Nostalgic? Boomers Wind Back the Clock 60 Years

We like to reminisce about the good old days, which seem to take on a more magical glow the further away we get from them. We remember less the angst we may have felt as teens or young adults, whether from romantic heartaches, parental rules, or spats with friends, and more the joy of those younger years.  

It was a very different time. There was no Internet. Cell phones, dating apps and social media didn’t exist. People met in person and communicated on the phone. You could call a business, and a live person would answer, not a chatbot. It seemed like a simpler time, but that was an illusion. It was a time rife with political upheaval, cultural innovation, scientific progress and tragic events such as civil rights violations and racial violence. Lyndon B. Johnson was the president who championed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was a heady time. 

One of us was a sophomore in college in Missouri that year, where there were curfews and same gender dorms only; the other was a junior in a suburban New York high school. 

To reminisce, a series of podcasts, “Boomer Buddies,” is hosted by what Quincy and Rick call themselves, “My Boomer Buddies Podcast: S3 E22-Quincy & Rick Are Back & They Recall The Pivotal Year Of 1966! https://share.google/vcLszbvB2eMQyxanB.” You can also watch the podcasts on YouTube: My Boomer Buddies Podcast Quincy. 

As they point out, 1966 was a cultural transitional year. In music, there was Frank Sinatra’s Stranger in the Night at one end of the listening spectrum to the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black at the other. Another transition the podcasters shared was the change from black-and-white TV to color, though many households didn’t buy their first color TV until the 1970s. Also, 1966 was the pivotal creative year for the Beach Boys with such hit singles as Barbara Ann, Good Vibrations, and Wouldn’t It Be Nice. 

The following are some of their other memories, those we’ve added from online sources and our own. We will offer a series of quick 1966 hits and highlights. Let us know what you recall and whether it was a consequential, startling, happy, sad or tragic time. 

In 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in China, which involved the Red Guards. China was one of our two key enemies, along with the Soviet Union. The big fear was Communism. 

In our own country, the Vietnam War escalated and led to major protests around the country; some of us were among those marching. Among the top songs was The Ballad of the Green Berets. 

The Soviet Union achieved the first unmanned soft landing on the Moon with Luna 13, and NASA completed its Project Gemini. 

England won the FIFA World Cup, defeating West Germany. 

Jack Nicklaus won major golf tournaments: The Masters Tournament and The Open Championship or the British Open. Manuel Santana won the men’s singles, and Billie Jean King won the women’s singles title at Wimbledon; basketball stars were Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson in the NBA, and in football it was the Green Bay Packers and college coach Bear Bryant. Go team! 

Key laws were passed: The U.S. enacted the Freedom of Information Act, which allowed anyone to request access to records from agencies in the U.S. Executive Branch to ensure government transparency and accountability; Medicare went into effect; the Supreme Court handed down the Miranda v. Arizona decision, which established the Miranda Warning and required police to read potential suspects their “Miranda rights” before interrogation. 

We may have watched the premiere of Star Trek and How the Grinch Stole Christmas; we probably listened to the release of the Beatles’ album Revolver and their single songs such as "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby," and were likely saddened to hear of Walt Disney’s passing at age 65 on Dec. 16, 1966. We all loved Disneyland, which opened in 1955, and the characters Disney helped to create, such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bambi, Cinderella and Goofy. 

In English classes, we probably read the newly released book by Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, and a year later could watch it on the screen. We also may have watched The Bible, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe from Edward Albee’s book, Alfie and (read or subsequently watched the movie) Valley of the Dolls. It was also the year that Masters and Johnson (St. Louis) wrote the groundbreaking book and scientific study, Human Sexual Response, one of the factors that led to major changes in sexuality. 

In art, we marveled or were perplexed by Minimalism and Pop art by such masters as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. 

In fashion, designer Yves Saint Laurent created colorful dresses inspired by artworks from Tom Wesselmann, and we probably oohed, aahed and bought miniskirts if our parents permitted, along with A-line shift dresses and thigh-high go-go boots as we sang along with Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ song and learned the lyrics. (You keep sayin' you've got somethin' for me, Somethin' you call love but confess, You've been a'messin' where you shouldn't 've been a'messin' and now someone else is getting all your best) Many of us were still not allowed to wear jeans to school since many banned them. 

