpersonal skills.
It’s amazing, I believe – given that background – that I’m at least moderately sociable at this point in my life!
Some Take-Aways
Reviewing a timeline like this always raises What If questions. For example, my life may have been very different if I had not received a college deferment, thus served in Viet Nam as many of my peers did at that time.
My political views then and now, are still fairly moderate, even after growing up during an eventful and radical decade. I don’t view myself as a liberal even though I spent thirty years as a college professor! However, I also don’t support the extremist views of the Far Right in the U.S. Worse yet, I feel like I’ve been abandoned by both political parties as both increasingly lean toward the extremes. Hence, my writing about the balanced life as presented in the Book of Proverbs.
Within five years after the 1960’s decade described here I had a master’s degree, was married, and had started my professional career. Thus, I experienced multiple, significant lifestyle changes in a relatively short period of time once the 1960’s ended.