The Verderber family 1969
My Father, Dr. Chuch Verderber, has had many unusually experiences in life, but few were as influential as growing up in the 1960’s. That was an era that I feel my generation knows little about despite the fact that many things occurred in the 60’s that shaped America into what it is today. In my interview, I asked my dad what it was like to grow up in an era when parents had less fear, kids were less scheduled, and everybody was not looking at screens.
His many funny stories are insightful in the way the point us in new directions. Maybe you can't turn back time, but we can make choices about what we choose as perspective and time-fillers.
Playing basketball on Rebel Memorial Court. My dad is the little guy, still on the ground as his brothers and their friends battle for the ball in the backyard.
In the 60's, kids didn't have to have a special shoe for every sport. In fact, my dad's family was just making ends meet so cleets for the track team would have been a luxury. Here's my dad running bare foot on the cinder tracks.
After the conversation I recorded with my father, I felt like I needed to relate the time period to historical events and other things we know about so I looked at a few timelines that included some major themes.
The 60's saw the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy. Men walked on the moon for the first time. Segregation and racial discrimination was alive and well, but Civil Rights marches and tensions were constantly in the news. The Vietnam war eventually dominated everyone's thinking too, while the Beetles, Rolling Stones ad Beach Boys endlessly played as a backdrop from record players.
Image Source: https://technostories.wordpress.com/tag/ript/
My parents tell me they had only 4 channels on their TVs, and never, never wore seat belts in the car or bike helmets. Parents turned the kids loose in the morning and the only rule was to be back for dinner by the time the street lights were coming on in the evening. Parents didn't worry about children being abducted, having peanut allergies or getting Lyme's disease. There were no such thing as sun screen, water bottles or cell phones.
Source: Pinterest Popular TV shows from 1960's
Shopping malls were not common in the 1960's and in some schools, girls were not allowed to wear pants. They had to wear dresses or skirts below the knee. Cateye and Clark Kent glasses were the fashion.
There were no ATM's so you had to guess how much money you might need over the weekend. Dentists, Doctors and food service people did not wear gloves and coffee was only available if you made it yourself at home. (What!.. No Starbucks!) Oh, there were no "Quick Stop Gas Stations" where you could fill up and get coffee, fast-food, and minor groceries.
Image Source: http://www.ultraswank.net/kitsch/games-and-gadgets-of-the-60s/
People actually played games; actually with each other in the 1960's! (Just kidding... but really! now-a-days, it seems we are getting too good at being alone/together, on our phones!)
And as to this whole cell phone problem...
To put it simply; I'm told that life was simpler, and it wasn't such a bad thing.