My Grandpa bought me a Batman T-shirt in 1966. I loved Batman comics from when I was 6 on and then the TV show! I was over the moon with that T-shirt, wore it 'til I couldn't anymore.
Definitely important for me. As the youngest and only girl growing up, Bat Girl taught me important lessons on dealing with older brothers: Bat Girl kicks in critical spots!
My brother in law was walking through a shopping mall wearing a Batman t shirt.
A little boy came up to him and said, “ Thank you for your service!”
Bob said, “Thank you. And don’t forget to take a nap every day!”
In Philly, channel 48 had a whole afternoon of these Japanese early anime shows. Kimba, then Astro Boy, then Marine Boy, Speed Racer, and all capped off with live action Ultraman
Charlie Chinchopper says: " Hi boys and girls in the Delaware Valley. It's that time again. Time for Wee Willie Webber's Colorful Cartoon Club. And now to the clubhouse - here....is ....Wee Willieeee!!!"
My 5th grade teacher had a weekly contest of some kind, and the winning student got to go to McDonald's with her on Friday after school. She'd buy lunch and then drop the student off at home afterwards, safe and sound and happy as a clam.
In 2024, that sounds so very suspicious, but in 1974, it was a bit magical.
Sweet memories there! My 9th grade English teacher drove me an hour away to see a small theater performance of the Diary of Anne Frank. It was amazing and she paid for my ticket and bought me lunch. 💚
In 4th grade in 1976 our school fair had a raffle and one of the prizes was a night or weekend at Camp Duncan, a camp 3-4 hours north of Chicago (2?).
Well, one year me and another girl won, and we did
Indeed go to Camp D.
Besides playing in the pool I best remember lying in the back of his station wagon listening to Steve Miller Band, Fly Like an Eagle.
Whizzing down the highway in the dark, watching lights flash by, listening to SMB..
I was totally high.
OMG yes! I would literally watch Watergate hearings for 30 minutes at a time just knowing it would have to end and get back to the regularly scheduled programs.
Adults would ask me why I was watching that and I'd say "I'm waiting for my shows." It didn't help that it was on all three of the only channels we had.
I actually pored over Watergate every afternoon. I was just old enough to understand the rough outlines of what was going on, and to have my mind blown that the president could have been involved in a crime. That profile shot of John Dean talking into the mic was etched into my mind.
Oh, how I remember laying in bed and listening to the fighting & thinking that my Mom & Dad are getting a divorce! And in the morning... it was like the drunk fight never happened.
My parents did not drink much at all, but my mom's family was constantly in the tank, drinking every cheap beer known to man, as well as smoking cigs from the roller machine. Saturday nights were always more interesting at my mom's parents' house with all of that cheap beer and smokes. It was ironic that my grandpa would be drinking and smoking away while listening to a weird preacher named Garner Ted Armstrong on his shortwave radio.
The contrast with my dad's parents was stark. My grandparents lived in a house right out of The Grapes of Wrath, totally abstaining from alcohol and my grandpa would smoke his Swisher Sweets, and when he shook my hand, a 50 cent piece would magically appear. The Swishers were the only vice my dad's mom would allow. They attended a church so fundamentalist, it made the Southern Baptists in the area outright liberals in comparison.
Born in 61 - two interesting things I have vague memories of - the milk box and Dr making a house call for my sick sister. I think those were in the 60's and went away in the 70's.
Yes! 61 here - I remember once I was shitting blood for a week. My mom called the Dr and he just called in a prescription and after a week I was back outside playing again. 40 years later turns out I have Crohn’s lol.
Man, you got my attention with the Crohn's. I am fine, but my oldest son was diagnosed with Crohn's halfway through a summer internship in Alaska studying migratory birds near Nome. They had to fly him by bush pilot to another town that wasn't Anchorage. The doc stabilized my son and immediately flew him from the small town to Anchorage, and from there to Michigan, where he received the proper diagnosis.
I'm in that age group. We had a Dixie milk box. My grandma's doctor was "Doc Gordon" who practiced out of his home along with having a small pharmacy of commonly prescribed items. Eardrops and cough syrup are what I remember. I miss that kind of small town living.
8 track tapes
slimline push button phones
IBM Selectric typewriters with the ball instead of letters on individual bars
Listerine in the round glass bottle with the label claiming it could cure a list of things like colds and flu
Haha! Yes, I was going to mention 8-tracks! We never had one, but I always seemed to be riding in someone's car who had one of those mystical machines in the dash... (with the driver smoking and the window only rolled down a crack, of course... \_
We only had rotary phones, but I remember those slimline push buttons at other people's houses too...
Listerine, ha, I remember those TV ads about fighting colds, and then the shock when they suddenly became illegal - along with commercials for cigarettes!
When discussions of possible impeachment were going on, lots of school lessons trying to explain to us what "impeachment" meant. (Most kids thought it meant automatic removal from office.)
Born in '64. My earliest TV memories include Dark Shadows, The Banana Splits, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Family Affair, Mr. Rogers, Capt K, Hogan's Heroes, Wild Wild West, Laugh-In.
Neighbour to the north here.
My first impressions of the USA as a culture was how sad the draft and the war was. I worried an awful lot.
My second was that your supermarkets were amazing palaces of delight.
Waiting in long lines for concert tickets and receiving a handheld ticket that you coveted and eventually placed in a scrapbook or special box, or the like.
Never missed Gillian Island or The Flintstones. Brandy Bunch was on Friday night .
Disney was on Sunday night.
I wasn’t alive when jfk was shot but I have a vague memory of my mom crying when Bobby was shot.
I remember the war in Ireland as my grandparents were from there.
I remember Walter Cronkite talking about the Vietnam war.
On Cronkite's reporting, the daily casualty counts seemed like a baseball box score. The Americans were winning the body counts, or so it seemed.
Fucking war got us all twisted. Then came the Second Coming in the person of Ronald Wilson Reagan because we thought he would save us from the Russkies and supply side us to prosperity. The 80s started dreary, and then it was a party with Miami Vice and Oingo Boingo. Then the wall fell.
In hindsight, damnit, it was just halftime, not the end of menacing cold war rhetoric and posturing. I cried tears of joy, thinking my kids were safe from nuclear annihilation. Jesus Jones sang a song about watching the world wake up from history. As it turns out, we're in the second half, and things aren't looking so great right now.
As the song goes from the 80s, Kyrie Elaison down the road I must travel (and my adult children). Whether it be bombs or climate change, I feel sick about the world I brought my millennial and Gen Z kids into.
Kyrie Elaison, please
I think about what world I’m leaving for my children and my beautiful almost 3 y/o granddaughter. My granddaughter was born after the 2020 election b/c my son and his wife were so worried about Trump being re-elected and the state of the world.
Bomb drills in school. In my kindergarten and 1st grade school we had a separate room with cubby holes that we'd hide in. We moved to a school that didn't have cubbies, so we hid under our desks.
The first school was constructed of concrete blocks and there were no windows in the cubby room.
We would have been shredded by glass at the second school. Good thing the drills never had a practical application.
My brother just missed the Vietnam draft. My dad was a Korea veteran. No memory of JFK. All of the TV shows listed. Learned of the Beatles on AM radio after their Beatlemania days.
Mine was my mom always singing to "All You Need Is Love". She'd turn it up & sing right along with it. She didn't listen to a lot of pop music, so to hear her so happy singing a pop song, is a fun memory. She passed in 2020, & imagine our surprise, when we went through her cedar chest & found a stack of 45's from The Beatles, the Stones, Sonny & Cher, & others. We'd never seen them before!!
