History Lessons (alternately, ch-ch-ch-ch-changes)

Today's post will discuss some of the things we ran across in 1967-68 that were a little different than the way things were 50 years later. We'll also review a few historical moments. Let's start with the culture at the time. 1967 was the Summer of Love, with the Monterey Pop Festival taking place in June on the west coast, the song "San Francisco (Be sure to wear flowers in your hair)" climbing the charts, and the hippie subculture gaining a foothold in many large cities, most notably San Francisco. That cultural phenomenon was clearly present in Los Angeles as evidenced by the various mentions of hippies in Mom's letters, especially the earlier ones. My small-town Texas parents definitely went through a bit of culture shock being exposed to all that, which gave us some entertaining reading on more than one occasion. Closely related to that cultural movement, and no doubt somewhat of a driver of it, was the escalation of the Viet Nam war in 1967. Protests against the war were also escalating, including marches that often turned violent. A Peace March scheduled to pass within a few blocks of our apartment on August 6, 1967 made my parents nervous enough to leave the area that day and make our first of many visits to Knott's Berry Farm. The military draft was also in effect at the time, and we got to see the impact of that on a young family in a letter one of Mom's friends wrote to her. Another bit of civil unrest during this time was the race riots that were occurring all over the country. (Look up "long, hot summer of 1967.") We moved to L. A. only three years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law, and two years after the famous riots in the L. A. neighborhood of Watts. So when Dad found out Mom and I had unintentionally driven through Watts one day, he was understandably upset. Technology has obviously advanced a bit in the past 50 years. Some things that were relatively new at the time, with a certain "wow" factor, are either taken for granted today or have almost disappeared entirely. For instance, Dad spent a lot of money to purchase a Polaroid camera while we were there. Polaroid instant pictures were a good alternative to waiting days to have film developed and they gave people nearly instant gratification. But today, given how easy it is for anyone to take a digital picture and see it (and share it) instantly, for free, Polaroid film doesn't have much of a chance although it does have a certain nostalgic charm to it. Polaroid instant cameras are still available, although with slightly different technology. Another thing that wasn't commonplace in 1967 that we take for granted now is color TV. We had a black and white television set in our apartment, and one of the letters mentioned my parents' friends, the Dirrs, inviting us over to watch a TV special on their color television one night. Mom mentioned that she hoped we could buy a color TV when we got back to Texas, and I'm pretty sure we did before the end of the year. As previously noted, 1972 was the first year in which more color television sets were sold in the US than black-and-white sets. Also in the area of technology, something important was happening in the late 1960s that I don't think was mentioned in any of the letters although there were a few front page newspaper articles about it while we were in L. A. That was the race to the moon. The Apollo program was in its early stages, having yet to launch a manned spaceflight, yet we found our apartment in L. A. exactly two years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. The changes in technology in the past 50 years have certainly changed the way we communicate. In 1967, long before the internet was even a gleam in Al Gore's eye, there was no such thing as email. This was also long before mobile phones of any type were available, so there were no cell phones either, which meant no texting. No cell phones. No internet. No email. No texting. So how did people communicate? Well, people communicated the old fashioned way, via letters and phone calls using telephones connected to landlines. To make matters worse, the telephone companies charged extra for long distance calls outside of your local area, so most people, especially those who were pinching pennies, just didn't make a lot of long distance phone calls and tended to rely more on letters. We know letters were the primary method of communication between Mom and my grandmother. Letters at the time could go via ground, or you could pay a few cents more for airmail if you wanted faster delivery. All but one of Mom's letters was sent via airmail, and even with that we could see on a few occasions where the lag between sending and receiving caused some communication issues that wouldn't occur today. We have grown so accustomed to nearly instant communication these days that it's hard to imagine having to wait several days, perhaps more than a week, to have