The biggest misconception involved drug use - widespread drug abuse did began to be a major problem in the 1960's, but the real devastating drug problem took off in the 70's, and actually peaked in around 1979.
Depends where you were: I grew up just North of San Francisco. I graduated from high school in June 1966. My senior year, I knew of only a few kids who smoked pot or dropped acid, although the Mexicans were all rumored to use pot. A year later, according to friends a year behind me, by mid-1967 between 60-75% of the then senior class had smoked pot (at least). Meeting up with my high school friends after a year of college, I found virtually all of them had at least tried pot. But, that was California.
I think that was the year they found H.R. Puffinstuff dead from an overdose of H.
So sad from a beloved saturday morning TV show to a drug adict doing gay porn to get his next fix.
(PSSSS, I know H.R. Puffinstuff wasn't real, but let see how many people know!)
You're right!
Other observation: When I was in High School we kept hearing about former classmates dying or being injured in Viet Nam. I kept thinking "I'm graduating into this crap?"