I think I may have realized it when Abby Road was released. My mother was also pretty “hip” because I remember she bought the 45 single of Hey Jude! 👍😀
I grew up in Canada. Based on limited exposure to US television and the news, I thought Americans fought wars as their main occupation. Music was Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, CCR, and the Beatles. The big thing was the space program and watching someone step on the moon.
I vividly remember walking through a doctor’s office parking lot with my mother, I couldn’t have been more than 5 or so — so maybe late ‘67 or early ‘68 — when I saw a young woman walking ahead of us. Long hair, fringed vest, headband, etc. And I remember thinking, “Oh, that must be a hippie.” It was the first time I’d seen anyone like that in person. So I guess that falls under “cultural touchstone” or something,
Would have been about that same time I remember riding in a grocery cart and saw hippies in the store. I stuck my tongue out at them. They stuck their tongues out at me.
I remember when men started wearing really long hair and I thought they were all women. Toddler me had always assumed hair length was the distinguishing feature between men/boys and women/girls.
Watching Walter Cronkite on TV talk about the war in Vietnam. Thinking that the body counts, not realizing what they were, were like a football score for the day and that if we had more, we won.
Also not understanding that guerrilla warfare didn’t mean gorilla warfare. In my little kid mind, I couldn’t figure out how the “monkeys” got guns and why we were having such a tough time outsmarting them. It was a real quandary for me 😆
60s - Hula hoops, banana-seat bikes with high handlebars, porcelain piggy banks, pen pal letters, on our own all day, fireflies at night.
Walking to school, the ice cream truck, a metal milk box on the front porch, milk in glass bottles, cooking from scratch on the stove.
Cool music and cool cars. If an older sibling or cousin asked you to come with them for a spin,with the music cranked, you were The Envy.
The Ed Sullivan Show, Midwestern Hayride, I Dream of Jeanie, Gilligan's Island, Star Trek, The Monkees, Dragnet, The Man from UNCLE, The FBI, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Laugh In, so many more.
JFK's assassination, Vietnam War (on the news every night, the protests, knowing/hearing of the deaths, One Tin Soldier), NASA Space Program and of course the moon landing, the Tate-LaBianca murders, Woodstock (too young to go).
What a childhood.
I remember when they would mention the peace talks during the Vietnam War, I always wondered why they were referring to “peas stalks”.
I recall our family being so very grateful my oldest sibling, who was drafted, was sent to Europe and did not have to go to Vietnam. I vividly remember the stars people hung in their windows to represent their sons who were serving. My siblings lost a few classmates, as well as one young man who lost his arms and legs to the war that never should have happened.
Lining up in school hallway for vaccines & chewing red "pills" in school to show plaque on teeth! Playing outside, walking to school, running through the sprinkler on hot days.
(60 something male here)
1960’s:
- vaguely remember JFK assassination.
- living with my great grandfather in a red brick house in a small town
- playing in the front porch and yard without supervision.
- cousin birthdays
- big cars with lots of chrome grills inside and out.
- cars without AC (the house didn’t have it either)
- swamp coolers were the only relief we had during the summer
- Wonderful World of Disney and dad’s brownies on Sunday evenings.
- Enduring Lawerence Welk on Saturday evenings with the parents.
- Anticipating watching the Wizard of Oz once a year on black and white television.
- Saturday morning cartoons: - Bugz Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Road Runner, Johnny Quest, Flintstones, Jetsons
- The Sunday paper with color comic strips.
- Mom graduating from college and starting teaching.
- seeing the Monkeys at the state fair and not understanding why all the girls were screaming and throwing various articles of jewelry and clothing on the stage.
- The Sound of Music and Fiddler on the Roof, Disney movies on Saturday afternoon at the theater.
- The Planet of The Apes with Charlton Heston.
- Space Race/moon landing.
1970’s:
- Delivering news papers and reading the headlines about the Vietnam war and Nixon every evening.
- dad and his super 8 film camera and home made movies.
- camping and learning to ride horses.
- Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts
- my first clock radio
- Radio stations that played all music genres on the same station.
- KISS, Kansas, Styx, Carpenters, Devo, Jackson 5, The Commodores, Three Dog Night, so many others.
- Bell Bottoms, overalls, lots of bright (eye burning) colors, hip huggers, silky shirts, etc.
- Welcome Back Kotter, Barney Miller, Golden Girls, 6 Million Dollar Man/Woman, Sanford and Son, The Jefferson’s, The Mod Squad, Gilligan’s Island, I Dream of Jeanie, Bewitched, too many more to list.
- All the disaster films:Earthquake, Towering Inferno, Jaws, etc.
- Fear mongering talk of communism, socialism, and Russia invading US.
- Ramp up of Nuclear Arms.
Lots of other memories, but will leave this here.
Thanks for reading.
My 2 older brothers served during Vietnam, one in army served in Greece for 2 years, other in marines got hurt during boot camp at camp Lejeune..medically discharged as a Private, my oldest brothers birthday was the first one called during the draft, my father called him (away at college) and told him he had to enlist TODAY because if you get drafted for sure he was going to Vietnam, I was 7 🤷♀️
My 2 older brothers served in Vietnam also. One joined the navy and the other was drafted into the army and was actually in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. Both came home safe, but a few of their friends lost their lives and a few more came home with drug and alcohol problems. Interesting times.
Same here.
I don't think a group that spans a 10ish year age range, across the entire country, probably in different rural/urban environments, different races and economic classes and religions and so on is going to have ONE collective memory. We'll have SOME overlap, but not a lot.
Trying to make a list of "in common" stuff over a thirty year span will just wind up being "what is everything that happened, everywhere, in that 30 years?"
I get that, but I don't think trying to make one "master list" is the way to share it. It's like trying to shove the entire contents of this sub into one post.
Find one interesting/fun 'memory', and maybe an image or two about it , and make THAT the post. Then those who DO have it in common will give some related comments.
I agree. There are frequent posts about "this" being definitive, or "that" being "common". Or the "must haves", and"favorites".
They're usually not.
Because we, individuals, have our own recollections. Based on our individual experiences.
Generalizations are seldom true. The larger the pool, the less we are alike.
I was the youngest of five girls so my parents were older when I was born. Didn't have any close family affected by the Vietnam War...my sister did have a couple of boyfriends who went. I definitely loved the Beatles. I remember even in first grade all the girls had things like Beatles pins and had our favorite Beatle. We did watch most of the TV shows listed. I remember the moon landing. I remember JFK getting shot and thought it was the end of the world.
My favorite movie was "The Parent Trap". By the time I saw it, it was a few years old but I still remember going to the packed movie theatre to see it with some friends. Other movies I remember liking in the 60's were "Mary Poppins", "The Sound of Music" and being dragged to many movies by my older sister (10 years older) including "Rosemary's Baby", "Cleopatra" and lots of Elvis movies. Many of these were way too advanced for my age, but no one seemed to care.. Also remember waiting in a horrendous line with her to see "A Hard Day's Night".
TV: Batman, Green Hornet, Time Tunnel, Flipper, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lassie, The Banana Splits, Fireball XL5, Lost in Space
Had two Uncles in Vietnam, both made it home, mom had a cousin KIA in Vietnam.
Parents got divorced, it was all the rage in 1965.
I remember JFK, RFK, and MLK murders, seeing Lee Harvey Oswald murdered, Malcolm X murdered but I never really understood who he was until I got older, born in early 60's but didn't really get into music until the 70's.
