If You Had The Chance To Go Back To 1969 At The Age Of 19 Would You?

Asmo,

I kind of see your point. I could also state that I had no ideas of future events the first time that I lived through them. That would make sense too. It was only pure chance that I ran into the guy who I did run into in the college administration office at that particular moment, and checked his apartment out and became his roommate, and then later found out that his dad was the man who signed the Stones and the Who to his label. I would have ended up going to different concerts and dates in S.F., then the ones that he picked to go to. But I still would have gone to a lot of concerts for three bucks each. I would have gone to the San Francisco area, either way, in 1969. That's still the same. With no future knowledge.

And in fact there was stuff that I missed the first time through.
Like, my English 1A class teacher was the Beat poet Michael McClure and in September of 69 he had his good buddy Jim Morrison Fly up from L.A. to do a two hour poetry reading on the college front lawn. They held an on going discussion afterward for hours. I missed that because I hadn't heard about it.

Then there was the time, in October, when the Who came to town to play in the arena and my buddy room mate made a call around noon time that day to a major agency in L.A. to see if he could get two free tickets to the show. His main contact person who he knew personally was off that day and her assistant said that she'd deal with it. He was expecting a callback to verify the passes. No call back came. The evening came and went. No show. In the morning he got a call from the main boss woman asking how he enjoyed the concert. He explained that we never got a callback so we didn't go. It turns out that we had two free business tickets, center in the first tree rows, with back stage passes, and dressing room passes, to see the guys who he knew. Yeah, it was kind of a bummer to miss that one. What are ya gonna do?

But going back to 1969 at age 19, with no future knowledge, I still would have gone to the S.F. area. If not to college then most probably straight to Haight Street. Whatever fate would be.

When they pass you the dice, it's best to roll them.

 

Excuse the crappy 80s music but for the OP some food for thought:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcFFEjq5Ap8

C/S,
Rev J

 

I think that too much about Vietnam went and Killed this thread.

When people think about the 60s they tend to think about fun, sex, and parties. That's why the original question was posed.

I think that the original question was all about WHAT YOU WOULD DO. What would you do with your life. A subjective question. Would you go back to that time? What would you look to do as you went there?

NOTHING to do with all of the negative crap that someone else can dream up. The Naysayers. All that they want is always negative. Nobody asked you for that.

Nobody ask anyone to make a gigantic list of everything that went wrong in a whole decade. Thanks for your big downer. Took the brown acid. NO.

We got an easy question. Cut and dry topic.

Go and start your very own thread called, please list everything that was really F---ed-up about the 60s. Go and do it.
Please Stay out of any positive threads with your off topic creations.

​

THANKS​

 

So people should just go stick their head in the sand and ignore any negative aspects of life or real world solutions....I see

ya know that attitude is part of why certain aspects of the whole hippy thing died out, that and the utter disillusionment a lot of kids felt after finding out that life isn't all daisies, daffodils and fucking in the park.

it's not such a cut and dried topic, the question implies no need to only focus on positive shit, and only focusing on the positive is missing the ENTIRE POINT OF THE COUNTER CULTURE.

the harsh reality of 1969 is that if you were an American male aged 19 years, you had a very, very good chance you would end up in Vietnam, and if so your life expectancy wasn't very long.


BUT if I could go back, forget '69, I would have to go pre-'66 when LSD was still legal and stock-up on some Sandoz crystal and the little 25ug and 100ug pills or the 100ug ampules of liquid.
Would definite have to also try and hook up with some of the early Owsely acid, White Lighting, Purple Haze, etc.

 

I wonder if our younger readers realize that the footage shown in this video is news footage that was broadcast nightly. They didn't hide the brutality of war from the public eye like they do today.

 

I remember alot of trouble that one of my brothers went through. He was born in 1951.

I remember being in the car on the curb for pick up at the high school. The principal walked out to the car with my brother and fussed at my mother, telling her that my brother could not come back to school until he cut his hair; that he would have to come by the office and the principal would have to approve of his haircut before letting him back in.

My brother dropped out of high school and my parents approved.

He was always getting talked down to.

Once, the police officer who lived across the street from us pulled up beside my brother and told him to take a bath and cut his hair.

I think my skinny little dad wanted to punch that big ass cop.

My parents in no way approved of the drug use going on but they did stand up for their son's right to grow his hair out and still maintain his dignity about his appearance.

That's just one example.

The breakthrough was tough.

I remember my two high school age brothers (born '51 and '55) getting suspended from school for not tucking their shirt tails in.

Some mothers were sewing lace around the him of their son's shirts so they'd keep them tucked in to avoid looking like a sissy.

My mom just bought the oldest brother nehru collared shirts with straight bottoms and argued with the principal about that style shirt with a straight bottom not being made to tuck in.

Little stuff - constantly - battling everyday for things we now take for granted.

 

I Have Given A Lot Of Thought To My Answer.........And I Have To Reply...NO.

For Many Reasons, The Main One Being The Draft For The Vietnam War, That Really Ripped The Shit Outta My Parents.....



Cheers Glen.

 

The threat of being drafted lead one of my brothers, born in 48, into a marriage complete with child, which ended in divorce.

