THE SIXTIES

GROWING UP IN "THE WE DECADE"

BY GARY OCHS

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

It was the season of light; it was the season of darkness.

It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." 

The first paragraph of Charles Dickens’ classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities, describes the disparity of life in the years leading up to the French Revolution in 1789. Nearly two hundred years later, another revolution shook the world. In the 1960’s, an American cultural revolution provided the psychedelic backdrop for the most tumultuous decade in our nation's history. It was an era that began with great promise on a bright, bitterly cold winter's day in front of the east wing of the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Delivering one of the great oratories of the 20th century, a young, charismatic president challenged and inspired the best and the brightest of a new generation to dedicate themselves to public service. “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”  The decade ended in spectacular fashion when Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong took the historic first steps on the surface of the moon.  “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” These two historic events bookended the troubled and wonderful times I grew up in.

Bursting with vibrancy, creativity and a euphoric sense of freedom, the Sixties encouraged experimentation in fashion, design, and the arts. Headbands, tie-dyed shirts, frayed bell-bottom jeans and Jesus sandals, were the fashion fad of a new generation. Peace signs, love beads, chain belts, and long, puffy "bubble sleeves” were “far out” and “in.” The “British Invasion” was launched by four young lads from Liverpool who exploded onto the pop music scene literally taking America by storm overnight. Sixty-one million households tuned in to watch the Beatles first live performance on The Ed Sullivan Show - the largest television viewing audience in US history.

"Beatlemania" Paul, George, Ringo & John

Life in the Sixties was big, neon-bright and beautiful. And at its core, it was much less complicated. The high-tech devices and services we have become so reliant upon in the 21st century did not even exist. There were no computers or cell phones. There was no internet, no Wi-Fi, no Amazon Prime, Netflix or Instagram. While the blueprint for some of these technologies had been discovered, consumer product development was decades away. In the generations to follow, a tidal wave of scientific and technological discovery created a quantum leap in the development of products and services that have forever changed the way we live our lives. Consider the fact that a basic cellphone today has more processing power than the computer on board the Apollo 11 spacecraft that landed the first man on the moon in 1969.

1964 Ford Mustang

As simple and carefree as life seemed in the early sixties, storm clouds began to gather on the horizon. In 1961, the Berlin Wall was erected dividing Germany into communist East and free West. A CIA-sponsored coup attempt to overthrow communist leader Fidel Castro in Cuba ended in disaster.  Then in October 1962, the entire world held its breath during the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis when the United States and Soviet Union came within one miscalculation of unleashing the unspeakable horror of thermonuclear war.  I was too young to know what was going on at the time, but my parents must have felt the weight of the world on their shoulders. There were “duck and cover” drills at school. We even had a bomb shelter bunker that was built into the side of a hill in our neighborhood. There was nothing anyone could do except wait and pray. Thirteen long and harrowing days later, the missile crisis ended when the Soviets agreed to withdraw their ICBM's from Cuba in exchange for the US withdrawal of missiles from Turkey. Our country had successfully navigated through very deep and troubled waters. It seemed as if there was no challenge, no obstacle, no danger that America could not overcome.

Then on a bright and sunny autumn afternoon in Dallas, the decade that began flush with ebullience was suddenly plunged into darkness and despair.  It was Friday November 22, 1963. Seated next to his beautiful wife Jackie in the back seat of their black, open-air, presidential limousine, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, smiled and waved back at the adoring crowds lining the streets along his motorcade route. The limo slowed as it turned down Elm Street in front of Dealey Plaza. And then history happened. In less than ten seconds the world was forever changed. The first rifle shot rang out. Then a second. Followed by two more. Mortally wounded, the president slumped over into his wife's lap.  Thirty minutes later, he was pronounced dead at Parkland Hospital.

The news of President Kennedy's assassination sent a seismic shockwave of horror and disbelief reverberating across America. Sixty years later, anyone old enough remembers exactly where they were when they first heard the news that their beloved president was dead. I was a six-year-old first grader coming home from school on that fateful day. My friend Joe Baker and I sat on opposite sides of the isle from one another in the front row of our big, bright yellow school bus. It was the Friday before Thanksgiving, and we were excited about not having to go back to school for a whole week!

As always, we were the last two students left on the bus and Joe's stop was next. When we pulled up in front of his house, we said our goodbyes and Joe gathered up his books and backpack. He stood up and grabbed hold of the handrail in front of him. The driver reached over, tugged on the large, lever handle and the bus doors swung open. As always, Joe's mom was standing in the driveway with her arms folded, waiting to greet her son. As always, she exchanged pleasantries with the bus driver, but on this day their conversation lasted a little longer than usual. I couldn't see her face, but by the tone of her voice it sounded like Joe's mom was crying. The only thing I heard her say was, "Somebody shot the president."

