Being a child of the 60’s it is strange to me that the civil rights movement was happening right then. I was so idealistic because I didn’t know anything but equality and justice and anything else was just evil from day one.
My husband who is just 11 years older had a completely different perspective of the civil rights movement. he came to the same conclusions but he actually had to ask the questions.
The seventies was a strange time to be a teenager. That narrow time between birth control (which was easy to get even as a teenager) and AIDS.

I was born in ‘58 so I was pretty darned young through the 60s, but I remember being excited about the prospect of some real fundamental shift emerging from all of the counter-cultural experimentation going on. There was a huge amount of idealism, and it seemed like something good was about to happen. Even though I never actually boarded the counter-culture train, I was secretly cheering it on.

At some point in the ‘70s, I remember feeling quite let down as the counter-culture collapsed, stranding stoned and aging hippies in its wake. The “establishment” had survived, and would blossom into Reaganism shortly down the road.

They didn’t discover AIDS until the 80s @Judi. We worried about gonorrhea and stuff like that.
The sixties and 70’s were just…calmer…? People interacted more.

@Dutchess_III That was my initial reaction to this question is you still had rotary phones that you dialed to talk to someone live on the phone. We all sat around the TV watching shows as a family and played board games. In the sixties very few people had air conditioning so everyone was outside until the homes cooled off enough to go to bed. I still say the 60’s and 70’s had some of the best music ever written that is heads and shoulders above anything recorded in the last 30 years. So many cool new things came out of the 60’s and 70’s that changed the way we live.

I was born in 1973, but from what I remember it seemed like individuality was encouraged, rather than all this political correctness that is now DEMANDED. People also seemed more jaded, and tended to do whatever the heck they wanted, less rule followers.

The music and hair rocked, too.

So agree about the TV @Cruiser. We had ONE television and we watched whatever Dad wanted to watch or we went outside. He allowed me to watch The Monkees on Friday (I think) nights, when that show was out. On Sundays we had the Wide World of Sports and Wild America. And Lassie. Cartoons EVERY Saturday. And Laugh In! Oh, bring back Laugh In!

The 60’s and 70’s were a time of rebellion by the youth against authoritay.

And the youth won {there were casualties}. The youth helped bring about the end of the Vietnamese Police Action and opened our eyes to a philosophy of living life by simply loving everything.

AiDs were not discovered {announced} until approx 1982 n- 84.

The 60’s and 70’s were also a time when those in authoritay learned that they could assassinate great individuals with little or no repercussions whatsoever.

And so they began killing willy-nilly. Two Kennedys and a King for starters.

The music was the best and has not been duplicated to speak of.

Yeah…..I could say, but I won’t…...

@Hypocrisy_Central Are you playing hard to get or ?

@Dutchess_III Remember Family Classics? And the Wonderful World of Disney?

We went from hippy music to disco. Pete Townshend got it right when he wrote The Incense burned away, and the stench began to rise

I was born January 1968. Martin Luther King was killed that year and Bobby Kennedy. The civil rights movement for me didn’t really exist growing up. I was living in the northeast and I knew nothing of segregation except in history books and since I hated history it didn’t really sink in with me how recent it was, and that things were still going on. I didn’t see or feel any racism at all growing up. My high school had a reputation for having had some fights that were race related, but I never saw anything like that. I grew up in an extremely diverse area, I knew people from every corner of the world. All this made me feel like civil rights didn’t affect me.

Along with that women’s rights also seemed like a thing from the past. As far as I knew girls could do whatever they wanted.

The 70’s I was a young girl and I remember seeing the teenagers in the cool hairstyles and clothes. We wore some of it too. I still love the 70’s. That would be the decade I most feel like an observer, because I was young, but I remember it. The 80’s were my teenage years and they are what I identify I guess. My mind is still in the 80’s in some ways. The 90’s are almost a blur. Present day I feel like an observer again. I guess I am old enough to not care much about what is trending, and I see where I might as well not get upset, because I am not going to bother to get involved and make a change.

Being a kid in the 60’s was great. No worries about random shootings, kidnappings, we ran amok night and day with no fear. I came of age in the 70’s and they were nothing but fun, fun, fun. Yep, plenty of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, no AIDS, no worries, if it felt good, do it! haha

Carefree times.

I was heavily influenced by the 60’s counter culture/music and friends older siblings, many of whom had been in Vietnam.
There was a lot of idealism and free spiritedness, the sense of being pilgrims in a vast wilderness, truly wanting the “Imagine” of John Lennons brilliance to become universal truth.
Good times, if not sadly naive. 40 years later I am still a dreamer, I still like a wee bit o’ the herbal essence and I still believe that living simply alongside nature is the way to go. :-)

@Coloma I remember those creepy Stranger Danger coloring books we had to go through in school that made me fear anyone driving down the street….add in the duck and cover drills we had to do monthly because of the constant threat of nuclear annihilation let me know this bucolic world back then we may choose to remember was more tumultuous than we give credit to.

@Cruiser Haha…oh yeah, the duck and cover and the air raid sirens! Unforgettable!

@Dutchess_III , I know. I was there. I was married by the time they figured out what AIDS was. The other known STD’s were treatable with antibiotics. They didn’t talk about herpes much.

I still listen to the music from that era almost exclusively. So many great songwriters flourished then and shortly after.

That’s what I remember and long for the most. The music of that time. Just incredible.

@Cruiser The Wonderful World of Disney! Of course! I can hear the music to this day and see TinkerBell flying around on the screen!