Posted on 08/24/2013 4:14:35 AM PDT by Kaslin
One of the highlights of my summer experience was the 50th reunion of my graduating class from St. Brigid elementary school on Long Island. Back in 1963, 60 children sat in a small classroom hoping for big things in the future. We had spent eight years together, but now high school beckoned, and all of our lives would change dramatically.
Back then, America was a far different place than it is today. John F. Kennedy was president but had fewer than six months to live. The Beatles were just emerging. Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" was scaring everybody in the movie theaters. "The Andy Griffith Show" dominated on TV. There was no war, but civil unrest in the South was intense. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was making great strides in securing human rights for black Americans.
Twenty-two of my classmates made the reunion, and it was good to see all of them. Their lives have unfolded in mostly conventional ways. Most remain in the middle class and still believe in the fundamental goodness of their country and religion, although some are no longer practicing Catholics.
The reunion deal is the same all over. Folks who don't succeed in life often don't show up. The happy people usually come armed with pictures of their children and grandchildren. My reunion was very family focused.
Many of my classmates have led interesting lives, but unfortunately, I was the center of much attention. My visibility on television engendered much discussion, and I was happy to answer their questions. Since I was always a loudmouth, my classmates delighted in reminding me that I haven't changed a bit and pointed out that only in America could I be well paid for doing something that got me a slap from Sister Thomas way back when.
The thing that is so different today is that children have little time to be innocent. We only had each other at St. Brigid. There were no cellphones, computers or video games. There was no Facebook. In fact, outside intrusions were rare. We played games like dodgeball and keep away. We attended square dances and Christmas concerts. It was all so basic, so simple. And there was a magic to it.
Today, children are thrust into an adult world at warp speed. I remember a kid named Billy McDermott explaining to me and the other 8th-graders that his older brother knew some girls who were "easy." Easy? We were all confused. And so was Billy as he struggled to define the term.
Today, many 8th-graders are thinking about tattoos and drugs. We all know how graphic the Internet is, and believe me, kids know how to access this stuff. So I ask you: Wasn't it better to be a kid in 1963? By the way, the answer is yes.
I feel sorry for the urchins these days. Responsible parents can mitigate some of the cultural damage but not all. We are living in fast times, in an era of selfishness and narcissism in which lowbrow entertainment envelops children like the chilly fog of San Francisco.
Good memories are forever. I had them back in 1963.
63 is the year that I graduated from high school, before going off to the Univ. of TN. I was just exiting Geology class when I heard that JFK had been shot.
America today is a totally different country, and in the worse way. I do not know how it will recover.
I see nothing but a continuing decline. The Marxist media and public education is seeing to it that America will not return to the greater days.
America died a little when the Korean War ended because we were made aware that young men could die and we accepted a stalemate.
America died a little more when the Yankee government sent troops to enforce its law, despite any benefits derived.
America died a lot more, the day the music died, when we lost most of our innocence.
The final blow came when JFK was killed. At the time, a lot of people felt that he would make us great again.
Acirema was born then. A sickly baby at first, it was nurtured by the blood of over 55,000 of our finest who died in Vietnam. It fed off the dissension caused by that war. It also fed, and continues to be fed, by the blood of millions of aborted babies.
Acirema grew in strength through Watergate, Ford’s ineptness and Carter’s incompetence. Ronald Reagan almost incarcerated the unruly Acirema, but his successors did all they could to allow Acirema to achieve full adulthood.
Today, Acirema is like the uncle who spent time in jail, farts at the dinner table, has no job and bums cigarettes in a bar.
Collapse the system. Destroy the republican party which has held us in slavery. Let us leave their plantation. Then we can truly rebuild a free nation(s).
I, too, graduated from High School in 1963 and headed off to the Air Force 50 years ago this week. I was at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls Texas when Kennedy was shot. It was an entirely different country then. I always have measured the decline of the U.S. starting in that year.
what the hell do you mean
why do you keep repeating this stupid recipe
There was no war, but civil unrest in the South was intense.
Obviously you did not get much education at that school in 1963. The millions of Americans that died in Vietnam and served there thank you for forgetting about them
I am sure you understand a large percent of "gibsmedat" American likes it just the way America is right now...and will not let go of our short hairs anytime soon...short of outright rebellion...
Destroying the Republican party, though they certainly deserve it, would only consolidate the progressive/liberal/Marxist control over American...
Their power is embedded in all stratospheres of our culture, all levels of government, academia, entertainment, media, many churches.. They will not give up power by the ballot box...
This cultural war has been ongoing for over a century now and we are losing and losing badly...
I do know history is replete with bloody conflicts where a minority like us conservatives would up on the very short end of the stick...
I personally am not sure of the answer...unless God intervenes in a mighty way...
I have seen this post on a few threads. WTF do you mean? I think some explanation might be in order.
Here, kitty, kitty....
There was a little war in Vietnam at that time. It would certainly grow larger, but in 1963 it was only a few thousand men and a small pot of money. It took LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin to get many 8th graders attention.
As for the civil unrest in the South, It was certainly getting a lot of press, but as a child in Richmond, VA I can say it was in some faraway place like Mississippi or Alabama. I couldn't call it 'intense', but from the news reports it may have seemed that way to an 8th grader from New York.
I beg to differ with you. In February 1962, USS Princeton landed a squadron of Army helicopters in South Vietnam. In April 1962, Princeton returned with a squadron of Marine helicopters (all the Army helicopters had been shot down) and a BLT(Reinforced)as part of Operation Shufly.
I was aboard the Princeton in the Marine Detachment (Air Division).
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