Thinking back

In 1967 I graduated Grammar School. I was 13...

My birthday's in October so I was always a little younger than most of the kids around me. I went to a Catholic School - Our Lady of Good Counsel (cool name, huh) - in Newark, NJ. It was our parish school. Wasn't very big by todays' standards, maybe 300+/- kids in 1st thru 8th. There was a High School but that was for girls only.

 The school(s) were run by the Sisters of St. Joseph. Tough old dames if ever there were any. There were a few 'lay teachers'. That title would probably have a different meaning today.

Don't let the smiles fool ya - these were ax-murderers 

in Penguin outfits.

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That year - '67 - was a strange year for popular music - at was all over the place with many totally unaffiliated genres banging up against each other. Here's the top ten records of the year. See if you see a pattern:

See what I mean? Makes no sense looking back. It's like they were coming at us from any and every direction with no singular focus. The Stones had a hit on bright red Ruby Tuesday. The Doors lit my fire. Buffalo Springfield was there for what it's worth. The Beatles only needed love, The Supremes were Happening, and Van Morrison was dating a brown eyed girl.

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And then there was Strawberry Alarm Clock. They were a cross between the Monkees and Frank Zappa:

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There were a number of throwback hits that year that were kinda hold-outs of the doo-wop era but still shone thru. The Buckinghams (One-hit wonders if ever there was one) 'Don't you care' was one of my favorites: Here they were on The Smother's Brothers show:

The Smothers Brothers show is a story for another day.

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Movie theme songs were big that year. Obviously so if  'To sir with love' was number one. There was also a bunch of others. Nancy Sinatra did 'You only live twice'.  The Happening was the theme song for the movie The Happening - go figure.

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I only bring this whole subject up because I was the odd-man out with my music tastes then as I am still now. I've never owned a Beatles or Stones album. The very first two albums I ever bought (and with my own money of course were:

  Disraeli Gears - Cream's second album

  Are You Experienced - Jimi Hendrix Experience

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In those days the albums cost somewhere around $1.59. One of the interesting things I remember about buying these (at S. Klein's Dept. store in Downtown Newark, NJ) was that the Hendrix album was available in both Stereo and Mono for around 30 cents less.

When you were in eighth grade, were your musical tastes this advanced? Tell me about it.

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In January of '67 the NFL gave us the first Super Bowl between The Packers and The Kansas City Chiefs.

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It was a strange year.

In 1967 the continued presence of American troops increased further and a total of 475,000 were serving in Vietnam and the peace rallies were multiplying as the number of protesters against the war increased. 

 Muhammad Ali was stripped of his boxing world championship for refusing to be inducted into the US Army. In the middle east Israel also went to war with Syria, Egypt and Jordan in the six day war and when it was over Israel controlled and occupied a lot more territory than before the war. 

Once again in the summer of '67 cities throughout America exploded in rioting and looting the worst being in Detroit on July 23rd where 7000 national Guard were bought in to restore law and order on the streets. 

In England a new type of model became a fashion sensation by the name of Twiggy and mini skirts continued to get shorter and even more popular with a short lived fashion being paper clothing. Also during this year new Discotheques and singles bars appeared across cities around the world and the Beatles continued to reign supreme with the release of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band" album, and this year was named 'the summer of love' when young teenagers got friendly and smoked pot and grooved to the music of "The Grateful Dead. Jefferson Airplane and The Byrds". 

The movie industry moved with the times and produced movies that would appeal to this younger audience including "The Graduate" Bonnie and Clyde" and "Cool Hand Luke" . TV shows included "The Fugitive" and "The Monkees" and color television sets become popular as the price comes down and more programs were shot in color.

It scares me how long ago that was.

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That was then, this is now, and life is good.

I may be 66 now but I still feel like I'm 16 sometimes - especially when I'm not looking in the mirror. This was me then:

Too cool for my own good. Those are velvet bell-bottoms if you didn't notice.

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Peace Brother...

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