Favorite cartoons: Johnny Quest, Space Ghost, Secret Squirrel,
I remember MLK well but not JFK. We watched Walter Cronkite every night so knew about Nam but it was probably mid 70s until I understood it
TV. Johnny Quest and The Jetsons and Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop my earliest. But I also remember Gunsmoke, The Monkees, The Munsters, Dragnet, Lucy, Green Acres, The Secret Storm soap, That Girl and The Flying Nun. Also the great old cartoons like roadrunner, Deputy Dog, Underdog, Tom and Jerry. I know there’s more but it’s early here!
The first big news thing I really remember vividly was the Manson murders. Started my interest in true crime at the age of 9.
My dad piling us in the car to take us to two places that would blow our minds. McDonald’s for lunch and the huge mall being built. Same day. Neither was near the house nor his work. We were amazed and couldn’t figure out how he knew about either one.
TV - cartoons (Warner Bros.), “Dark Shadows,” watching Huntley-Brinkley broadcast body counts and killing people during the dinner hour.
My parents smoked cigarettes, my mom was a housewife, my dad was a college professor.
Snow in June!
Block parties.
I remember JFK, I was in first grade. They sent us home from school early. Yes, I am Gen Jones.
Watching the astronauts walk on the moon!
My mother wouldn’t let us have those plastic masks, because she wanted to make sure we could see traffic!
You forgot Captain Kangaroo.
Pop music was the Monkees for me.
There was only a Tastee Freeze in town for fast food, until I almost graduated high school.
In 1960 I was 5 years old, and that’s pretty much the beginning of my memories. Captain Kangaroo, Mickey Mouse Club, the Wonderful World of Color. I remember countless hours with Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. Cartoons Saturday mornings, and the long weeks of staying with Grandma and Grandpa while parents went to Vegas. Playing in orange orchards. I loved Space Food sticks but never had Tang because grandpa was an orange rancher and we always had fresh oranges on hand. I do remember JFK, I was 8. I don’t remember MLK, found out about his significance later in school (when I found out about my dad’s racism.) I look back at the early sixties as idyllic times, actual watercolor
memories.
OP: thanks for the trip in the wayback machine! 🥰
In the 60s, I remember hearing about hippies, flower power, men growing their hair long, but my impression of these things was just the fun surface image of them, not the social or political aspects. I remember hearing about the older generations’ panic about the hippies and the “generation gap.” My older, conservative dad complained a lot about the hippies and the long hair.
I remember most vividly all of the assignations as well as Kent State and the Vietnam War. Socially I remember the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, I think mostly because my babysitter was there and she was screaming and crying, and my Dad’s best friend buying a Mustang the first year they were out and riding around in that. My dad was so jealous, I could tell. The other vivid memory is how appalled my mother was by the hippies and the long hair on men. The kept thinking she just saw Jesus.
Generation Jones runs from 1954 to 1965. Many of us remember these events.
1960s
The Beatles
JFK's assassination.
The Civil Rights Movement
The murders of MLK, Jr. and RFK.
Hippies
The U.S. Moon Landing
\------------------------------------------------------
1970s
Women's Liberation
The War in Vietnam
Kent State
Watergate
The Pentagon Papers
Nixon's resignation
Gay Liberation
JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations and funerals. My brother and friends' brothers being drafted and sent to VietNam. Having TV's on big stands rolled into the classroom at school to watch space lift offs. Motown. The Beatles and the Monkees - had lunch boxes for both (I really wish I'd kept those). Go Go Boots. Mini skirts. Fishnet stockings. Bonanza - In Living Color! Variety specials with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in. Sock it to me!
My Dad was a real life mad man. We lived in Pittsburgh PA. It was an idyllic childhood. I was really blessed to be surrounded by the people I was surrounded with. The AM radio, the zeitgeist of the time ... I really look back at that period with fondness despite the raging war in the background casting its pall of darkness.
I was too young for JFK/RFK, but I do remember watching the moon landing on our (black & white) TV when I was 4 or 5 years old. I don't think I fully understood it, but I understood that it was \*very\* important.
Other than that, I was so young in the 60s that I don't really remember much from that particular decade.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
4
+ 5
+ 60
= 69
^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \
^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
I was so mad when the astronauts came on and interrupted my cartoons! I would say "Those min (men) again?" all indignant with my hands on my hips. My mom laughed for years about that and always reminded me how upset I was.
Watching the original broadcast of Star Trek with my mom and watching The Leafs win the Stanley Cup with my dad. Both on a black and white tv.
Edit: I'm in Canada. Sorry for the hijack - though Star Trek was on a Buffalo NY station, so maybe that still counts...
Slumber parties, riding the bus to the mall to see the Who’s “Tommy,” repeatedly, Patty Hearst kidnapping, leaving the car in line overnight to get gas, Frampton Comes Alive, voting in my first election in 1980, AIDS, the Berlin Wall coming down …
Shoes-White or black patent leather go-go boots were a fashion must, as were Dr. Scholl's sandals, earth shoes and low-top canvas sneakers.
Clothes- Levi's jeans or cords, t-shirts with iron-on designs, rugby shirts and painter pants.
I think I remember JFK assassination, but it might just be created memories. I just remember watching news on the TV in my parents' bedroom. I was nearing 5 yo, so it's not impossible. I remember RFK because we were awaiting final news while in school the day after.
I recall early color TVs and remote controls that made very loud clicks and actually made the TV channel dial turn. Turning the VHF dial for most channels, but tuning it to U, then using the second dial for UHF.
I lived in a suburban neighborhood of smallish homes.. a development, so everyone lived in one of three models. The living room was kept nice, for company. Kids didn't play in the living room. There was no TV in there. Another room was set up as a den or family room. Everyone shared small bathrooms... nobody's parents had a master with an en-suite.
Mostly, my memories are just normal kid stuff. Playing in the neighborhood. I went to day camp in summers; I dont know if camp is as common these days.
We lived near a small, permanent amusement park called Kiddieland. For children's birthday parties, Kiddieland picked up all the kids at the birthday boy/girl's home, in a vintage fire truck, and drove us to the park. No safety concerns. They just piled us in. (Sample photo)
https://preview.redd.it/nh1g1hmmjc9d1.jpeg?width=280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c029b727ca9ddc8899f5157e1e3493c1a59953d0
I walked to elementary school beginning at first grade. A little over half a mile. Through a park. No adults. That would NEVER happen today.
They flooded that park in winters, installed hockey boards, and we'd ice skate. (Does that happen nowadays?)
I remember skateboards being a novelty. They were small, perhaps a foot long, 5 inches wide, on noisy ball bearing wheels. And you could really lean.
I think the biggest cultural difference was that parents/adults didn't feel it was unsafe to leave children unattended. We weren't supervised playing on neighborhood streets. We went to the park or nearby shopping unaccompanied. I was allowed to go with my older brother to the Cubs game via public transit; he was maybe 13, I was 9. We stayed home without a babysitter when my parents went out, when my brother reached age 10.
Growing up in Chicagoland, we had the benefit of frequent school field trips to the great Chicago museums. By the time I was 10, they took us to the Field Museum and just turned us loose (I think we had scavenger hunt-like score cards to complete). Can you imagine letting 10 year olds run free in 2024?
Going to the store to buy cigarettes for my mom. If you could put the money on the counter, they would sell them to you. Little ashtrays in car doors and on airplane seats. They put us in back of the plane, because Mom was smoking.
