1967: The Last Good Year...Agree?

[Borderdon]

1967. Caught a “Tramp” freighter to Australia.
37 days from Vancouver to Sydney. No jet lag.
Can’t be done today, what a year ( some weren’t so lucky, I know. The carnage in SE Asia being then in full swing for example.)
Don

[nitram]

Originally Posted by Inyo

The poster just falsified his own hypothesis.

Heavy, dude!

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by 6L6

I turned 22 in Nov 1967. Music was incredible, space exploration was a reality, and VW made the best Beetle ever made with the new 12 volt system.

I think the Cold War was much easier to deal with than today's state of terrorism.

Basically, I think the best time to be a kid was the 1950's in the USA. I was there and it was GREAT.

No question in my mind, kids today don't have it nearly as good as I did.

You probably need to look at some of the stats I hinted at in my earlier post.

-A guy about 3 blocks away who often drives his 1953 Pontiac when I'm walking or riding bike to a work site is a frequent reminder of the more poisonous cars.
-Conventional or old school waring at sea and in the air hasn't been happening as it was for so long.
-Terrorism isn't killing people at the rate other things are. It's a problem for sure.
.-My kids didn't have KKK members vandalize their home and make growing up difficult as happened to me as a baby boomer.
-My mother and my daughter could not have had the jobs where they did and do a tremendous job in the 1950s.
-My wife and I have outlived others in our gene pool thanks to the current state of knowledge and skills in cardiac and cancer care.
-A whole lot more of us have clean water and sanitation these days.
-A lot of new democracies have been good for people since the 1950s or 1967.
-Our capacity to grow, make and distribute food is much better and same in other parts of the world.

When I look back I always see some moments and that were grand but when I end each day I also see and know a lot is better than many think.

My friends and family are an interesting mix still having family and ties on other parts of the world. That's insightful. A once time assembler of Chevrolets from down the road might not think we're better off but the whole world is.

[buddyhu]

I think "good years" are very individualized and localized. I don't think there is much (any?) objectivity involved when someone asserts a particular time was best, or that a particular year was "the last good year".

However, I enjoyed reading the things you have listed as being reasons to consider '67 as a good year. There wer a lot of things to enjoy and appreciate about that time.

The things I appreciate and enjoy today are very different from '67. And the things that concern me today are very different, as well. But I am not obliged to let my concerns and little worries determine what my life will be like today. My life is much more than my worries, my concerns, my fears about what the future might hold (whether the future is later today, or next year, or 5 years from now). The future I imagine will never come. But this moment is here...why let it pass by under-appreciated?

This quote sums up some of my perspective:

"We have thousands of opportunities every day to be grateful: for having good weather, to have slept well last night, to be able to get up, to be healthy, to have enough to eat...There's opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful; that's what life is." BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST

[seannx]

I was 17, and while many of the OP’s points seem valid, there were storm clouds brewing with racial tension and the Vietnam war. Considering what came next, IMO there was a false, almost naive public perception, and characterizing 1967 as the last good year is a real stretch.

[Jim Owen]

I’m not knocking the music or the literature, and I’ve got happy memories of 67 (I was 12).

But I knew people who had bomb shelters. We had drills and learnt to duck and cover.

There was a sign as you entered Johnson County, NC, that read “You’re in Klan Country.” It was scary.

If you were female, you were less likely to go to university. If you did, and went on to grad school, it was a very male world. And you were rewarded with a salary that was maybe 60% of the guy at the next desk with the same degree.

Yes, the next year was worse. But there’ve been bad and good years since. Retrospection allows us to cherry pick data. Admittedly, I’ve just done so.

[srick]

Analogously, there is a book by David Halberstam entitled, “The Fifties”. For some, that decade was centered on big fin cars, backyard barbecues and the three martini lunch, but there was a lot more going on under the hood.

1967 was rife with racial strife and riots. Many of the inner cities were on fire. If you were in VietNam, ‘67 might not have been much fun.

So much has to do with what your life situation was at that point. I was fourteen and having an incredible life with plenty of opportunities thanks to my incredible parents. But if I had lived four miles away in the North End Of Hartford (a poverty stricken area), my neighborhood would have been up in flames because of extensive rioting.

So much of perception depends on your lens.

[Nymuso]

1960. I have my reasons.

[DCCougar]

Man, just look at the albums that came out in 1967. It was a happening time!

[barley]

6L6 mentions the best time to be a kid and for me, that is the acid test for what time period in America was the best. Most neighborhoods were still safe for kids to play freely without supervision. Families were appreciative of a small house and one car. Today, everybody expects a 3000 square foot house, two $30,000+ cars and expensive toys like boats or 4- wheelers. Given a choice, most kids will bury there faces in a phone or tablet rather than going outside and running free.
Parents are so stressed out from their jobs and commute they have no energy to do more than drive them to some inane activity like soccer practice where the empty worship of sports is perpetuated.

