From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

Are you one of the many who watch the nightly news and suffer through the commercials about bad knees, arthritis, back aches, bladder issues and forgetfulness…MEMORY problems? After listing all the frightening side effects, the ad suggests you take another pill.

There’s a pill for each problem. I’m already feeling like a walking drug store with my cache of yellow, pink and white pills for blood pressure, cholesterol… I’m certain these ads are directed at seniors as everyone in the commercial looks retired, enjoying themselves on some warm beach or golf course with tanned bald heads or gray hair.

I’m so tired of being patronized by ad agencies because I’m a senior…they seem to think we’re all forgetting things and even losing our marbles because we’re getting older! Sure, we don’t learn a new language as easily as we did in our twenties. Certainly we’re slower at learning new computer advances as younger folks, but come on, I’ll bet most of you remember way back to the life we lead in the fifties, sixties and even earlier. We remember the good and the bad, happy and sad…don’t we?

Each year we live is filled with comedies and tragedies. Take a few moments to think back in time to 1968. See what you remember…

Today in 2023 we’re undergoing huge inflation, war in Ukraine, murders, protests and riots. Political conspiracies dominate the news. But 1968 was a turning point for a generation coming of age, and a nation caught in the turmoil of the Viet Nam war, when our young men were being drafted into service to a war many did not agree with. Riots erupted at the Democratic convention in Chicago. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Black Power was asserted among athletes at the Olympic Games and feminists demonstrated at the Miss America pageant. Many of the same problems are still occurring.

Hair opened on Broadway, Laugh-In debuted and became the number-one show on TV, Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate picked up Oscars and Johnny Cash gave a legendary performance at Folsom Prison. President Lyndon Johnson spoke of a country “challenged, at home and abroad” in his State of the Union address; his successor, Richard Nixon, promised in his nomination acceptance speech that “the long, dark night for America is about to end.” At the close of the year, we saw Earth in its entirety for the first time from the window of the Apollo 8 space capsule. You remember those things, don’t you?

Remember lounging on a squishy beanbag chair to watch Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh In” with Goldie Hawn and Ruth Buzzy twisting in their bikinis. June Cleaver and her perfect American family were popular on TV and we watched the debut of the “Mr. Rogers” show which calmed my little kids. Today’s reality shows and comics don’t create the same laughs for me as those oldies did.

Sonny & Cher, Ken and Barbie were popular, and records played favorites by the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel and the Kingston Trio. Transistor radios and the evolution of television sets and telephones were big hits as were our pink princess phones, lava lamps, shag haircuts, ponchos, tie-dyed t-shirts, patchwork bell bottoms and mini skirts. Of course you still remember.

Do you recall those 1968 school dress codes where it was finally OK for girls to wear slacks to school, if they were “in good taste” and “appropriate to the weather.” That meant girls could wear slacks on cold days only. Some believed that girls would lose their femininity when they wore slacks, which made girls look more boyish and act more like boys. At school girls were told to kneel on the floor to check if their hems touched the floor or not. If the skirt was so short that kneeling attested to the despicable fact that the length was not “appropriate,” that kid was sent home from school to have the hem an inch longer.

Apollo 8 was scheduled to swing around the moon early on Dec. 24, 1968. It would begin a long day of lunar orbiting and take 1,000 still photographs of the moon. Frank Borman, the spacecraft’s commander, James A. Lovell Jr. and William Anders would fly about 203,000 miles from earth and 39,000 miles from the moon.

From Seoul, South Korea, came news of the 82 Pueblo crewmen as they prepared to leave for Christmas reunions with their families in San Diego, Calif. At a news conference, Cmdr. Lloyd M. Bucher, 41 told tales of terror, beatings and harassment at the hands of the North Koreans, who had seized their Navy intelligence ship on Jan. 23 and held them in prison for 11 months.

The upper Midwest began a major cleanup following the second major snowstorm to hit the Upper Midwest within a week. Governor Harold Le Vander was delayed in attending his staff meeting because he had to help shovel a path for his car at the governor’s mansion. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials slumped 13.24 points to 953.75, the steepest decline sine July 22, when it lost 13.60 points just before the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia.

Columnist Robert T. Smith wrote, “The computer and other modern devices have drained us of much of our individuality and left us pale automatons in a society of convenience. Why, science and technology have put us on the brink of conquering the moon. Surely, we will soon all become numbers and live by remote control.”

The comics featured an ageless Dennis the Menace and Blondie. Some of you may remember Miss Peach, Mary Worth, Judge Parker, Steve Canyon, Rex Morgan and Mark Trail.

Just thinking back in years to the many adventures we’ve lived is invigorating, isn’t it? Isn’t it amazing what you remember if given a few words which make you recall the memory? Life is full of hope and youthful dreams. Keep recalling and retelling and hoping for a future you’ll enjoy remembering.

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.