In 1967, I was learning to take folks out by sticking big ol' firecrackers into apples, lighting the fuse, and chucking them into the other guy's bunkers. You learn real fast not to hold on to them for too long, just like grenades. Good training.
I lived just south of Cleveland, OH, in 1967. Then, and for every year afterwards until I left Ohio in 1975, we were waiting for "The Revolution" to burst forth and kill us all. 1967 was semi-quiet in that area, but was bracketed by the Hough Riots in July of 1966, and the Glenville Shootout in July of 1968, and the riots following the shootout. 1967 was relatively quiet between those storms, as the radical elements were trying their hand at political regime change in Cleveland, a regime change they figure would work out to their advantage.They spent 1967 in political action rather than direct action, and were too busy electing Carl Stokes - I believe he was the first Black mayor of any major city anywhere in the US - to the mayor's office to kill many folks or tear much stuff up. Mayor Stokes was elected in November 1967, but turned out not to be quite radical enough for the radicals when he got into office, and so we got the Glenville thing just after they figured that out in 1968.
I remember almost all of the songs on the song list. Not all of them, but almost all of them. Matter of fact, I was listening to several of them just a few nights ago. My second wife, who would have been turning 16 in 1967, was a big fan of most of them, too. There are only three post-60's songs I ever caught her listening to - one was "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC, the second was "Love is all Around" by Wet Wet Wet (but I do believe that song also had a 60's version originally, by the Trogs as I recall), And "Strokin'" by Clarence Carter - honestly, I don't recall when he came out with that anyhow.
1967 was, I think, the year I saw my first color TV, an Admiral as I recall. It was magic. I'd been watching TV on a bitty little black and white TV with about a 14" screen and a bakelite housing case, and that big ol' 32" Admiral wooden console TV in color just blew my ass away!
"Alice's Restaurant" and the moon landing were still a couple of years in the future. 1967 was the calm between the storms. The only thing I had to worry about was my uncle, who, in 1967, was taking his turn at getting his ass shot at by the Little Brown People in Vietnam.
He made it back, and I'll never forget how good it felt to see him tear into the driveway in his Mustang Fastback in 1968 when his tour was over. I didn't have to look for his name in the news scrolls every evening any more - you remember, the scroll they ran of all the guys that bit the Big One in the past day in Vietnam.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Except the dead soldier news scrolls. They didn't do that for our last war. I guess they figured it was too depressing and demoralizing to repeat again.
I was also up in that area a few years later for the Kent State riots. One of my sisters was taking Speech Therapy at Kent State when that happened... but luckily we avoided the campus for that whole week while all that stupid was going on. The students had pretty much taken over the town of Kent, bad juju was going on, and we had a feeling that something wicked was heading that way, so we avoided it. Kids be Krazy, same then as it is now.
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I lived just south of Cleveland, OH, in 1967. Then, and for every year afterwards until I left Ohio in 1975, we were waiting for "The Revolution" to burst forth and kill us all. 1967 was semi-quiet in that area, but was bracketed by the Hough Riots in July of 1966, and the Glenville Shootout in July of 1968, and the riots following the shootout. 1967 was relatively quiet between those storms, as the radical elements were trying their hand at political regime change in Cleveland, a regime change they figure would work out to their advantage.They spent 1967 in political action rather than direct action, and were too busy electing Carl Stokes - I believe he was the first Black mayor of any major city anywhere in the US - to the mayor's office to kill many folks or tear much stuff up. Mayor Stokes was elected in November 1967, but turned out not to be quite radical enough for the radicals when he got into office, and so we got the Glenville thing just after they figured that out in 1968.
I remember almost all of the songs on the song list. Not all of them, but almost all of them. Matter of fact, I was listening to several of them just a few nights ago. My second wife, who would have been turning 16 in 1967, was a big fan of most of them, too. There are only three post-60's songs I ever caught her listening to - one was "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC, the second was "Love is all Around" by Wet Wet Wet (but I do believe that song also had a 60's version originally, by the Trogs as I recall), And "Strokin'" by Clarence Carter - honestly, I don't recall when he came out with that anyhow.
1967 was, I think, the year I saw my first color TV, an Admiral as I recall. It was magic. I'd been watching TV on a bitty little black and white TV with about a 14" screen and a bakelite housing case, and that big ol' 32" Admiral wooden console TV in color just blew my ass away!
"Alice's Restaurant" and the moon landing were still a couple of years in the future. 1967 was the calm between the storms. The only thing I had to worry about was my uncle, who, in 1967, was taking his turn at getting his ass shot at by the Little Brown People in Vietnam.
He made it back, and I'll never forget how good it felt to see him tear into the driveway in his Mustang Fastback in 1968 when his tour was over. I didn't have to look for his name in the news scrolls every evening any more - you remember, the scroll they ran of all the guys that bit the Big One in the past day in Vietnam.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Except the dead soldier news scrolls. They didn't do that for our last war. I guess they figured it was too depressing and demoralizing to repeat again.
I was also up in that area a few years later for the Kent State riots. One of my sisters was taking Speech Therapy at Kent State when that happened... but luckily we avoided the campus for that whole week while all that stupid was going on. The students had pretty much taken over the town of Kent, bad juju was going on, and we had a feeling that something wicked was heading that way, so we avoided it. Kids be Krazy, same then as it is now.
.