I am STUCK in 1969! :)

Another time I sort of get stuck in is about 1996. Booming economy, no 9-11 yet, lots of interesting grunge music, still some pretty good movies, and no social media to speak of. My son was nine and we were in the midst of adopting my then four year old daughter from Lithuania. Bill Clinton had his flaws but we did enjoy eight years of peace and prosperity under him (even a balanced budget!)
 

I'll tell you all where I get stuck occasionally, behind the big and little hands on the clock.

man-hiding-inside-a-grandfather-clock-victorian-19th-century-illustration-id1194333666
 
Paco Dennis said:
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?
Click to expand...
I got it! But I am not nostalgic. It was a confusing time for me as a hippie type. Our clothes are supposedly costumes now. I was too naive and unsure of life. Wish I had met a LTR
 
spent the entire year 1969 in the navy at long beach ca waiting our turn to take the ship to maine shipyard for overhaul....
 
I was still a kid compared to some of you folks but I had a blast in 1969. I just wish I had been grown up enough for Woodstock.
 
After reading his post, I'm in Pappy's league in 1969.

33 years old, my 4 years in the military over by 1957. Married for 12 years, 4 kids, new house and well settled in a lifetime career. Aside from enjoying some of the music, 1969 was just another year.
 
I was in downtown Chicago in 1968 with friends to get a first hand look at what is called "Anatomy Of A Police Riot" under the mayor Richard J. Daly. We did not stay long after seeing how far the police went in beating the citizens with their batons. We literally ran like hell to the car and headed home.
 
Paco Dennis said:
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?
Click to expand...
Unconventional behavior? I did to a degree, but no drugs ever. I had a goal in mind and had I taken drugs and been caught, it wouldn't have happened.
 
In 1973, the Navy, in an act of great generosity, picked me to complete my BS degree on their nickel along with a number of other ex-enlisted officers. We had to have accumulated enough credits to complete our BS in two years. Someone running the program wisely concluded that most career officers were clueless about what the younger sailors had experienced and they required that we take a 4 hour course that we commonly referred to as "Hippie History." But the designers of that course were absolutely right.

Our Professor was a Black Retired Master Chief who had gotten his Doctorate after retiring from the Navy. He knew how to deal with a bunch of ex-enlisted officers who were completely ignorant about the culture of the late 1950's and the 1960's.

We studied: The Beatnik Movement, The Hippie Culture, Listened to Hippie Poetry, Studied Racial History (Not a watered down version), Read the Autobiography Of Malcom X, Read Economic Related Books By Galbreath, Studied Farm Labor Issues, Studied Crime Patterns, and Listened to some very angry people about various topics. Some of us were assigned outside projects like spending a day at a State Prison talking to inmates. I spent a day with the ACLU getting an understanding of what they do and why. Class discussions were very, very lively. That old Master Chief did a marvelous job of keeping us focused.

I concluded that this course was one of the best I ever had, and I was an engineering student.
@OneEyedDiva , @Ruthanne, @Aunt Marg , @Shalimar, @911, @Gaer
 

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