Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 14

My Generation, Baby!



Yes, I was a child of the 60’s and even though I lived in an ultra-conservative society, much of that time did filter to us as kids in high school. We saw Woodstock in the theater and talked about it a lot. I watched the Vietnam war statistics on the 10 o'clock news and saw the pictures from the 1968 Democratic Convention in Life Magazine. However, music had the greatest reach and invaded my little corner of the world every day. I started listening to the radio in maybe 3rd or 4th grade with a crystal rocket radio. By the time I was in 7th grade, I had the 7 transistor radio I listened to in Charlie Bangerter’s field. In 8th grade, I got my first FM radio. It was mono but it had a much bigger speaker and the sound was head and shoulders above AM. It also had a cool retracting antenna to play with under the guise of getting a better signal. The music played on FM was different. It was albums and non-mainstream acts like Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Ten Years After and others. It was Rebel Radio, unprogrammed and free form. I was drawn to that rebellious nature like a moth to the flame. It was DIFFERENT and so was I. One of the first songs I remember hearing on FM was Snake Skin Boots by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. They actually talked about stinky feet. Heady stuff for a small town boy.

FM opened my tastes to a lot of different music and we all obsessed over what was best. We would go down to the record store and buy an album, come home and listen to it with our heads between the speakers. We read the liner notes and tried to memorize the lyrics if they were written down. It had to be Hard Rock or Acid Rock or Blues or Dylan, Byrds, Beatles, Motown and everything in between. Bubble Gum like Tommy James and the Chandelles was OK. I did like Mony, Mony. It was a great rocker and still is now. The key was, the music had to have an edge to it. If it was safely in the middle, we didn’t really like it. I didn’t anyway. I liked some social commentary, but not the overt folky protest stuff like Joni Mitchell or Country Joe McDonald. Social commentary was better if it was sharp and somewhat hidden so you had to listen several times to get the meaning. Those protesters were too much of a blunt instrument for me. A good example of protest music that stayed with me is Fortunate Son by Credence Clearwater Revival. Here is a video of that song, you will recognize it.


The axis of the world tilted during the 60’s. One President murdered, his brother killed during a campaign and a great reformer shot down by a bigot. Another bigot was shot, but that didn’t bother me as much. He got what he deserved, in my opinion, though I don’t condone the violence. I thought Viet Nam was a bad idea then and my opinion hasn’t changed. There were a set of twins in our town, their father had been the principal of our elementary school. Sort of full of themselves from my point of view, but good kids. One joined the Marines to try and set his own course and the other decided to take his chances with the draft. The draft was a lottery. Every possible birthday was put into a barrel and tossed around. Think of a bingo drum with 366 dates in it. The first date drawn was number one. Everyone born on that day was probably going to be drafted. As the numbers got higher, the chances of being drafted went down. On draft day, their number came up, 366. One son was safe. The other in the Marines? Not so lucky. He was a casualty of war in Viet Nam. It made the news as a sad irony of war. I just thought it was just sad. My number the next year? 359.