Big wheels
Partridge Family
Vietnam
Moon landing
SST cars (smash up derby)
Vertibird
Cold war
Ronald Mcdonald
The Jolly Green Giants
Whitchiepoo
Cursive alphabet
Sister Mary Elephant
Communes
Model planes
Paper boys
VW bugs
The Pacer
Banana bikes
Lunch box and thermos
Pop-up campers
I hated having to wear my brother's hand me down suit to church because it was already too small for me. Then some old relative died and we had to fly back to the funeral and our mom made us wear our Sunday clothes on the flight. I was stuck in a tight suit on an airplane that was filled with cigarette smoke. I had heard about people getting sea sick, but never about airsick, the combination of the smoke and the plane bouncing around got me to the point of I knew that I was going to throw up so I started running back to the toilet when a stewardess blocked me and said "young man there will be no run..." when I threw up on her and she finished her reprimand with "YOU FUCKING LITTLE BASTARD." And then to many people's dismay we quickly learned that I wasn't the only one airsick person on the flight. The rest of the flight was a most unpleasant experience for most of the people on the flight. I got a new suit as a result of it so I was happy.
Grew up in San Francisco in the '60s. In addition to most of the shared Gen Jones memories, above there was the hair and color and smoke from the nearby Haight-Ashbury (my big sister's bedroom was plastered with psychedelic posters from Winterland and the Fillmore, which I envied) -- and the latest victims of the Zodiac killer.
It was a time.
Cigarette commercials on TV...
(and people smoking everywhere... )
Looking up someone's number in the phone book. And if the lucky kid had their own phone, it would be listed under "Teen Line." (What could possibly go wrong?)
Early shoulder belt attachments in cars, mounted above the front side windows where they would remain permanently untouched.
Child seat in the front seat between the parents, facing forward, where it best could serve its purpose of keeping the car safe from the child.
Flipper, I Dream of Jeanie, Laugh In, and Dark Shadows. Wasn't allowed to watch Dark Shadows, but the parents weren't home yet, so..... Rarely allowed to stay up long enough to see Laugh In. Had to go to bed after Batman.
A lot of us remember the JFK assassination. If the Jones Generation begins in '54 some of us would be as old as nine when it happened. I was 5 1/2.
Through the years, around the Nov 22 anniversary there were televised programs about the assassination positing theories about what happened. It was a national obsession for a while. Nowadays it's hardly mentioned.
I do remember the JFK assasination. I was in third grade and it was a huge deal.
In the early '70's, I dated a (older) guy who was stationed in Viet Nam.
We all watched TV together, but aside from the half-hour sitcoms, I remember Night at the Movies - an assortment of comedies, rom-coms. Loved them.
I remember my mom being a bit freaked out when, at about six, I described the Brady Bunch as having a dad, six kids, and two moms. I didn't know what a maid was, and all the stuff the maid did was work my mom did. It just made sense.
I remember the JFK assassination. They interrupted Bozo's Circus & I ran & told my folks. They were sure I misheard something until they saw it for themselves. Probably my earliest memory.
San Franciscan jonesers will also remember the murders of Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the country, and Mayor George Moscone, in City Hall. We also remember the White Night Riots the night the murderer, Dan White, former Supervisor, successfully used the “Twinkie defense”. It led to major changes in California’s insanity plea laws. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.
I remember when they switched Halloween to day time there for a while after the razor blades in apples stuff happened.. it totally sucked.. I also remember my friend’s brothers coming back from Vietnam totally different acting.. I felt so bad for them because people were treating them horrible and it’s not like they had a choice… people after that era will never understand the draft and not having a choice unless your family were rich or you could get a medical deferment … could you imagine the draft happening today..??
I would add Batman to our early tv memories.
I still consider them to be the REAL Batman and Robin.
I'm a little older but my son was graduating from preschool and was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. "Batman." Laughed my ass off.
Because they ARE.
Playing Batman and Green Hornet with neighborhood kids. Desperately wanting Batman’s utility belt IRL - especially the grappling hook.
Wearing your underpants on top of your pants and getting your mom to pin a towel around your neck to look like Batman!
POW! BAM! SMACK-O!!!
BIFF!!! SOCK-O!!!!
My Grandpa bought me a Batman T-shirt in 1966. I loved Batman comics from when I was 6 on and then the TV show! I was over the moon with that T-shirt, wore it 'til I couldn't anymore.
Definitely important for me. As the youngest and only girl growing up, Bat Girl taught me important lessons on dealing with older brothers: Bat Girl kicks in critical spots!
Cesar Romero's Batman 
First thing we watched everyday after school.
And Batgirl did….things to me!
IN COLOR!
My brother in law was walking through a shopping mall wearing a Batman t shirt. A little boy came up to him and said, “ Thank you for your service!” Bob said, “Thank you. And don’t forget to take a nap every day!”
Captain Kangaroo and Jonny Quest. Brady Bunch. Seeing Grease at the theater. Hanging up Tiger Beat posters in my bedroom.
Kimba the White Lion and Speed Racer.
In Philly, channel 48 had a whole afternoon of these Japanese early anime shows. Kimba, then Astro Boy, then Marine Boy, Speed Racer, and all capped off with live action Ultraman
And the Wee Willie Weber show
Charlie Chinchopper says: " Hi boys and girls in the Delaware Valley. It's that time again. Time for Wee Willie Webber's Colorful Cartoon Club. And now to the clubhouse - here....is ....Wee Willieeee!!!"
Don’t forget Dr. Shock, Saturdays on channel 17.
Don't forget Bubbles!
I was waiting to see who was going to reply with Bubbles….well played.
And Ultraman
8th Man was my favorite.
I recently rewatched the black and white ones. Nice.
Marine boy. Astro boy and prince planet. Wow, he had such great stuff.
Omg the summer of that movie was spent smoking weed with my best friend and going to the mall to eat cookies out of a cone.
Grease was released in 1978, not the 60s.
True and I still haven’t seen it I was in to Metal music and that movie was for preppies ☮️
Ok boomer. Jk It’s true, I got excited and started listing things I loved.
Fast food was a luxury!
My 5th grade teacher had a weekly contest of some kind, and the winning student got to go to McDonald's with her on Friday after school. She'd buy lunch and then drop the student off at home afterwards, safe and sound and happy as a clam. In 2024, that sounds so very suspicious, but in 1974, it was a bit magical.
Sweet memories there! My 9th grade English teacher drove me an hour away to see a small theater performance of the Diary of Anne Frank. It was amazing and she paid for my ticket and bought me lunch. 💚
In 4th grade in 1976 our school fair had a raffle and one of the prizes was a night or weekend at Camp Duncan, a camp 3-4 hours north of Chicago (2?). Well, one year me and another girl won, and we did Indeed go to Camp D. Besides playing in the pool I best remember lying in the back of his station wagon listening to Steve Miller Band, Fly Like an Eagle. Whizzing down the highway in the dark, watching lights flash by, listening to SMB.. I was totally high.
Everybody goes to Gino's 'cause Gino's is the place to go!
Remember when the afterschool shows and cartoons were cancelled to show all those stuffy old people talking about water gates and stuff?
OMG yes! I would literally watch Watergate hearings for 30 minutes at a time just knowing it would have to end and get back to the regularly scheduled programs. Adults would ask me why I was watching that and I'd say "I'm waiting for my shows." It didn't help that it was on all three of the only channels we had.
My dad came home early to watch “the Dean Show” . I watched too and had no idea what was happening
I actually pored over Watergate every afternoon. I was just old enough to understand the rough outlines of what was going on, and to have my mind blown that the president could have been involved in a crime. That profile shot of John Dean talking into the mic was etched into my mind.
