To reflect back on our youth through the dusky lens of time can produce as many different emotions as they’re people. Some will be embarrassed or ashamed. With 20/20 hindsight many will lament the wrong choices made or the paths not taken. But the past is all water under the bridge. You can piss and moan about it or you can reflect on it. Chart the journey you and society took. To arrive at an understanding as to why were on the road to ruin today.
I have been personally fortunate to retain a fairly good memory of the events of my youth. Considering that I have partaken a sampling of just about everything on more then one occasion.
It was a time of teacher turnover. About 2/3 of them were “old school” they had been there since the late forties, and were nearing retirement. The Beatles and Twiggy had turned fashion upside down. The “old school” tried to apply some brakes. They had tried to enforce a “dress code”, specifically on boy’s hair (too long) and girls skirts (too short) sending individuals home with a note to their parents. In the end of course they were simply overwhelmed.
Speaking for myself, it was soooo hard… to concentrate on the lessons when You, a young man are surrounded by all those …young female thighs wrapped in… pantyhose.
For guys (and women) who would like to reminisce about those days I recommend this link. It’s full of nostalgia from the times of pay phones, electric typewriters, and standard transmission.
As the “old school” left, the “new school” arrived. Young teachers in their mid to late twenties. Fresh from the teachers colleges. Civics and Social Studies were the courses where the seeds of a new political and ideological agenda could be planted. And they were planted in our “young skulls full of mush”.
My Memory isn’t that precise as to recall every detail of my freshman year but I do remember in Social Studies doing a report on Eugene Debs, the American Socialist party leader (Bernie’s hero) and getting an “A” on it. I was being taught the notion that government could plan an economy that would be fair to everyone. I don’t recall seeing many textbooks about life in Communist countries. The few I did see didn’t go into much detail but stated they did have full employment and health care was free. What’s so bad about that?
In Civics the new young lady teacher took the time to spend a whole day with us listening and discussing the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” and wither “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was about an LSD experience.
She even brought in two real “Hippies” from the local college, to discuss with us how being a hippie could shape one’s outlook on life. Or was it one’s outlook on life that made you a hippie.
This of course was only the beginning. Soon would come our class trip to Washington D.C.
To be continued.