It dawned on me a couple of days ago that us 1969'ers turn the big Five-o this year.
Et al.
And some of us are having 50 year reunions of High School graduation.
Andy
Back in the days when you could tell where someone lived, just by their telephone prefix...
Damn. I could have a kid almost that old.
Damn. I could have a kid almost that old.
My oldest is 47...almost fitty..
Mine will be 50 in December another Son 48 next March. Daughter 34. Me 69 in September. (don't even) ????
@flga-pls-2-2
Nineteen.
1969 was a good year...in retrospect.
I was driving a '51 Chevy, pumping gas and surveying, worrying about the draft and trying to get into Trisha Stevens britches.
I watched the moon landing on a 1957 Zenith B&W TV with the roar of a swamp-cooler in the background.?ÿ I had just gotten home from working the drive at "Bill's 66".?ÿ I think it was late in the evening because Pops came in and yelled at me to go to bed.
Momma always grabbed a "Look" magazine at the A&P.?ÿ The covers always tried to show us what life in America was really like.
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My life was far removed from those words and images.?ÿ?ÿ 1969 seemed like a turbulent year for the world but my life seemed unaffected.?ÿ Thing changed slowly in Oklahoma back then.?ÿ I use to curse that lack of progress and now I reminisce about it.
1970 rolled around and car bumpers, grilles and dashboards turned plastic.?ÿ See where that's gotten us....
August/September 1969 meant starting my Junior year in high school.?ÿ Had not yet met the mother of my children or the current Mrs. Cow, so will refrain from commenting about conquests.?ÿ Was driving the family boat, a 1961 Chevrolet Impala, to school on days I didn't ride the bus.?ÿ Remember listening to fellow students who had received messages from their siblings/cousins who were in Viet Nam and thinking that whole mess needed to get cleaned up before my draft number could come up.?ÿ Saw a former student from our school being interviewed on the evening national news at some jungle/swamp location in Viet Nam.?ÿ That really brought it too close to home.?ÿ My math teacher was new.?ÿ He had just finished up his time as a drill sergeant so we had to adjust to him shouting over the din something like, "At ease...????. at ease...????. I..... SAID..... AT..... EASE"?ÿ We thought it was funny.?ÿ Tough transition for him to go from absolute authority over soldiers to trying to maintain order in a room full of goofy teenagers.
Spent the summer of 1969 @ the Bear River Ranger Station, and the Fall @ the Mill Creek Ranger Station. Surveying Forest Boundaries and Roads, it was my second year surveying. What a long strange trip it's been.
Loyal?ÿ
In '69 I was home from my freshman year in college with vague worries about the draft but a deferment that turned out to carry me past that.?ÿ I didn't hear much about Woodstock, but thought about how I was young enough I missed out on the chance to work on the space program.
I spent that summer putting in hay and helping Dad with his scrap metal business.?ÿ I think we had a 100 tons of iron that largely came from pulling abandoned horse-drawn machinery out of fence rows around the county and tearing it up.?ÿ?ÿ I was good at breaking cast iron into manageable pieces (one of those old sickle mower wheels is trivial to break if you know where to hit) and using a cutting torch (no problem to cut the beam of a horse-drawn plow).?ÿ Never got to learn welding. Now I see that old machinery in rural museums, sometimes not in as good shape as what we scrapped.
That might have been the year we finished putting in bales from a field of hay too late to go to the 4th of July fireworks. The schedule was dictated by the work, not the clock.
Spring 1969 Kindergarten?ÿ
Fall 1969 First Grade
Was driving my second vehicle a 1947 Ford Pickup to school as a HS Sophmore in 1969 and was a gofer for a survey crew on weekends or dealing with cows at home and raked, loaded and put square bails of hay in barns that summer.
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"and trying to get into Trisha Stevens britches" - grammatically, that statement would go well in another thread that is running at the moment, debating underdungs.
This post had me thinking about Trisha over the last couple of days.?ÿ A good kid and a really pretty young lady.?ÿ She eventually married a knight in shining armor and moved off.?ÿ I still see her brother from time to time.?ÿ A few years after my affection for her waned I ran into a crazy guitarist named Leo Kottke and had the pleasure of getting 'baked' with him a couple of times.?ÿ Leo had a song that tugged at my heart strings and told a story eerily similar to mine.?ÿ His Trisha was named Pamela Brown.?ÿ And according to Leo that really was her name.
One of my all-time favorite songs, however...as I recall, it was written by Tom T. Hall.
BTW, I believe that the Leo Kottke version (my favorite) is still on the Jukebox @ Pete's Rock & Rye.
Loyal
Another Okie named Garth Brooks must have learned the same lesson.
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I can't see it be there really is a link directly above.
