Saturday, November 06, 2004
nostalgia from crooked timber:
Well, I know what 1960 was like. I was there. I’m Bill Bennett’s age.
So, let’s return to the golden days of yesteryear. Here’s some of cultural and legal milieu.
Your point of view on “morality issues” will determine what you think was good or bad.
In 1960:
Ike was president in his 2nd term. RMN was VP. JFK was about to run against RMN.
LSD was legal.
Abortion was illegal, but increasingly less prosecuted in some more liberal states. But Mexico was the usual option for most.
Asset forfeiture was not used in drug cases, and only rarely in any other cases.
You had to sign a “loyalty oath” to get some jobs, such as faculty at some universities.
You didn’t have to give your fingerprints to get a drivers license in most states.
Benzedrine inhalers were sold OTC. “Bennie” users could buy them and extract the contents.
“The Pill” didn’t yet exist as a widespread birth control method.
“Prophylactics” (condoms) were sold for $.50 in restroom vending machines “for prevention of disease only”.
De jure segregation no longer existed in schools, but integration was not complete either.
The Bible was not off limits in the classroom, but even in the south where I grew up, sane public school teachers didn’t preach about it.
Marijuana was so esoteric that mostly only big city police departments and Anslinger’s FBN knew anything much about it, so growing your own was not very risky if you were cool.
Interracial marriage (so called “miscegenation”) was illegal in several states, but legal in others. Loving_v._Commonwealth was decided in 1967.
Rock ‘n Roll was everywhere, and some preachers were holding “record burnings”.
Pregnant teenage girls either had children out of wedlock and typically for adoption, had “shotgun” weddings, or went to Mexico for an abortion.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was on nationwide TV weekly.
Jimmy Swaggart was on local TV out of Shreveport, La.
Swaggart’s cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, sometimes played piano for Swaggart’s TV ministry.
Jerry Lee Lewis had been married to his third wife, his cousin Myra Gale Brown for a couple years. She was 15.
Father Coughlin was still pastor at the Shrine of the Little Flower, but his radio days were long over.
Wolfman Jack still hadn’t hit the airwaves.
J.D. Salinger’s Catcher_in_the_Rye was on every hip teen’s reading list.
Grace Metalious’ “scandalous” novel Peyton_Place was already a hit movie.
“Miranda rights” didn’t yet exist.
Russia’s Sputnik had long been launched, and education in engineering had become well supported, so more college scholarships were becoming available than before.
The VietNam war hadn’t really started.
Bill Bennett was still just a punk-ass neighborhood bully.
Well, I know what 1960 was like. I was there. I’m Bill Bennett’s age.
So, let’s return to the golden days of yesteryear. Here’s some of cultural and legal milieu.
Your point of view on “morality issues” will determine what you think was good or bad.
In 1960:
Ike was president in his 2nd term. RMN was VP. JFK was about to run against RMN.
LSD was legal.
Abortion was illegal, but increasingly less prosecuted in some more liberal states. But Mexico was the usual option for most.
Asset forfeiture was not used in drug cases, and only rarely in any other cases.
You had to sign a “loyalty oath” to get some jobs, such as faculty at some universities.
You didn’t have to give your fingerprints to get a drivers license in most states.
Benzedrine inhalers were sold OTC. “Bennie” users could buy them and extract the contents.
“The Pill” didn’t yet exist as a widespread birth control method.
“Prophylactics” (condoms) were sold for $.50 in restroom vending machines “for prevention of disease only”.
De jure segregation no longer existed in schools, but integration was not complete either.
The Bible was not off limits in the classroom, but even in the south where I grew up, sane public school teachers didn’t preach about it.
Marijuana was so esoteric that mostly only big city police departments and Anslinger’s FBN knew anything much about it, so growing your own was not very risky if you were cool.
Interracial marriage (so called “miscegenation”) was illegal in several states, but legal in others. Loving_v._Commonwealth was decided in 1967.
Rock ‘n Roll was everywhere, and some preachers were holding “record burnings”.
Pregnant teenage girls either had children out of wedlock and typically for adoption, had “shotgun” weddings, or went to Mexico for an abortion.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was on nationwide TV weekly.
Jimmy Swaggart was on local TV out of Shreveport, La.
Swaggart’s cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, sometimes played piano for Swaggart’s TV ministry.
Jerry Lee Lewis had been married to his third wife, his cousin Myra Gale Brown for a couple years. She was 15.
Father Coughlin was still pastor at the Shrine of the Little Flower, but his radio days were long over.
Wolfman Jack still hadn’t hit the airwaves.
J.D. Salinger’s Catcher_in_the_Rye was on every hip teen’s reading list.
Grace Metalious’ “scandalous” novel Peyton_Place was already a hit movie.
“Miranda rights” didn’t yet exist.
Russia’s Sputnik had long been launched, and education in engineering had become well supported, so more college scholarships were becoming available than before.
The VietNam war hadn’t really started.
Bill Bennett was still just a punk-ass neighborhood bully.
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