I am STUCK in 1969! :)

Paco Dennis

Paco Dennis

SF VIP
Location
Mid-Missouri
I grew up in Silicon Valley, and was 17. I started playing guitar at 13 and formed a band at 14. A band called "Suspended Animation" ( we got the name flipping through a dictionary and no idea what it meant ). My Mother loved listening to the radio. I started playing trumpet at 8. Music was important in flooding our house with the "times". I was so passionate about music I stole a "Monkeys" record with my brother and got threatened with juvy hall. :) So right after the Beatles revolution, my mother died. It changed me deeply. I became a lost (my father started drinking again, he was an alcoholic) and began my search for the meaning of life. By 1969 the hippie movement was everywhere and a powerful social force. I got caught up in it. Smoking weed, hash, and opium ( just once ), then onto LSD, Mushrooms, and Peyote. We hitchhiked everywhere and would camp with hippies in Big Sur. The colors and psychedelic artwork, and music was creating an alternate universe for about a year, 1969. That period has had the most powerful effect on my life ever since. I don't think that any major decisions I have made since then didn't have values I was overwhelmed with during that magical time.
Did anyone else experiment with "unconventional" behavior in 1969?
 

In 1969 I would have been 23, The most memorable achievement for me may seem trivial but it has had an impact on the rest of my life. I quit smoking, tobacco that is. Started in my teens when I was in college, how stupid was I? Like Paco my mother died young, unlike his father, my Dad raised four kids, and worked. We quickly learned that if we don't want to live in a hovel, we must do something about it. We all cleaned our rooms, washed our bed linen, learned what colour fast meant, kept our home clean. Basic skills that we have carried through life. Dad would come home from work and cook our evening meal. To us he's a saviour, the authorities wanted to put us up for adoption but he was having none of it. His attitude and aptitude rubbed off on all four of us. His never say die helped me through the difficult times in my adult life. But as for the question of 1969, I couldn't live in a time warp. And that's from someone who loves the swing band era, who drives a 75 year old car and who looks like a throwback.
 
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Was a high school senior in Brooklyn, NY back in the year of '69. Lobbied against the imperialistic war the government waged on Vietnam and supported freedom loving groups that sought to promote domestic justice. Had lots of goals back then. Sadly, did not achieve a great many of those goals as life did not turn out quite as rosy as I expected.

Wish I had a crystal ball back then. Life would have turned out a lot better.
 
In 1969, I was 16 and in high school in Los Angeles. There is a saying that if you remember the 60s, you probably weren't there. While that isn't a true statement, it does capture the times in a humorous manner.

To me, it is a very sad thing to see people get stuck in some single period in their lives. I remember seeing parts of a movie on TV years ago called "The Hoosiers". In it, there were people who, years later, were still reliving a basketball season from high school. I know people who seem to be stuck in the 1960s, unable to cope with the fact that the era is long gone and the world has moved on. It is a sad thing when this becomes so prevalent in one's life that everything that comes after that single point in time is not worth living and is therefore wasted on remembering and reliving. To me, this is an extreme that, thankfully, most of us don't get caught up in.

Being stuck in some bygone era like that can be a very debilitating thing, from what I have seen in those caught in that situation. To me, it seems much healthier to live in the current moment. Maybe it is fortunate that I have absolutely no nostalgia for my childhood. I feel that my life has been much better as an adult forging my own way and making a life for myself.

Sure, there are aspects of my life that I can look back on, but they are clearly not the present. For me, pop music is a bit like looking at an old photo album. Certain songs can bring back memories. However, they don't represent today.

Tony
 
Well said, @tbeltrans.

I see some people "stuck" in the past, worshiping all that was in that bygone era, railing against the things that have changed over the years.
Once a year our small town has a "fun days" event(except for 2020) with a parade, food vendors and an old car show & antique farm machinery exhibit. All very much fun and interesting. The guys that have restored their 50s-60s dream cars are to be commended for their art work, I'm afraid that I don't have that kind of focus on the past.
 
Paco Dennis said:
Did anyone else experiment with "unconventional" behavior in 1969?
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I did not. I was 16 in 1969 and fairly conservative. My wilder days began a couple of years later. :cool:

Each age, life stage and set of experiences has affected and molded the next. That said, I identify more strongly with the styles, music and Boomer attitudes from the 1965-1980 era than any other.
 
I enlisted late in '65 and volunteered for Nam. It didn't take long to realize I would rather be back in San Francisco hanging out in Golden Gate Park. Eventually, by '69 I was waiting to make it to my discharge in '70. The rest is best left in the past yet often comes back as a reminder of where I've been and how I arrived at this moment in time.
 
In 1969 I was 15/16 and in10th grade. Just trying to make it thru high school.

I'm more of 'stuck in the 80s' kind of girl. The clothes (some still in my closet), the music, the boyfriends, dancing, drinking.......so full of memories, that I don't want to forget!

I like to say..."The 80s were good to me"
 
In '69, I was 12. I remember watching excited hippies packing backpacks, preparing to go to Woodstock for the festival, and I remember solemn soldiers coming home on leave from the war in Vietnam. I remember pool parties at the apartment complex where we lived and people singing "Na, na, na, na-na-na, na" along with The Beatles' Hey Jude blasting from somebody's radio. Or it might have been a portable record player. I only went to the daytime parties. The nighttime parties were for the older kids.

1969 was the year of the first Apollo moon landing. I had pictures of the Saturn rocket pasted all over my bedroom walls and had a model of it and the Lunar Module. It was pretty exciting when the day came when we actually landed on the moon! I also had models of dragsters and stock cars, STP and Valvoline stickers that I would send away for. I don't remember school being very important. I remember the school but none of the classes or anything else of note.

I think 1969 was the year my parents first separated. They would get back together a year later and then finally divorce three years after that. Family was a total mess.
 
One aspect of the hippie sayings that I got a chuckle of back then and even more now...never trust anyone over 30. Have these people conveniently forgotten that or if not, how do they address it now that they are well over 30? :ROFLMAO:

Tony
 
My Unconventional acts of individuality began 1969 when I clashed with my father and his so called values. In 1972, I got a glimpse of reality, and spent the next 34 years understanding reality, but unaware of how to live/stay in the moment.

In my Junior/Senior years of high school all I cared about was getting high on hallucinogenic substances. I was so messed up but that didn't stop me from using. Finally my mind broke, shattered more like it. It was time of freedom for me, leaving home and being on my own

It's crazy, but looking back on those years they were the greatest times of my life. I'm not surprised because life turned dark and confusing after that.
 

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