Evening commute, November 22, 1963

Three days later, our whole family sat transfixed in front of our black and white living room TV as the images of a nation in mourning paraded before our eyes. When the riderless horse-drawn caisson bearing the president's flag-draped casket passed in front of his widow and two children, three-year old John Jr. flashed a goodbye salute to his father. It was the end of Camelot, an era that lasted a little more than a thousand days. For the first time in my life, I was afraid. How could something like this possibly happen in the United States of America? If the most powerful man in the world could not be protected from harm, then none of us were safe.

Sadly, JFK wasn't the only prominent leader to die from an assassin's bullet. The Sixties witnessed the murders of civil rights activists Melvin Evers (1963) and Malcolm X (1965). In April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis, Tennessee to support the black sanitation workers who were striking for job safety and better wages. On the warm and stormy night of April 3, Dr. King gave his final speech at the Mason Temple Church of God In Christ.

 “We have some difficult days ahead. But I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will… I have been to the mountaintop, and I have looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land... I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the promised land. I am happy tonight. I am not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” The following evening, while standing on his hotel room balcony, Reverend King was shot and killed at long range by a lone gunman. That night, shock and outrage erupted into violence across the country. From New York to Los Angeles, inner city neighborhoods were set ablaze and burned to the ground. There were 40 deaths, 21,000 arrests, 700 businesses destroyed and $65 million in property damage.

Sanitation Workers Strike, 1968

Two months later on the night of June 5th, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy - the brother of the slain president and front-runner for the democratic presidential nomination - was shot to death after delivering a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The country was in total shock and disbelief. It was 1963 all over again. Quoting from his favorite playwright George Bernard Shaw, Robert Kennedy once said, “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” If the Kennedy brothers had survived the Sixties, the world would have benefited greatly.

Aside from all the turmoil at home, 10,000 miles away a bloody war was being fought in the jungles and villages of Vietnam. In 1968 alone, 16,899 US servicemen were killed in action - nearly one third of all casualties inflicted during the ten-year conflict. Opposition to the war sparked violent confrontations between protestors and police. Two years later, four students at Ohio's Kent State University were shot to death and eight others wounded when national guardsmen opened fire to disperse a crowd. 

As difficult as the times were, growing up in the Sixties wasn't all that bad. In spite of the maelstrom swirling all around us, life in 1968 seemed pretty normal for my family and me. My dad was a high school biology teacher and my mom worked part-time in real estate. My brother played trumpet in the junior high school stage band. We had recently moved into a new house in the suburbs of Philadelphia. There were lots of tall trees with great long branches perfect for climbing. Our back yard was one of the biggest and greenest I had ever seen.

I really loved my dad. A kind, compassionate man of deep conviction, Chuck Ochs was by far the most influential person in my life. An avid reader of history and biography, he enjoyed smoking pipes and cigars - the aroma of which I would forever associate with “home.”   My dad had a great sense of humor. He loved to laugh and tell stories. He was also very creative. I still have a birthday card from 1970 that he made for me out of construction paper and colored pens chronicling the first thirteen years of my life. My father was adventurous. He enjoyed taking my brother Dave and me on long road trips in his slightly banged up ‘57 Chevy Malibu. One of my all-time favorite trips was going to the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York. There we got our first glimpse of an IBM computer. The grandfather of today’s desktop PC was comparable in size to an extra-large capacity washing machine. The other highlight at the fair was waiting in a very long line to sit inside an exact replica of the Mercury 3 space capsule that launched the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, into outer space. It was well worth the wait!

New York World’s Fair, 1964

For a 10-year-old kid who loved watching Batman, Hogan's Heroes and The Addams Family, my entire world consisted of playing little league baseball, riding my purple stingray bike and launching model rockets from my friend's backyard. I earned a 50-cents allowance every week and I spent every single penny of that allowance every week. I figured even if I saved up for a whole month there wasn't much I could buy for two bucks. That being said, at only 35 cents an issue, one of my favorite monthly purchases was a newsstand copy of MAD Magazine.

Mad magazine cover, 1968

Originally published in 1955 as a comic book, MAD was to the 60's and 70's as National Lampoon was to the 80's and ‘90's.  The magazine satirized all aspects of life and popular culture, politics, entertainment, and public figures. I read it from cover to cover including all of the little classified ads in the back. And that's how I first learned about the Burpee Seed Company of Warminster, Pennsylvania.

