I remember the 60's.... [View All]

[WCGreen]

I remember the day JFK was shot. I was going to a Catholic School at the time and even though it was almost at the end of the school day when he was shot, the nuns let us all go home to be with our families. Curious that most, if not every kid in my class, had a mother to go home to at the time.

I remember when the Vietnam War was starting to escalate and the kids, yea they were kids, 17 - 18 - 19 year olds started to question why they had to go and fight and perhaps die when no one could explain why. I also remember that the kids that were going weren't in college. They were kids like our fathers, mostly working at Blue Collar jobs.

I remember vividly the day they pulled the numbers for the draft Lottery. I was at a camp for city kids and we were at Mohican State Park. Most of the counselors were from over at Ashland College and in their senior year. One of the guys birthday was pulled real quick, I think it was below 10th. He ran off into the dark woods to be alone. Every one of us were scared for him, scared for all our older brothers and cousins and uncles and family friends.

I remember when the inner urban areas of Detroit and LA and scores of other cities across the country erupted when passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Laws were passed and nothing much changed. I remember when Martin Luther King and then Bobby Kennedy were shot down for standing up for the least among us.

I remember the Huff and Glenville areas of Cleveland when racial tension exploded into almost open warfare. I remember rumors of "Niggers" driving through our town Lakewood, which borders Cleveland, with signs saying Lakewood was going to be next. My dad carried a big chunk of brass in his car because he had to travel all over the city to do his job.

I remember the Anti-War protests and the extreme measures the Weathermen and other radicals groups escalated their protests into violence and bank robberies.

I remember when the Black Panthers came on the scene and frighted everyone with their separatist racial rhetoric.

But most important, I remember the calming voices Huntley and Brinkley and Walter Cronkite provided to help us get through some really tough and explosive change. There was no Rush or Fox or Glenn Beck on the national level to stoke it all.

The sixties had radicals on both sides, extreme leftists such as the Weathermen and Black Panthers and the good old boys all over the country that just did what they pleased because no one was watching.

There is mass unease in the country today. But it wasn't anywhere near the volatility that was surging through the whole country at every level and in every city. Change was everywhere and constant.

There needs to be some historical perspective. And remember, most of the protesting in the 60's was peaceful. We tend to remember the bad while forgetting the good.

Peace.