With that in mind, other than the increasingly real threat of nuclear holocaust, 1967 is close to ideal.

The Cold War is over but every day brings us closer to some kind of nuclear event. It is inevitable but we can hope for the most limited event.

Wow, I sound old!

[Davis Webb]

Originally Posted by DCCougar

Man, just look at the albums that came out in 1967. It was a happening time!

Woot, nice list!

[fazool]

Nope not at all.

I was born in the early 60's and grew up in the 70's.

Looking back I found the 60's to be an unpleasant troubling time of anxiety. The cold war threat loomed heavily over us, the Vietnam war was contentious, watergate threatened to rip Washington apart, the gas crisis sent everyone into a panic.


No, I view that era as unpleasant.

Now, when you get into the 80's and the yuppie and "me" generation when prosperity exploded, computers became mainstream, the Berlin wall fell, we won the cold war and were at peace as a nation. That was the best era, and the best for music too.

(see it simply depends on when you came to age and which decade you loved - each was wonderful for one of us for our own reasons)

[fazool]

Originally Posted by barley

... Most neighborhoods were still safe for kids to play freely without supervision....

Completely false narrative - but people love to cling to it and perpetuate it.

The fact is all violent crimes are at the lowest per-capita in American history. This is the safest time in American history -

Every single national statistic shows this is the safest, least violent time in America. Right now.

Yet we believe we are unsafe to let our kids outside to play (even though there are cameras everywhere, kids have smart phones with GPS, etc.)

One of the most violent times in American history? 1980-ish. The most rapid increase was from 1965-1970.

So, don't buy in to the myth.

[M Hayden]

I was quite young then, but it was the year that an adult first placed a guitar into my hands (after a promising horn career was cut short by double pneumonia). So I am good with it.

Going further, I’m thinking that to some extent that we have some degree of agency in our own happiness. Obviously circumstance plays a part, and I can’t discount that, but how we adapt to it has some effect, too.

.....wow, this could become a very complex discussion very quickly, with lots of correct answers . Ima go play some guitar now.

[Muddslide]

Originally Posted by RedJoker

Me too. Including not having bills, no real responsibilities, hanging out with all my friends at school, etc. Heck, who wouldn't want to go back to that?!?!?

lol...Well, you make good points. I'll preface by saying that I am happy to have been born when I was (1968) and I try to live in the present while fondly remembering the past, feeling hopeful towards the future, and nurturing a lifelong interest in history.

But I don't really "wish" I had been born in a different time period. More speculation about what I and my life and the world would have been in past eras, or could be like if I were to have been born in the future.

I am, as already admitted, a pretty sentimental, nostalgic guy. I even feel a kind of nostalgia for times I never personally experienced.

But to be honest, I don't think I'm nostalgic for actually being young again...to relive my childhood or anything...but rather for how the world was (or was to me) 30-40 years ago.

I'm not saying at all that 30-40 years ago the world was "better." It was...different. I celebrate things we have now that didn't exist/weren't possible back then, but I think we have lost some things, culturally, in the process of progress as well. I feel this is inevitable and certainly not always a negative thing. To create something does always involve the destruction or dissolution of something else, after all.

Originally Posted by 6L6

I turned 22 in Nov 1967...No question in my mind, kids today don't have it nearly as good as I did.

In many ways you are absolutely right. While any decade has its ups and downs relative to any other time frame, this is what comes to mind and gives me pause when I think of "then and now"--

I moved out on my own two weeks after I turned 16. It was almost 34 years ago to the day, come to think of it. 1984.

Minimum wage was $3.35. I made $4.25. I could fully support myself on that. Gas was 77 cents per gallon. My very nice, large one bedroom apartment in a great old brownstone building cost $165 a month.

I now have two daughters who are turning 19 and 20 this year. Average apartment prices are about eight times more than what I paid. Even if you find a one bed apartment for, say, $850 a month it is likely to be fairly cruddy and in a questionable area. Everything-- groceries, fuel, utilities--everything is orders of magnitude more expensive than in 1984.

Moreover, although we have collectively and willingly given up our privacy, we are also literally under surveillance in ways we never were before.

Beyond actual physical cameras everywhere, it's nigh-impossible to get a job or place to live without going through criminal background checks, drug tests, credit checks...

I do worry for how my children will get by...to get started on their own in the world today. Even if they opt for college, that comes these days with far less job security and far more debt than it used to.

Originally Posted by HHP

I think today is far better than '67 in any category you want to look at.

Better in ways, worse in some others, IMO.