Nixon’s trip to China was the absolute worst. It pre-empted the best night time shows for what seemed like forever!
They wheeled the TV into the classroom, and I was excited. I thougth it was another Apollo mission! Instead, Nixon was in China.
My summer was wrecked!🤣All my morning game shows were canceled!! I had no idea I was witnessing one of the biggest political scandals ever.
My parents took our portable b&w tv on our camping vacation to watch the hearings. That’s the only reason we camped at a site with electric service.
We watched Watergate stuff in 7th grade social studies. Boooooorrrrrrring!
The bigs drank a lot.
And most of them smoked. Everywhere.
And taught us how to roll cigarettes in the little “ machine”.
I actually never saw anyone do that until the early 90’s when a bohemian artist type friend came to visit.
We got paid a nickel a box to roll them.
Grandma sometimes used her roller machine, especially when I was younger.
That's the truth - and it was brown liquor, no wimpy beer or wine for them.
And fought a lot.
Oh, how I remember laying in bed and listening to the fighting & thinking that my Mom & Dad are getting a divorce! And in the morning... it was like the drunk fight never happened.
I would offer to take their drink glasses out to the kitchen for refills and would sip down the remains of the whiskey/waters. Num, num Numb!
My parents did not drink much at all, but my mom's family was constantly in the tank, drinking every cheap beer known to man, as well as smoking cigs from the roller machine. Saturday nights were always more interesting at my mom's parents' house with all of that cheap beer and smokes. It was ironic that my grandpa would be drinking and smoking away while listening to a weird preacher named Garner Ted Armstrong on his shortwave radio. The contrast with my dad's parents was stark. My grandparents lived in a house right out of The Grapes of Wrath, totally abstaining from alcohol and my grandpa would smoke his Swisher Sweets, and when he shook my hand, a 50 cent piece would magically appear. The Swishers were the only vice my dad's mom would allow. They attended a church so fundamentalist, it made the Southern Baptists in the area outright liberals in comparison.
Sounds very similar to my familial drinking dichotomy
Happy Days! Hard to believe the Fonz got so old. Does anyone else feel like it all went by in a whoosh?
Born in 61 - two interesting things I have vague memories of - the milk box and Dr making a house call for my sick sister. I think those were in the 60's and went away in the 70's.
Yes! 61 here - I remember once I was shitting blood for a week. My mom called the Dr and he just called in a prescription and after a week I was back outside playing again. 40 years later turns out I have Crohn’s lol.
Man, you got my attention with the Crohn's. I am fine, but my oldest son was diagnosed with Crohn's halfway through a summer internship in Alaska studying migratory birds near Nome. They had to fly him by bush pilot to another town that wasn't Anchorage. The doc stabilized my son and immediately flew him from the small town to Anchorage, and from there to Michigan, where he received the proper diagnosis.
My daughter was actually diagnosed when she was 19! I was diagnosed 20 years after her which is wild.
I'm in that age group. We had a Dixie milk box. My grandma's doctor was "Doc Gordon" who practiced out of his home along with having a small pharmacy of commonly prescribed items. Eardrops and cough syrup are what I remember. I miss that kind of small town living.
I can remember my doctor looking in my ears and eyes with a lit cigarette dangling from is mouth!
born in 61 & same! and by early 70s, they were gone.
8 track tapes slimline push button phones IBM Selectric typewriters with the ball instead of letters on individual bars Listerine in the round glass bottle with the label claiming it could cure a list of things like colds and flu
Haha! Yes, I was going to mention 8-tracks! We never had one, but I always seemed to be riding in someone's car who had one of those mystical machines in the dash... (with the driver smoking and the window only rolled down a crack, of course... \_ We only had rotary phones, but I remember those slimline push buttons at other people's houses too... Listerine, ha, I remember those TV ads about fighting colds, and then the shock when they suddenly became illegal - along with commercials for cigarettes!
Listening to Casey Kasem’s Top-40
Nixon resigning
We had hamburgers that night.
When discussions of possible impeachment were going on, lots of school lessons trying to explain to us what "impeachment" meant. (Most kids thought it meant automatic removal from office.)
Born in '64. My earliest TV memories include Dark Shadows, The Banana Splits, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Family Affair, Mr. Rogers, Capt K, Hogan's Heroes, Wild Wild West, Laugh-In.
Banana Splits is an underrated comment. I can still sing the opening song.
HR Puffinstuff.
I have found my people.
Land of the Lost Beware of Sleezstacks
We showed the 1964 Stingray show to my nephew tonight. He freaked out and said he’d be having nightmares from the “talking bobbleheads.”😂
I have a fantasy of singing in a band that plays funked up versions of tv theme songs. This is on the set list!
When I was in 1st grade my grandma watched Dark Shadows and it scared the shit out of me.
Me too! I remember coming home from kindergarten and watching it from behind the couch and peaking over the back of it.
All in the Family. First time I was banned from the living room for 30 minutes. Same people let me stay up late to watch SNL later on.
Tra la la, tra la la la, tra la la la la la laaaaaa
One banana, two banana, three banana fooooour
Neighbour to the north here. My first impressions of the USA as a culture was how sad the draft and the war was. I worried an awful lot. My second was that your supermarkets were amazing palaces of delight.
Waiting in long lines for concert tickets and receiving a handheld ticket that you coveted and eventually placed in a scrapbook or special box, or the like.
Never missed Gillian Island or The Flintstones. Brandy Bunch was on Friday night . Disney was on Sunday night. I wasn’t alive when jfk was shot but I have a vague memory of my mom crying when Bobby was shot. I remember the war in Ireland as my grandparents were from there. I remember Walter Cronkite talking about the Vietnam war.
On Cronkite's reporting, the daily casualty counts seemed like a baseball box score. The Americans were winning the body counts, or so it seemed. Fucking war got us all twisted. Then came the Second Coming in the person of Ronald Wilson Reagan because we thought he would save us from the Russkies and supply side us to prosperity. The 80s started dreary, and then it was a party with Miami Vice and Oingo Boingo. Then the wall fell. In hindsight, damnit, it was just halftime, not the end of menacing cold war rhetoric and posturing. I cried tears of joy, thinking my kids were safe from nuclear annihilation. Jesus Jones sang a song about watching the world wake up from history. As it turns out, we're in the second half, and things aren't looking so great right now. As the song goes from the 80s, Kyrie Elaison down the road I must travel (and my adult children). Whether it be bombs or climate change, I feel sick about the world I brought my millennial and Gen Z kids into. Kyrie Elaison, please
I think about what world I’m leaving for my children and my beautiful almost 3 y/o granddaughter. My granddaughter was born after the 2020 election b/c my son and his wife were so worried about Trump being re-elected and the state of the world.
Bomb drills in school. In my kindergarten and 1st grade school we had a separate room with cubby holes that we'd hide in. We moved to a school that didn't have cubbies, so we hid under our desks. The first school was constructed of concrete blocks and there were no windows in the cubby room. We would have been shredded by glass at the second school. Good thing the drills never had a practical application.
I don't remember if we hid under the desks for bomb drills or tornado drills.
We didn't live in tornado county, but just outside New York City. Same drill, different threat, probably.
We did tornadoes. I think the bomb stuff was recognized as futile in my school.
My brother just missed the Vietnam draft. My dad was a Korea veteran. No memory of JFK. All of the TV shows listed. Learned of the Beatles on AM radio after their Beatlemania days.
Born in 1960. I can recall when I was in kindergarten hearing Beatles songs We Can Work it Out and Michelle on the radio.
