1968 - remember me to one who lives there
Dec. 7th, 2014 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
melliciousHere's my song for 1968:
This seemed especially apropos for 1968 because of the anti-war message snuck in between the lines: "generals order their soldiers to kill / and to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten" - but also because we sang the canticle version in choir, later on (I think that was in junior high) and because I just liked singing it. (The songs that are fun to sing aren't necessarily the same ones everybody wants to listen to. See: "Annie's Song")
In 1968, in third and fourth grade, we didn't have organized choir yet - that came the next year. I think I sang in whatever kids' choir we had in church, is all. But I do think that 1968 was the year I started taking piano lessons. My mother had taken piano lessons as a kid, and we had always had her piano - we carted it around on all those moves in the mid-60s - and at some point she had taught me the very basics. When I was 8 or so I started picking out melodies on my own and that was when she carted me off to a real piano teacher. I loved piano lessons from the start, unsurprisingly.
I suppose that like everywhere else, 1968 was when they desegregated the schools in my hometown, but interestingly, I do not remember anybody saying a single word about it. I just know that there was at least one black kid in my class in fourth grade, and I don't remember there being any before that. (There weren't many black people living there. Apparently there had been a KKK presence there, and I'm guessing it was probably still there in the 60s, but it had gone underground, apparently, because I certainly never saw anybody wearing white robes and I never even knew about there having been KKK there in the past until I was grown up.) I don't have much to say about it because I was was so totally unaware of it at the time. There was this black girl in my class and I liked her and I don't even remember it being a big deal. I'm sure it probably was for her, but I guess talking about it across racial lines was just another one of those things you didn't do back then. (There were lots of those, all up and down the line from the big things like discussing race, to smaller things like wearing pants to school. Girls had to wear dresses til several years after this.)
In the 60s, most people still watched the news at night. Actually you had to watch the news or not watch TV at all, because there were still only the three stations and they all had the news on at the same time. I'm not sure exactly when the fourth and fifth stations came along - some time in the early 70s, I think. Anyway, I remember watching them talk about the war on the evening news - probably it was Walter Cronkite, because he was the most popular - I don't know if I was 8 or 10 or exactly when I really became aware of it, but it was somewhere along in this period. They were pretty careful about what they showed, I'm sure, but it was intense enough to get my attention, I know that.
I've been talking in every entry for days about us moving, but I don't think we moved in 1968. We moved one more time, but I think that was in 1969 so I'll save that for tomorrow. It didn't involve switching towns again, anyway, so it wasn't as big of a deal. (And after that the next time I moved was when I left for college.)
This seemed especially apropos for 1968 because of the anti-war message snuck in between the lines: "generals order their soldiers to kill / and to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten" - but also because we sang the canticle version in choir, later on (I think that was in junior high) and because I just liked singing it. (The songs that are fun to sing aren't necessarily the same ones everybody wants to listen to. See: "Annie's Song")
In 1968, in third and fourth grade, we didn't have organized choir yet - that came the next year. I think I sang in whatever kids' choir we had in church, is all. But I do think that 1968 was the year I started taking piano lessons. My mother had taken piano lessons as a kid, and we had always had her piano - we carted it around on all those moves in the mid-60s - and at some point she had taught me the very basics. When I was 8 or so I started picking out melodies on my own and that was when she carted me off to a real piano teacher. I loved piano lessons from the start, unsurprisingly.
I suppose that like everywhere else, 1968 was when they desegregated the schools in my hometown, but interestingly, I do not remember anybody saying a single word about it. I just know that there was at least one black kid in my class in fourth grade, and I don't remember there being any before that. (There weren't many black people living there. Apparently there had been a KKK presence there, and I'm guessing it was probably still there in the 60s, but it had gone underground, apparently, because I certainly never saw anybody wearing white robes and I never even knew about there having been KKK there in the past until I was grown up.) I don't have much to say about it because I was was so totally unaware of it at the time. There was this black girl in my class and I liked her and I don't even remember it being a big deal. I'm sure it probably was for her, but I guess talking about it across racial lines was just another one of those things you didn't do back then. (There were lots of those, all up and down the line from the big things like discussing race, to smaller things like wearing pants to school. Girls had to wear dresses til several years after this.)
In the 60s, most people still watched the news at night. Actually you had to watch the news or not watch TV at all, because there were still only the three stations and they all had the news on at the same time. I'm not sure exactly when the fourth and fifth stations came along - some time in the early 70s, I think. Anyway, I remember watching them talk about the war on the evening news - probably it was Walter Cronkite, because he was the most popular - I don't know if I was 8 or 10 or exactly when I really became aware of it, but it was somewhere along in this period. They were pretty careful about what they showed, I'm sure, but it was intense enough to get my attention, I know that.
I've been talking in every entry for days about us moving, but I don't think we moved in 1968. We moved one more time, but I think that was in 1969 so I'll save that for tomorrow. It didn't involve switching towns again, anyway, so it wasn't as big of a deal. (And after that the next time I moved was when I left for college.)
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