The ad said they were looking for junior associates to join the ranks of their national sales team. This was a great opportunity for kids my age to win valuable prizes by selling flower and vegetable seeds to friends and neighbors. I asked my parents if they would sponsor me and they agreed. When my sales kit finally arrived at our front door, the first thing I did was rip open the box and start digging around inside until I found the one thing that really mattered. It was the big, bright, colorful Burpee rewards catalog.  I carefully scoured every single page searching for that once-in-a-lifetime prize. 

I wasn't exactly sure what it was I was looking for, but I knew I would know it when I saw it. About halfway through the catalog, there was a deluxe fold-out page. I opened it carefully and there it was. A full-page, color picture of the prize I was going to cherish for the rest of my life: an authentic, NASA-certified Estes Industries Saturn 5 model rocket! The thought of owning this magnificent flying machine made it very hard to go to sleep at night.

Of course, I would have to sell an astronomical number of seeds to earn the prize, but to the young and the innocent, all things are possible. The idea of selling door-to-door was a little intimidating, but according to sales tip #5 in my Burpee junior associate's pocket guide, all I had to do was “keep my eyes on the prize” and everything would work out fine. I couldn't wait to launch my new part-time career.

Every day for about a week, I loaded up my official blue and gold, nylon Burpee shoulder bag complete with samples, brochures, order forms, “thank you” stickers and pencils. A little nervous but excited, I ventured out into my neighborhood on my very first day. To get some immediate success under my belt, I went to all of my friends' houses first. It was great because just about everybody I made my pitch to said, “yes.”

The only problem was after two days of making my rounds, I ran out of people I knew. It didn't take long to discover that knocking on the doors of complete strangers was not going to give me the same results. By the end of my first week, I was totally discouraged. Being the compassionate man that he was, my dad understood my disappointment. For him it must have felt like, “déjà vu all over again.” As a teenager in 1940’s Chicago, he had tried his hand at selling Saturday Evening Post newspapers to win prizes. But after hearing far too many “No thank you's" he decided that selling door-to-door wasn't for him. Like father, like son, I came to the same conclusion twenty years later. I never did win that Estes Saturn 5 model rocket, or any other catalog prize for that matter.

And since all of my supplies were shipped "on consignment," my parents wound up having to pay for everything I didn’t sell. It was a pretty humiliating experience, but  something good did come from it.  With all of those unsold packets of seeds still wrapped up in the original cardboard shipping box underneath my bed, I decided to plant a bunch of them in our backyard. To my astonishment, it wasn't long before all these little green shoots started poking up out of the ground! In spite of the fact that I wasn't very good at selling seeds, it turns out I was really good at making them grow.

I hated to admit it, but my older brother was a much better salesman than I was. While my dreams of owning a very cool model rocket ship went up in smoke, Dave actually sold enough seeds to win a Daisy BB rifle gun from the Burpee prize catalog. Our dad set up a target range in our backyard for us to hone our shooting skills. The range consisted of a dozen or so quarter-sized Neco candy wafers taped to a piece of cardboard. Not an easy target but if you hit one just right, it would shatter into a bunch of pieces. It was fun at first, but before long we tired of this sport. Shooting at still targets wasn't all that exciting, so we invented a new game that involved something much more interesting - shooting at moving ones.

My best friend Carl Stehle lived in a big, ranch-style house on a nursery tree farm owned by his parents. His backyard was deep and wide and filled with rows and rows of tall pine trees. We would take turns being "the target" and "the shooter." The target put a football helmet on his head and darted from tree to tree while the shooter aimed the rifle and pulled the trigger. The goal was to hear the "ping" sound of the BB shot as it ricocheted off the helmet. Once you got pinged, you were dead. Then it was your turn to shoot.

One Saturday morning after Carl's parents drove off to the racetrack in their beat-up Plymouth station wagon, we decided it was time to play the moving target game. Dave was the best shooter and so he had the gun in his hands most of the time. Carl and I had fun ducking and diving through the trees trying not to get hit. It was a little scary but fun at the same time. When the game was over, we played hide and seek. Dave was "it" so Carl and I scrambled off to find a good hiding place. After counting to "twenty-one thousand," Dave came looking for us carrying the rifle by his side.

He turned the corner of the house just in time to see me ducking down inside of a 3-foot-deep wooden utility chest in the carport carefully lowering the hinged lid above me. Dave thought he would scare the living daylights out of me by going to the opposite end of the chest and firing a shot through the small opening under the lid. What he didn't know was there was no empty space at the opposite end of the wood chest. Carl was actually hiding there. A split second after my brother fired the shot, a blood-curdling scream erupted. Carl came flying up out of the box heaving and convulsing his left eye covered with bloodstained hands.

