MY TUMULTUOUS SIXTIES Part I

I was an emerging adult as the Sixties emerged.1960 offered Dwight David Eisenhower,, essentially a do nothing president. His fame came from WWII as a five star general. Ike's biggest contribution was

the building of the massive Interstate Transit System.

My thinking changed with hearing the beep beep from Sputnik, the first satellite launched by the Russians on October 4, 1957. This one act was the precursor to it all. The Space Age and the Space rage.

The mood of America changed. We were off and running. Kennedy and Nixon set their goal on the White House and the Presidency. The race was on. and as an 18 year old I wanted to be part of it. High School graduation came and so did Worcester Junior College. Alan Shepard and John Glenn told all of us how great the view really was from their space capsule..

Troubles brewed in Selma as Rev.Dr. Martin Luther emerged. From the streets of Worcester to the streets of Saint Louis as a college student, I became acutely aware of what life was really about. I saw the ghettoes of two cities, East Saint Louis, IL and STL. This experience proved to be my education.. not in the classrooms.

JFK and Jackie stole the minds and hearts of the world. I was riding high as a New Englander with attendant accent in the Mid West. No body spoke of Vietnam. The Cuban Missile crisis was bad enough but nothing has equaled the assassination of the President on November 22, 1963.

As the world changed my world changed. I had to dance to the beat of a different leader: LBJ and I did.

PART II

LBJ proved to be a bad actor.. Guns and butter. The Vietnam build-up was Mr. Johnson's anathema. See my blogs about all of the chicanery he employed. Millions of young men and women respond to their Country's call. Nothing like Vietnam has ever happened since. Agent Orange was agent poison.

Some of our society went down the tube with free love. The hair was long and the buck was short. LBJ lost everything he strove for. America was a mess and it stayed a mess for years. Somehow we straightened up and began to fly right.

Technologies knocked at our doors and we responded. We have never been the same since.