someone reply to a question. We did learn about one method of almost instant communication that was occasionally used back then, and that was the telegram. When my grandmother made her flight plans to visit us she sent a telegram because sending an airmail letter would have taken too long. Strangely enough, we also learned that Western Union continued their telegram service until 2006. Speaking of letters, we also learned the use of zip codes was somewhat new in 1967. Although Mom grew up in the house my grandmother was still living in, she didn't even know my grandmother's zip code when she started writing letters. It took her several months to get to the point where she always remembered to include the zip code when addressing the envelope, but she ended up doing it consistently. Not only was it nearly impossible to communicate as quickly as we do now, it was also difficult to get stuff as quickly. We moved to L. A. six years before the first overnight delivery service, Federal Express, began operations. People in 1967 probably didn't see much of a need for overnight deliveries, and they definitely would have been amazed that in the future you could even get same day delivery of some items. During our stay in L. A. we also ran across a few things that seem totally out of place today and have since been changed for the better, often with the prodding of the legal system. The first notable event was the search for an apartment in Los Angeles when my parents found it difficult to find an apartment building that would allow children. This was before the Fair Housing Act of 1968, so that was a perfectly legal practice at the time. The next incident that comes to mind was my encounter with a pay toilet when I was unable to pay. Fortunately pay toilets were banned in most places in the US in the 1970s and are rarely seen today. We learned that car seats were not very common in the late 1960s and certainly were not required by law. On a related note, I don't think any of the letters mentioned seat belts, but seat belts were not even required equipment for all seating positions in passenger cars until 1968, and wearing seat belts wasn't mandated by law until the mid 1980s. For most people it's weird to even think about not wearing a seatbelt today. Another more recent change in the area of child safety was the design of playground equipment. I haven't done any research on that, but the playground equipment I played on in Griffith Park would be viewed as quite archaic and hazardous today. Another item related to health and safety that was mentioned many times during the first half of our stay was the smog. Say what you will about California's environmental regulations, but they seem to have greatly improved the smog situation over the past 50 years. It was really sad reading Mom's description of how the smog affected us. Even if people who were living there got used to it, you know it had to have a negative effect on people's respiratory systems and who knows what else. If you want really bad smog today you can go to some big cities in China. We also learned that the medical guidelines regarding the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy have changed in the past 50 years, since Mom did not abstain early on in her pregnancy. In the world of sports there was a lot going on, although in most cases Mom just mentioned it as an aside, leaving me to do the research to figure out what game she was talking about. (You're welcome.) The most important thing from a historical perspective was the rise of OJ Simpson to national prominence as a junior running back for the USC Trojans. I really wish I could ask my dad what his thoughts were while watching college football's "Game of the Century" between USC and UCLA, especially OJ Simpson's touchdown run that is considered one of college football's best plays ever. The same goes for college basketball's "Game of the Century" between UCLA and The University of Houston two months later, which Mom and Dad both watched intently with friends while I played on the floor with coloring books and dominoes. Finally, since we were so close to Hollywood, it's only natural that the world of entertainment was featured in one way or another in many of the letters and diary entries. Mom and I saw a scene from the 1968 movie "The Party" being filmed, we saw a Shasta root beer commercial being filmed, and we attended tapings of Let's Make a Deal (with Monty Hall) and Art Linkletter's House Party. Our friends the Dirrs appeared on The Newlywed Game with Bob Eubanks, and Mom and I got to see Dean Martin's dressing room, including the toilet, as part of an NBC studio tour. And some television history was mentioned in one of the letters, too. That was the final episode of "The Fugitive" television series, the most watched TV show of all time until the world found out who shot J. R. Ewing 12 years later. In tomorrow's post I'll try to fill in a few gaps and tie up some loose ends.