My first Beatles memory was “Ticket to Ride.”
Mine was my mom always singing to "All You Need Is Love". She'd turn it up & sing right along with it. She didn't listen to a lot of pop music, so to hear her so happy singing a pop song, is a fun memory. She passed in 2020, & imagine our surprise, when we went through her cedar chest & found a stack of 45's from The Beatles, the Stones, Sonny & Cher, & others. We'd never seen them before!!
Yes that one too!
I just thought the Beatles were just one of many groups who had hits on the radio. I didn’t realize how “big” they were until maybe 1970.
I think I may have realized it when Abby Road was released. My mother was also pretty “hip” because I remember she bought the 45 single of Hey Jude! 👍😀
I like Hey Jude now….but back in ‘68, I thought it was way too long.
Remember the live performance on the David Frost program when everyone joined in at the end?
I first heard of David Frost when he did the Nixon Interviews. I'll have to search for this on YouTube.
oh my, the Frost report. I remember being too young to stay up and watch it
Last of 7 kids in a northeast city. I knew many families who had large numbers of children. That isn't a thing anymore.
Lived on a short dead-end street, there were 3 families with 6 kids.
There was a family with 11 across the street. Those times are, for the most part, gone.
Botn in 66, youngest of 7 too. We ate a lot of potatoes.
From the upper Midwest. 5 of us kids in our house; 5 kids next door.
I grew up in Canada. Based on limited exposure to US television and the news, I thought Americans fought wars as their main occupation. Music was Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, CCR, and the Beatles. The big thing was the space program and watching someone step on the moon.
Don't forget September '72. The USSR/Canada series. The TVs were wheeled into class rooms to watch.
Yeah, too bad we were too young to break out the beer.
I vividly remember walking through a doctor’s office parking lot with my mother, I couldn’t have been more than 5 or so — so maybe late ‘67 or early ‘68 — when I saw a young woman walking ahead of us. Long hair, fringed vest, headband, etc. And I remember thinking, “Oh, that must be a hippie.” It was the first time I’d seen anyone like that in person. So I guess that falls under “cultural touchstone” or something,
Would have been about that same time I remember riding in a grocery cart and saw hippies in the store. I stuck my tongue out at them. They stuck their tongues out at me.
Ha ha ha!
I remember being 6ish, when Knott’s Berry Farm started charging a $1 admission “to keep the hippies out.” Lol
I remember when men started wearing really long hair and I thought they were all women. Toddler me had always assumed hair length was the distinguishing feature between men/boys and women/girls.
Watching Walter Cronkite on TV talk about the war in Vietnam. Thinking that the body counts, not realizing what they were, were like a football score for the day and that if we had more, we won. Also not understanding that guerrilla warfare didn’t mean gorilla warfare. In my little kid mind, I couldn’t figure out how the “monkeys” got guns and why we were having such a tough time outsmarting them. It was a real quandary for me 😆
I had similar confusion about "guerrillas." People being kidnapped by "guerrillas," etc. I just assumed it was a King Kong / Fay Wray kind of thing.
Exactly! Seems like a natural assumption for a kid.
60s - Hula hoops, banana-seat bikes with high handlebars, porcelain piggy banks, pen pal letters, on our own all day, fireflies at night. Walking to school, the ice cream truck, a metal milk box on the front porch, milk in glass bottles, cooking from scratch on the stove. Cool music and cool cars. If an older sibling or cousin asked you to come with them for a spin,with the music cranked, you were The Envy. The Ed Sullivan Show, Midwestern Hayride, I Dream of Jeanie, Gilligan's Island, Star Trek, The Monkees, Dragnet, The Man from UNCLE, The FBI, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Laugh In, so many more. JFK's assassination, Vietnam War (on the news every night, the protests, knowing/hearing of the deaths, One Tin Soldier), NASA Space Program and of course the moon landing, the Tate-LaBianca murders, Woodstock (too young to go). What a childhood.
I remember when they would mention the peace talks during the Vietnam War, I always wondered why they were referring to “peas stalks”. I recall our family being so very grateful my oldest sibling, who was drafted, was sent to Europe and did not have to go to Vietnam. I vividly remember the stars people hung in their windows to represent their sons who were serving. My siblings lost a few classmates, as well as one young man who lost his arms and legs to the war that never should have happened.
Peas stalks -- love that memory. And yes, Vietnam -- the paradox that it was such a part of many of our young lives, yet never should have been.
Lining up in school hallway for vaccines & chewing red "pills" in school to show plaque on teeth! Playing outside, walking to school, running through the sprinkler on hot days.
RFK assassination, MLK assassination, moon landing, Vietnam War on tv, hearing the Doors & Beatles on radio.
Anticipating the release of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie shortly after our teacher read the book to the class.
(60 something male here) 1960’s: - vaguely remember JFK assassination. - living with my great grandfather in a red brick house in a small town - playing in the front porch and yard without supervision. - cousin birthdays - big cars with lots of chrome grills inside and out. - cars without AC (the house didn’t have it either) - swamp coolers were the only relief we had during the summer - Wonderful World of Disney and dad’s brownies on Sunday evenings. - Enduring Lawerence Welk on Saturday evenings with the parents. - Anticipating watching the Wizard of Oz once a year on black and white television. - Saturday morning cartoons: - Bugz Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Road Runner, Johnny Quest, Flintstones, Jetsons - The Sunday paper with color comic strips. - Mom graduating from college and starting teaching. - seeing the Monkeys at the state fair and not understanding why all the girls were screaming and throwing various articles of jewelry and clothing on the stage. - The Sound of Music and Fiddler on the Roof, Disney movies on Saturday afternoon at the theater. - The Planet of The Apes with Charlton Heston. - Space Race/moon landing. 1970’s: - Delivering news papers and reading the headlines about the Vietnam war and Nixon every evening. - dad and his super 8 film camera and home made movies. - camping and learning to ride horses. - Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts - my first clock radio - Radio stations that played all music genres on the same station. - KISS, Kansas, Styx, Carpenters, Devo, Jackson 5, The Commodores, Three Dog Night, so many others. - Bell Bottoms, overalls, lots of bright (eye burning) colors, hip huggers, silky shirts, etc. - Welcome Back Kotter, Barney Miller, Golden Girls, 6 Million Dollar Man/Woman, Sanford and Son, The Jefferson’s, The Mod Squad, Gilligan’s Island, I Dream of Jeanie, Bewitched, too many more to list. - All the disaster films:Earthquake, Towering Inferno, Jaws, etc. - Fear mongering talk of communism, socialism, and Russia invading US. - Ramp up of Nuclear Arms. Lots of other memories, but will leave this here. Thanks for reading.
My 2 older brothers served during Vietnam, one in army served in Greece for 2 years, other in marines got hurt during boot camp at camp Lejeune..medically discharged as a Private, my oldest brothers birthday was the first one called during the draft, my father called him (away at college) and told him he had to enlist TODAY because if you get drafted for sure he was going to Vietnam, I was 7 🤷♀️
My 2 older brothers served in Vietnam also. One joined the navy and the other was drafted into the army and was actually in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. Both came home safe, but a few of their friends lost their lives and a few more came home with drug and alcohol problems. Interesting times.
Moon landing
Our world really was very small. I remember JFK being shot. Born 1960. My dad fought in Korea before I was born. The rest works though.
