Page 96 - issue
P. 96
REVTWOO LUTIONS
s ome say that if you remember the Sixties you weren’t
there.
The Sixties was a time of revolution – and drugs.
Although I was part of this era, I am grateful that the
Ribono Shel Olam (G-d) helped me get through it
without frying my brain. (Although I somehow avoided
doing drugs, I did once go into a movie theater full of stu-
dents and noticed a rather pronounced sweet musty odor. So
I can truthfully say that, although I never smoked marijuana,
I did inhale.)
The Sixties was also a time of idealism. Young people were
opposed to the Vietnam War. They bundled this with opposi-
tion to racism, and expected to produce a new world, the
“Age of Aquarius,” which would bring peace, love, a hatred of
money and property, and equal distribution of all worldly
goods. The streets were filled with protests, demonstrations,
and sometimes alternative forms of expression (“riots”). It was,
of course, entirely coincidental that the unrest began about
the time that Congress did away with draft deferments for col-
lege students and ended when the draft was repealed.
I greatly feared the draft, opposed the war, and attended
some of the demonstrations but deliberately avoided Harvard
Square during one of the more violent expressions of ideal-
ism. And I believed. I believed in the leaders of the revolution.
Oh, there were the political leaders, people like Abbie
92 u www.wherewhatwhen.com u
s ome say that if you remember the Sixties you weren’t
there.
The Sixties was a time of revolution – and drugs.
Although I was part of this era, I am grateful that the
Ribono Shel Olam (G-d) helped me get through it
without frying my brain. (Although I somehow avoided
doing drugs, I did once go into a movie theater full of stu-
dents and noticed a rather pronounced sweet musty odor. So
I can truthfully say that, although I never smoked marijuana,
I did inhale.)
The Sixties was also a time of idealism. Young people were
opposed to the Vietnam War. They bundled this with opposi-
tion to racism, and expected to produce a new world, the
“Age of Aquarius,” which would bring peace, love, a hatred of
money and property, and equal distribution of all worldly
goods. The streets were filled with protests, demonstrations,
and sometimes alternative forms of expression (“riots”). It was,
of course, entirely coincidental that the unrest began about
the time that Congress did away with draft deferments for col-
lege students and ended when the draft was repealed.
I greatly feared the draft, opposed the war, and attended
some of the demonstrations but deliberately avoided Harvard
Square during one of the more violent expressions of ideal-
ism. And I believed. I believed in the leaders of the revolution.
Oh, there were the political leaders, people like Abbie
92 u www.wherewhatwhen.com u