Scared out of our minds, we all thought the worst. Carl would have to wear a patch for the rest of his life, and Dave would be sent to juvenile hall. Miraculously the shot struck Carl's brow just above his left eye. There was a lot of blood, but his eye was fine. It was quite a relief to know that my best friend wasn't going to lose his eyesight and my brother wasn't going to jail. After getting him cleaned up, bandaged and calmed down, we all agreed on the story we were going to tell his parents when they came home about twenty minutes later.

To Carl's understandably distraught mom, our story about him tripping and falling on a rock simply didn't make sense. After a series of questions, Carl finally confessed. "Dave shot me with his BB gun." Two minutes later, Mrs. Stehle was on the phone with my dad. It's incredible how something so good can go so bad so fast. My brother was banned from ever playing with us again, and the BB gun got bent in half over my father's knee. I learned at a very young age that guns can get you into a lot of trouble. I have never owned a gun in my life.

The summer of 1968 soon ended, and I began my final year of elementary school in September. The following June, I would graduate from sixth grade and go on to junior high. Three years after that, I would be a sophomore at the same high school where my dad was teaching. But it was 1968, and in 1968 things didn't turn out exactly the way they were supposed to. One Saturday morning, my parents sat me and my brother down at the kitchen table to tell us they loved us and they were getting a divorce. The bubble that had always been there to protect me from the harsh reality of the world outside suddenly burst. And just like that, life was very different.

Dad moved out into his own apartment. Mom started dating and eventually married the psychiatrist who had been my parents' marriage counselor for a few years. We sold our nice little house in the suburbs and moved to New Jersey.  Even though nobody died, it kind of felt that way. The only family I had ever known was gone.  We were one more casualty, the collateral damage of an invisible war, the inevitable consequence of all who got caught up in the crossfire of 1968.

Me, my brother Dave and my father, 1969

The year that had inflicted so much pain and suffering on so many would soon be over. In 1866, the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, “The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!” As if guided by the very hand of God himself, 1968 ended in extraordinary fashion. The crew of Apollo 8 emerged from the dark side of the moon on Christmas eve and began making preparations for the three-day 260,000-mile return to earth.  The first manned mission to orbit the moon was nearing completion.   

Space exploration in the Sixties, and even today, was extremely dangerous. Strapping three men to the top of a 360-foot-tall Saturn 5 rocket carrying a payload of 5.5 million pounds of fuel and oxidizer - a mixture of hi-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen that would produce the equivalent of two kilotons of TNT if it exploded - was very risky business. The Apollo program pushed man and machine beyond their limits. Every last detail had to be engineered and executed with microinch precision or the consequences could be catastrophic.

On January 27, 1967, the three-man crew of Apollo 1 was killed instantly by an explosion and fire inside their command module while sitting on the launch pad during a training exercise. As tragic as it was, we were in a space race with the Russians to get to the moon first. Losing was not an option. All subsequent Apollo flights were suborbital and unmanned. Apollo 8 was the first manned lunar mission since the Apollo 1 tragedy. On this historic night, lunar module pilot William Anders observed the spacecraft's trajectory as it flew a mere sixty miles above the surface of the moon.

Looking out through the narrow cockpit window, he marveled at how close the craters were as the gray lunar surface slipped by directly below. Then as their spaceship maneuvered up over the lunar horizon, out of the corner of his eye Anders caught a glimpse of something extraordinary never before seen by man. “Look at that. That's pretty darn incredible!” Immediately he called out to his crew.  “I need a roll of color film, quick!” (In 1968, most NASA mission photos were shot in black and white.)

The spacecraft was pitching starboard so there was precious little time before the image would disappear from view. Anders quickly loaded the color film pack into a Hasselblad camera, focused the 250mm Zeiss lens through the cockpit window and started shooting. With a few clicks of the shutter, he miraculously captured the breathtaking image of our blue planet rising up out of a sea of darkness above the stark lunar landscape. The iconic image later entitled, “Earthrise” forever changed the way we viewed our planet and ourselves.  “We set out to explore the moon,” Anders said in an interview years later, “and instead we discovered Earth.”

The photograph demonstrated just how small and fragile our planet is compared to the vast expanse of the universe. In response to this new world view, Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were both established by an act of Congress in 1970. The success of Apollo 8 paved the way for mankind's first steps on the lunar surface the following summer. Three days after my 12th birthday, on July 20th 1969, President Kennedy's bold proclamation to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade came to pass.

In just a few more days, 1968 mercifully came to an end. So many lives had been lost. So many dreams were shattered. Whether it was the resilience of the human spirit or simply the need to let go and move on, America was eager to shed the yoke of human suffering, hoping that a much better tomorrow was drawing near. In the weeks and months following their return to earth, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders received countless letters and telegrams from a grateful nation.  One message in particular stood out from all the rest. It simply said, “Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968.”    

"Earthrise" 1968