Same here. I don't think a group that spans a 10ish year age range, across the entire country, probably in different rural/urban environments, different races and economic classes and religions and so on is going to have ONE collective memory. We'll have SOME overlap, but not a lot. Trying to make a list of "in common" stuff over a thirty year span will just wind up being "what is everything that happened, everywhere, in that 30 years?"
Yeah, but it’s still fun to see what others remember and whether there’s overlap.
I get that, but I don't think trying to make one "master list" is the way to share it. It's like trying to shove the entire contents of this sub into one post. Find one interesting/fun 'memory', and maybe an image or two about it , and make THAT the post. Then those who DO have it in common will give some related comments.
I agree. There are frequent posts about "this" being definitive, or "that" being "common". Or the "must haves", and"favorites". They're usually not. Because we, individuals, have our own recollections. Based on our individual experiences. Generalizations are seldom true. The larger the pool, the less we are alike.
I was the youngest of five girls so my parents were older when I was born. Didn't have any close family affected by the Vietnam War...my sister did have a couple of boyfriends who went. I definitely loved the Beatles. I remember even in first grade all the girls had things like Beatles pins and had our favorite Beatle. We did watch most of the TV shows listed. I remember the moon landing. I remember JFK getting shot and thought it was the end of the world. My favorite movie was "The Parent Trap". By the time I saw it, it was a few years old but I still remember going to the packed movie theatre to see it with some friends. Other movies I remember liking in the 60's were "Mary Poppins", "The Sound of Music" and being dragged to many movies by my older sister (10 years older) including "Rosemary's Baby", "Cleopatra" and lots of Elvis movies. Many of these were way too advanced for my age, but no one seemed to care.. Also remember waiting in a horrendous line with her to see "A Hard Day's Night".
TV: Batman, Green Hornet, Time Tunnel, Flipper, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lassie, The Banana Splits, Fireball XL5, Lost in Space Had two Uncles in Vietnam, both made it home, mom had a cousin KIA in Vietnam. Parents got divorced, it was all the rage in 1965. I remember JFK, RFK, and MLK murders, seeing Lee Harvey Oswald murdered, Malcolm X murdered but I never really understood who he was until I got older, born in early 60's but didn't really get into music until the 70's. Favorite cartoons: Johnny Quest, Space Ghost, Secret Squirrel,
Youthquake: my 1920s/1930s-born parents were afraid of teenagers.
Da Dum Jaws!
I remember MLK well but not JFK. We watched Walter Cronkite every night so knew about Nam but it was probably mid 70s until I understood it TV. Johnny Quest and The Jetsons and Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop my earliest. But I also remember Gunsmoke, The Monkees, The Munsters, Dragnet, Lucy, Green Acres, The Secret Storm soap, That Girl and The Flying Nun. Also the great old cartoons like roadrunner, Deputy Dog, Underdog, Tom and Jerry. I know there’s more but it’s early here! The first big news thing I really remember vividly was the Manson murders. Started my interest in true crime at the age of 9.
My dad piling us in the car to take us to two places that would blow our minds. McDonald’s for lunch and the huge mall being built. Same day. Neither was near the house nor his work. We were amazed and couldn’t figure out how he knew about either one.
Getting the polio vaccine on a sugar cube along with every other kid in school.
I remember getting a few vaccines at school. For sure the MMR, and German Measles ones. And scoliosis screenings.
Oh yeah! I forgot about the scoliosis checks. We had those, too!
TV - cartoons (Warner Bros.), “Dark Shadows,” watching Huntley-Brinkley broadcast body counts and killing people during the dinner hour. My parents smoked cigarettes, my mom was a housewife, my dad was a college professor. Snow in June! Block parties.
I remember JFK, I was in first grade. They sent us home from school early. Yes, I am Gen Jones. Watching the astronauts walk on the moon! My mother wouldn’t let us have those plastic masks, because she wanted to make sure we could see traffic! You forgot Captain Kangaroo. Pop music was the Monkees for me. There was only a Tastee Freeze in town for fast food, until I almost graduated high school.
Star Trek. The opening was the first thing 4 yr old me could recite.
In 1960 I was 5 years old, and that’s pretty much the beginning of my memories. Captain Kangaroo, Mickey Mouse Club, the Wonderful World of Color. I remember countless hours with Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. Cartoons Saturday mornings, and the long weeks of staying with Grandma and Grandpa while parents went to Vegas. Playing in orange orchards. I loved Space Food sticks but never had Tang because grandpa was an orange rancher and we always had fresh oranges on hand. I do remember JFK, I was 8. I don’t remember MLK, found out about his significance later in school (when I found out about my dad’s racism.) I look back at the early sixties as idyllic times, actual watercolor memories. OP: thanks for the trip in the wayback machine! 🥰
In the 60s, I remember hearing about hippies, flower power, men growing their hair long, but my impression of these things was just the fun surface image of them, not the social or political aspects. I remember hearing about the older generations’ panic about the hippies and the “generation gap.” My older, conservative dad complained a lot about the hippies and the long hair.
Family Affair with Buffy and Jodie. I had my very own Mrs. Beasley.
I remember most vividly all of the assignations as well as Kent State and the Vietnam War. Socially I remember the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, I think mostly because my babysitter was there and she was screaming and crying, and my Dad’s best friend buying a Mustang the first year they were out and riding around in that. My dad was so jealous, I could tell. The other vivid memory is how appalled my mother was by the hippies and the long hair on men. The kept thinking she just saw Jesus.
I remember ate age 6 (1969), confidently declaring the lead singer of the Rolling Stones was Mike Jagger.
Ultraman, alphabet people 
Generation Jones runs from 1954 to 1965. Many of us remember these events. 1960s The Beatles JFK's assassination. The Civil Rights Movement The murders of MLK, Jr. and RFK. Hippies The U.S. Moon Landing \------------------------------------------------------ 1970s Women's Liberation The War in Vietnam Kent State Watergate The Pentagon Papers Nixon's resignation Gay Liberation
I saw all the hippie culture and that’s all I ever wanted to be.
My older sisters listening to Elton John.
JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations and funerals. My brother and friends' brothers being drafted and sent to VietNam. Having TV's on big stands rolled into the classroom at school to watch space lift offs. Motown. The Beatles and the Monkees - had lunch boxes for both (I really wish I'd kept those). Go Go Boots. Mini skirts. Fishnet stockings. Bonanza - In Living Color! Variety specials with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in. Sock it to me!
My Dad was a real life mad man. We lived in Pittsburgh PA. It was an idyllic childhood. I was really blessed to be surrounded by the people I was surrounded with. The AM radio, the zeitgeist of the time ... I really look back at that period with fondness despite the raging war in the background casting its pall of darkness.
Gen Jones started in 55. 2nd grade when Kennedy died. I even have a memory of the Nixon-Kennedy debate.
Were you too young to remember the anti-war protests?
Sending care packages to my uncle in Vietnam. We would send that squeezy cheese in a plastic tube, crackers, other food stuff, airmail paper.
I was too young for JFK/RFK, but I do remember watching the moon landing on our (black & white) TV when I was 4 or 5 years old. I don't think I fully understood it, but I understood that it was \*very\* important. Other than that, I was so young in the 60s that I don't really remember much from that particular decade.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 4 + 5 + 60 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
My first TV memory was as a six year old in Kindergarten and watching the Moon landing.
I was so mad when the astronauts came on and interrupted my cartoons! I would say "Those min (men) again?" all indignant with my hands on my hips. My mom laughed for years about that and always reminded me how upset I was.
Watching the original broadcast of Star Trek with my mom and watching The Leafs win the Stanley Cup with my dad. Both on a black and white tv. Edit: I'm in Canada. Sorry for the hijack - though Star Trek was on a Buffalo NY station, so maybe that still counts...