The brother born in '51 had terrible eyesight since being born cross-eye and having eye surgery as an infant so his classification was way down the draft list.

I remember talk of intentionally puncturing their own ear drums if the draft tried to take them.

 

[SIZE=12pt]Perhaps an appeal to your wallet, [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Imagine going back to 1969 with foreknowledge that the NY Jets were going to beat Baltimore Colts in what would become the biggest upset in super bowl history.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=12pt]Hotwater[/SIZE]

 

^^^^ As I Understand It We Are Going Back To 1969 As It....And We Were Back Then.......No Knowledge Of Today Allowed......



Cheers Glen.

 

No reason making plans then Because if we can go back we wouldn't remember what we would want there...

That's not what he is proposing Let me point out where you are going wrong here: he's focussing on the exact thread topic, the context if you could go back to '69 would you. You are now disgruntled by several answers and his proposal to keep it inside that context and not react to every post with 'you shouldn't want that because this and this and that...'. (it is a hypothetical question anyway!), and therefor you're taking it outside of the context to make what he says even more ridicilous: namely that he's ought to ignore negative effects always in the real world. Pretty ridicilous.

By the same logic I could argue with you about why go anywhere anyway? There's always risks right. We shouldn't wanna go to India, China or South America. I could give you millions of reasons! Do you know what's happening there? People are idiots when they go. Definitely not in tune with the real world

 

SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK & ROLL.

Yes, that was what 1969 was about. All pleasurable moments for young, rebellious ppl.

But it was about struggling for civil rights, both blacks and gays. Yeah, the Stonewall riots in NYC.

It was about freedom to dress and groom yourself as you desired,. for a guy to have shoulder length hair and a beard in a crewfcut, clean shaved world.

If you got busted for any minor infraction the PIGS felt they had the right to cut off your years growth of hair by force. I was arrested for suspicion in San Francisco and during my strip search the pig told me to take a shower because str8 world knew Hippies were unbathed and dirty. (My feet were grimy because walking the city streets in sandals does that even tho I was clean. And, that "suspicion" was only because of profiling.

Speaking of PIGS, I tried to join the New Orleans Police Dept. in 1968 but was denied because I had no religion. As I say, civil rights were being denied on all fronts because the mainstream culture could not countenance young ppl rebelling against the established American values. Or, let me say "OPENLY REBELLED" My good-ol-boy dad from Mississippi, as did many in his generation, fucked outside of marriage, originated rock & roll and smoked dope. They just snuck around with it and didn't do it in the road like we did in '69.

And there was Viet Nam for all of us guys threatened to become part of the Slave Army. It did affect our lives (and deaths) and was part and parcel to those turbulent times. It is why I was on a train headed to Lackland Air Force Base 3 days after graduating from high school in '63 and why we were joking secretly in '69 that "50K Viet Cong can't be wrong." It was the first war televised into the mainstream living rooms in America and measured by "body count."

As I said in another post, quoting Dickens Tale of 2 Cities "It was the best of times - It was the worst of times." You cannot censor the bad because it affected the good.

 

Wow!, Your a champion. Man how things change so quickly. I wonder how things will be in another 30.

 

We will all have the same skin colour (grey) and people who still have hair will be ridiculed consistently.

 

:alien:

 

Since I am one of those "Naysayers". What I'm talking about is having a balanced perspective. I'm not saying it was all bad or all good. But a lot of these threads seem to fall under "Rose Colored Glasses" of people who weren't there only wanting to know about the good parts. They don't want to hear about how John Sinclair ended up getting 10 years in prison for handing 2 joints to an undercover cop. Or people getting drafted or arrested for draft dodging. Or arrested for being on the street after dark.

I'm all for "Fair and Balanced Reporting" (not of the Fox News variety). It wasn't all Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix, and Haight Ashbury. As a matter of fact from what I've read at the time the Haight was a slum with cheap rents. When movies like "The Trip" were shot there they had to hire Hells Angels to make sure the camera crew didn't get beat up or mugged.

Just my perspective.

C/S,
Rev J

 

Which sounds better?:
Sex, Drugs, and Rock n' roll.
Or
VD, Hangover, and Tinnitus.

C/S,
Rev J

 

I carefully chose to summer of 67 as the end of the time I'd like to revisit from this era. Prior to the Summer of Love causing a huge influx of people and overcrowding, there was stuff like Tourist Rides for "straight" people that would go through the area with pamphlets and it was hardly slums as far as I know.

 

The only time and only city that I have ever been mugged in was San Francisco in July 1970. We were going to Haight street and cut thru a small park on the way (my friends were tripping). Some black guy targeted us as easy marks and two of them grabbed me by the arms. I yelled enuf to get the attention of someone walking their dog and the guys let me go but they stalked us like sharks all the way to Haight street.

The Haight - Ashbury at that time was run down with hard drug users hanging out and a few actual Hippies hanging on but it was in decline. I think I caught the last of it. there were still family & commune run businesses, like restaurants and head shops but I think the spark had died. Altho one time walking down the street a long-haired dude just handed us a hit of acid and as sacrament - and we dropped it. That carefree brotherhood was still present.