When Did 60s Nostalgia Begin?

American Graffiti (1973). "Where were you in '62?"

 

I don't remember any significant Beatles nostalgia in the late 1970s. The Sgt. Pepper film with Peter Frampton et al. was widely seen as terrible. It seemed to me that almost everyone was into the latest disco hits, and did not care about music like the Beatles.

Also, there was much less popularity and mass visible profile to the punk scene than revisionist history would have you believe.

 

Gad, the missile crisis. I sat in class one afternoon, not long after JFK gave a speech at an armory a few blocks away, and thought with crystal clear sobriety: this time next week we could all be gone and this place a radioactive wasteland. Changed my life.

 

A very memorable picture. But that was really the end of the 1950s. I think the mythical 60s ran from 63-72.

 

1968...by then it was over.

 

I agree with Steve, and what I remember is that except on certain college campuses, if you were that age then, the 1960s was a much more cleancut, straightlaced time for young people than the phony nostalgia industry would have you believe.

 

Two words: Altamont and Manson. After those two, it was all nostalgia.

 

This is true. Even in, now hipster-over-run, Echo Park I was only one of literally half-dozen boys in all of the elementary school that had long hair in the late 60's.

 

I have some fond memories of my youth which happened to occur during the 60's so for that reason I get a bit wistful. But I would never want to live those years again. I remember riding on a school bus through violent demonstrations regarding school desegregation in Kentucky, literally whites vs blacks. I remember assassinations, I remember the nightly news Viet Nam body counts ("16 americans, 84 VietNamese, it was a good day today for America") I remember duck-and-cover and actually practicing how to survive a nuclear bomb explosion.

Think about that.

AM radio was about the only thing we had to temporarily block out the insanity of the world around us. But quite honestly, it was a very unsettled and scary time.

 

1970.

 

Yes. The hack take on 1960s college is something approaching a hippie commune with trucks filled with love beads about to be dispensed amidst deafening roars of 'FAR OUT' and 'GROOVY, MAN' as everyone takes licks of sidewalks of sugar laced with LSD.

Okay, I exaggerate. But not much.

Okay, a little more than much--but I think I caught the essence of the phoniness.

Mostly.

 

Those were the days, And every kid said the pledge of allegiance every morning at school.

 

This thread has certainly made an interesting turn for some of you Boomers out there - it's quite enlightening (and I mean that in a good way).

 

Kept you on your toes by cracky--step lively!!

 

Ha ha, yeh, while the old ladies looked at my mother and said "what a lovely daughter you have" only because I had long hair.

 

Yes, I agree with you. I like your post as well.

 

Move out of CA maybe? Pledge is still alive and well over in Bucks County PA.

No duck and cover though, thank goodness. I had the tail end of that in the mid(?) 1970's, I believe -- my kids worry about other things now but being vaporized in a nuclear explosion doesn't seem to be high on their list atm.

 

I don't know if it's done anymore at all in So Cal. but if it is here is how it will go,
Yo prometo lealtad a la bandera de los estados Unidos de America, y a la Republica que representa, una Nacion bajo Dios, entera, con libertad y justicia para todos

 

Haha! I stepped into a bar to get a six-pack for the sons of a friend of my mother. To this day--well, to be blunt, I think they set me up, haha. I had long hair and these boys--and their town for that matter--was, uh, not exactly counter culture friendly. Next thing I know some dude and his girl make some remark about me looking like a girl...then the guy furthers it by asking if I have a sister. I turned to him and said, while staring him in the eyes in my best Clint Eastwood fashion, "Yes, I do. But you wouldn't like her--she looks just like me." He actually looked scared, bwahahahaha!!!

 

yep, every morning at school started with the pledge of allegience. How times have changed.

 

Well, there probably a few neighborhoods like that.