November 21, 1967: The colorful crash

Letter postmarked November 21, 1967:

The CCZCC now stands at 4.

Dear Mother and Mike,

Here it is another Monday morning. We are getting ready for our big San Francisco trip so we didn't do much this weekend. We had lousy weather here anyway - by lousy, I mean it rained. I didn't care to be out on the roads, especially the freeways. There were several people killed in car accidents (27 or 28), two boy scouts died while on camping trips, and one whole section of town close to the mountains was plagued with flooding and mud slides! So as you can see, your children were pretty wise to stay home. Maybe old age has set in.

Dave did take me out to eat Friday night. He took me to "Taix," a French restaurant. The food was just wonderful, but not very Frenchy - we had a vegetable soup, a salad, and pot roast with new potatoes and spinach, and of course that wonderful fattening French bread. Borrowing a word from dear Aunt Sara, the place was "elegant" but not expensive at all - the meal plus two (one each) before dinner cocktails was $7. You could hear Dave's sighs of relief all over the joint when the bill was presented.

[You may recall from the November 17 letter that Dad hadn't committed to taking Mom out anywhere on Friday night when Gene and Suzie offered to watch me.]

[Taix opened in 1927 and moved to the current location on Sunset Boulevard in 1962. It is still run by the Taix family. Here's the web site: http://taixfrench.com/. Regarding the cost of their meal, $7 in 1967 purchased about as much as $51 in 2017.]

I was terribly disappointed that we didn't go anywhere after eating - like dancing, show, etc. We left David Wayne with Gene and Suzie at 6:30 and we picked him up at 9 o'clock. But, Dave and Gene had plans to watch a football game on TV for Saturday, so they have to get their reset. They keep better "in training" hours than the football players.

[The football game on Saturday happened to be #1 UCLA vs. #4 USC, so I can see why Dad and Gene wanted to watch it. USC won 21-20 and went on to win the national championship. This game, which has its own Wikipedia page, is considered by some people to be a contender for college football's "Game of the Century" (20th century). USC's win was in no small part due to the efforts of junior running back OJ Simpson, who scored two touchdowns. One of these, a 64-yard run in the fourth quarter to put USC ahead for good, is considered one of college football's best plays ever.]

There was a bit of excitement during the game. We heard this terrible noise outside and when we went to investigate we discovered there had been a terrible car accident just up the street. Two women ran a stop sign and hit a car with three women passengers. One car had run onto the sidewalk just missing this poor old woman who was out for a stroll. We had two ambulances, two fire trucks, and one police car on the scene. During all the excitement I happened to notice several pregnant women standing around and some women in white uniforms. On closer inspection I discovered no wedding bands on their fingers. Then it hit me - Gene and Suzie live next door to a home for unwed mothers! You should have seen me fly into action - I flashed my ring around, kept calling David Wayne in a very loud voice, and I stuck to Dave's side like glue.

[Now we know Gene and Suzie lived within a block or two of our apartment building. What is it with car accidents on this street?]

Sunday we stayed indoors and watched television and read. The "Alice In Wonderland" special was on Sunday night. Gene and Suzie had told us to bring David Wayne over to watch it on their color set. It was just wonderful. I had seen it before, but seeing it in color was great. We are hoping to get a color television when we get home.

[Yes, color television was a big deal in the 1960s. The first television season that had only color programming in prime time on all three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) was the 1966-67 programming season. The first year in which more color television sets were sold in the US than black-and-white sets was 1972.]

David Wayne is really having fun with Gene and Suzie. They are crazy about him and just beg to keep him for us. Suzie even wants to keep him during the daytime when I go shopping. Since Suzie is a speech teacher, I'm trying to enlist her help on getting David Wayne to pronounce his t's and s's. As we were watching the wreck on Saturday my son (in a loud voice) said, "Look at the clouds of the shitty." Suzie said she thought that was one time he pronounced it right.

[I think I got my "t" sounds straightened out fairly quickly, but I know I had a problem with "s" sounds until second or third grade.]

I guess your work is still keeping you pretty busy. Maybe you can rest over the Christmas holidays. Resting seems to be my specialty these days. I don't even like to watch television during the daytime.

[Good, that means I can watch TV all day.]

Well, I will close for now. I would like to get this letter mailed today. Take care and make Mike behave.

Love, 

Linda