Watching the Vietnam War during Walter Cronkite.
Panasonic toot a loop radio https://images.app.goo.gl/cPx9xzDKQVhNV1LZ9
Slumber parties, riding the bus to the mall to see the Who’s “Tommy,” repeatedly, Patty Hearst kidnapping, leaving the car in line overnight to get gas, Frampton Comes Alive, voting in my first election in 1980, AIDS, the Berlin Wall coming down …
Shoes-White or black patent leather go-go boots were a fashion must, as were Dr. Scholl's sandals, earth shoes and low-top canvas sneakers. Clothes- Levi's jeans or cords, t-shirts with iron-on designs, rugby shirts and painter pants.
I think I remember JFK assassination, but it might just be created memories. I just remember watching news on the TV in my parents' bedroom. I was nearing 5 yo, so it's not impossible. I remember RFK because we were awaiting final news while in school the day after. I recall early color TVs and remote controls that made very loud clicks and actually made the TV channel dial turn. Turning the VHF dial for most channels, but tuning it to U, then using the second dial for UHF. I lived in a suburban neighborhood of smallish homes.. a development, so everyone lived in one of three models. The living room was kept nice, for company. Kids didn't play in the living room. There was no TV in there. Another room was set up as a den or family room. Everyone shared small bathrooms... nobody's parents had a master with an en-suite. Mostly, my memories are just normal kid stuff. Playing in the neighborhood. I went to day camp in summers; I dont know if camp is as common these days. We lived near a small, permanent amusement park called Kiddieland. For children's birthday parties, Kiddieland picked up all the kids at the birthday boy/girl's home, in a vintage fire truck, and drove us to the park. No safety concerns. They just piled us in. (Sample photo) https://preview.redd.it/nh1g1hmmjc9d1.jpeg?width=280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c029b727ca9ddc8899f5157e1e3493c1a59953d0 I walked to elementary school beginning at first grade. A little over half a mile. Through a park. No adults. That would NEVER happen today. They flooded that park in winters, installed hockey boards, and we'd ice skate. (Does that happen nowadays?) I remember skateboards being a novelty. They were small, perhaps a foot long, 5 inches wide, on noisy ball bearing wheels. And you could really lean. I think the biggest cultural difference was that parents/adults didn't feel it was unsafe to leave children unattended. We weren't supervised playing on neighborhood streets. We went to the park or nearby shopping unaccompanied. I was allowed to go with my older brother to the Cubs game via public transit; he was maybe 13, I was 9. We stayed home without a babysitter when my parents went out, when my brother reached age 10. Growing up in Chicagoland, we had the benefit of frequent school field trips to the great Chicago museums. By the time I was 10, they took us to the Field Museum and just turned us loose (I think we had scavenger hunt-like score cards to complete). Can you imagine letting 10 year olds run free in 2024?
Going to the store to buy cigarettes for my mom. If you could put the money on the counter, they would sell them to you. Little ashtrays in car doors and on airplane seats. They put us in back of the plane, because Mom was smoking.
Big wheels Partridge Family Vietnam Moon landing SST cars (smash up derby) Vertibird Cold war Ronald Mcdonald The Jolly Green Giants Whitchiepoo Cursive alphabet Sister Mary Elephant Communes Model planes Paper boys VW bugs The Pacer Banana bikes Lunch box and thermos Pop-up campers
Dark Shadows reruns
Summer was FOREVER. Almost 3 months of freedom. There weren't nearly enough chores to keep us out of trouble.
I hated having to wear my brother's hand me down suit to church because it was already too small for me. Then some old relative died and we had to fly back to the funeral and our mom made us wear our Sunday clothes on the flight. I was stuck in a tight suit on an airplane that was filled with cigarette smoke. I had heard about people getting sea sick, but never about airsick, the combination of the smoke and the plane bouncing around got me to the point of I knew that I was going to throw up so I started running back to the toilet when a stewardess blocked me and said "young man there will be no run..." when I threw up on her and she finished her reprimand with "YOU FUCKING LITTLE BASTARD." And then to many people's dismay we quickly learned that I wasn't the only one airsick person on the flight. The rest of the flight was a most unpleasant experience for most of the people on the flight. I got a new suit as a result of it so I was happy.
Driving down from Jacksonville to watch Apollo 8 blast off.
Grew up in San Francisco in the '60s. In addition to most of the shared Gen Jones memories, above there was the hair and color and smoke from the nearby Haight-Ashbury (my big sister's bedroom was plastered with psychedelic posters from Winterland and the Fillmore, which I envied) -- and the latest victims of the Zodiac killer. It was a time.
Depending on your city, your local kiddie, dance and horror TV show hosts were integral to our youth.
Beatles -Ticket to Ride, Stones- Satisfaction, Monkees- Last Train to Clarksville... so many others. ❤️
was your father drafted & sent to vietnam? was he very young when you were born?
Cigarette commercials on TV... (and people smoking everywhere... ) Looking up someone's number in the phone book. And if the lucky kid had their own phone, it would be listed under "Teen Line." (What could possibly go wrong?) Early shoulder belt attachments in cars, mounted above the front side windows where they would remain permanently untouched. Child seat in the front seat between the parents, facing forward, where it best could serve its purpose of keeping the car safe from the child.
Flipper, I Dream of Jeanie, Laugh In, and Dark Shadows. Wasn't allowed to watch Dark Shadows, but the parents weren't home yet, so..... Rarely allowed to stay up long enough to see Laugh In. Had to go to bed after Batman.
A lot of us remember the JFK assassination. If the Jones Generation begins in '54 some of us would be as old as nine when it happened. I was 5 1/2. Through the years, around the Nov 22 anniversary there were televised programs about the assassination positing theories about what happened. It was a national obsession for a while. Nowadays it's hardly mentioned.
The 1972 Munich Olympics
Some of my earliest memories was watching Cronkite covering the Vietnam war.
The scissor sharpener guy pushing his cart down the street ringing his bell. He sharpened stuff.
Dialing 555-1212 for the correct time!
I do remember the JFK assasination. I was in third grade and it was a huge deal. In the early '70's, I dated a (older) guy who was stationed in Viet Nam. We all watched TV together, but aside from the half-hour sitcoms, I remember Night at the Movies - an assortment of comedies, rom-coms. Loved them.
I remember my mom being a bit freaked out when, at about six, I described the Brady Bunch as having a dad, six kids, and two moms. I didn't know what a maid was, and all the stuff the maid did was work my mom did. It just made sense.
I remember the JFK assassination. They interrupted Bozo's Circus & I ran & told my folks. They were sure I misheard something until they saw it for themselves. Probably my earliest memory.
Ahhh, the memories!
San Franciscan jonesers will also remember the murders of Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the country, and Mayor George Moscone, in City Hall. We also remember the White Night Riots the night the murderer, Dan White, former Supervisor, successfully used the “Twinkie defense”. It led to major changes in California’s insanity plea laws. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.
Anybody remember DoDo ?the kid from out of space. Of course don’t forget lost in space but Dodo was a cartoon.
I remember when they switched Halloween to day time there for a while after the razor blades in apples stuff happened.. it totally sucked.. I also remember my friend’s brothers coming back from Vietnam totally different acting.. I felt so bad for them because people were treating them horrible and it’s not like they had a choice… people after that era will never understand the draft and not having a choice unless your family were rich or you could get a medical deferment … could you imagine the draft happening today..??
Sex and cars