To be au courant, women wore their hair in beehives and bouffant-style with great effort to tease it high, held in place with shellac-like spray net. Many guys wore their hair Beatles-style or longer. Also, women started wearing white lipstick, a defining trend of the 1960s mod fashion movement, popularized by supermodel Twiggy and bands such as The Ronettes; it was worn to achieve a pale, futuristic look. 

In food, the industry shifted toward convenience, with Frito-Lay releasing Doritos and Kraft introducing its aerosol Easy Cheese. Some home cooks fell in love with the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, a runner-up in the Pillsbury Bake-Off that made bundt pan sales soar. While high-end restaurants in places like New York City charged around $25 for an elegant multi-course meal, budget-friendly spots like Bonanza Steak House offered steak dinners for $1.39. If you lived in NYC or visited, you might have been lucky to dine with your folks at Le Pavillon, founded by Henri Soule, and the benchmark for the best French cuisine, while in St. Louis the go-to place for authentic homemade Italian cuisine was The Hill, where toasted ravioli was invented 20 years earlier.  

Speaking of food, Julia Child was becoming a household name after her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published in 1961; in 1966 she won Peabody and Emmy awards for her TV series, and her high-pitched voice became recognizable. One of the most celebrated cookbooks published that year was The New York Times Menu Cookbook by Craig Claiborne, once the food critic for the NYTimes newspaper and a buddy of Julia’s and other food gurus. One of us loved to make béarnaise sauce for steaks from his cookbook, and yes, back then, many of us ate plenty of red meat. 

Life magazine was the weekly publication to read for photojournalism stories, with features on LSD and Ho Chi Minh.  

Travel with family, if lucky, might have involved trips to Florida by car and air. At the time, we flew on propeller and early jet airliners, including the Boeing 707, Douglas DC-8 and Boeing 727. Many of our first flights were on Trans World Airlines, Eastern Air Lines and Pan American World Airways, all of which are now passe. Train trips were also in vogue; the New York subway cost only 15 to 20 cents; a single scoop of ice cream in a cone was $0.20 to $0.35; gasoline was $0.32 a gallon and most babysitters earned $0.25 to $0.35 an hour if young or $0.75 or $1.00 if older. 

In our own lives, Barbara was a high school junior, busy looking at mostly women’s colleges over her spring vacation; taking the SATs; playing lots of tennis in all-white outfits and wearing Tretorn sneakers and trying to avoid field hockey in gym; driving since she earned her license the year before at age 16, once she learned to parallel park; worrying about being invited to her school’s annual Tea Dance, which juniors gave for seniors (yes, she was invited and also went to the Senior Prom that year with the same date and received a corsage and wore blue eyeshadow that matched her first long dress) and was very sad her parents wouldn’t let her have her own Princess-style phone or any (land-line) phone. 

Margaret dined often at Steak ‘n Shake with great burgers, fries and chili. She protested in rallies against the Vietnam War, dated up a storm and went to frat parties where kegs of beer were consumed with abandon, set her long wavy dark hair on tin cans to straighten it, wore white jeans, sang solo in a couple of recitals as well as some friends’ weddings, got her ears pierced by a nursing student (against her mother’s wishes) because she thought it would make her look older (what irony), slathered on baby oil and baked in the sun (what did we know then?), read newspapers and several magazines to prepare for her print journalism courses which began the next year, and, in an ice cream shop in St. Louis on a hot summer night, she met the man who would become her husband of 42 years. 

 Sixty years ago, there were challenges, but the world seemed like a time bursting with promise. A bulb was burning bright in each of us. Boomers, for the most part, would go on to better lives than their parents. That isn't the case for today’s young people. The world seems to have a shade ready to darken the days. Fortunately, there’s just enough light peeking in on the sides to keep us hopeful about what lies ahead.