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Where were YOU
In The Summer of '69?
In the tumultuous decade of the sixties, 1969 stands out as the flaming crescendo of all the social, political, and economic forces that clashed during the previous 10 years.
The year was kick started in January, when Joe Namath made the outrageous prediction that his New York Jets, Champions of the fledgling American Football League, would defeat the NFL Champion Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. This was the current day version of David and Goliath, with the major difference being that this David wore sun glasses and madras swim trunks and lounged on Miami Beach in the days leading up to the big battle. A few days later the boast was fulfilled, and the entire sports world was reeling in a state of shock. Hindsight now reveals that this was merely an early warning that the world was changing and that perhaps this year, business as usual might not be the order of the day.
In July there was the Chappaquiddick tragedy, where Ted Kennedy forever dashed any hopes of being elected President when he drove off that narrow bridge, and a promising young lady named Mary Jo Kopechne lost her life.
Two days later, Neil Armstrong and crew
landed on the moon.
The Civil Rights movement was at fever pitch,
Viet Nam was going full bore with no end in sight as our country became more divided each day, over whether we should even be there, while politicians' sons stayed home and those with no political connections became cannon fodder.
In early August, the beautiful actress, Sharon Tate, and her unborn child were slaughtered by Charles Manson and his band of drug crazed lemmings.
Then Woodstock "happened" when 400,000 young people converged on Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York for four days in mid August, transforming a tranquil pasture into the
site of the most famous musical event of the Twentieth Century.
In October, The Amazin' Mets miraculously won their first World Series, led by their great reliever Tug McGraw, who coined
the famous phrase,
"You Gotta Believe".
The outrageous musical, "Hair" was performed by actors in the Nude, dancing to the rallying cry of the title song, "This Is The Dawning Of The Age Of Aquarius", which seemed to be a herald of more radical changes to come.
With all the tumult and change, much of it being played out in the evening news and echoed in the music, the fashion, and the generational clashes of the day, 1969 was a fascinating and challenging time to be young.
I was 19 years old and working construction as a brick mason's assistant in Auburn that summer. I learned how to pitch bricks, build scaffolding, walk the plank with a bucket of mud, cut concrete blocks to fit around copper plumbing pipes, and open a bottle of coke (or beer) with a wooden fold up measuring stick.
Our first job was the construction of the new Forestry Building on campus. But before completion, we had to shift to another job which had fallen behind schedule. This project took us to the roof top of a church in Centre, Alabama where the scorching July heat felt more like the pits of Hell than the roof of a Church.
We had to be on the job at 7 AM which meant leaving Auburn at 4:30 AM to make the 100+ mile drive in a rickety old van owned by one of the masons, Charlie, a Certified Alabama Red Neck, with the grammar and personal hygiene to prove it. We would get off work at 4 PM, and get back home by 7, unless Charlie wanted to stop at the Coosa River to fish a little, or "wrassle" if the fish weren't biting.
Either way, we got home just in time to clean up, which was a major ordeal, scraping dried concrete off all surfaces and crevices of my body, including trying to blow a couple of jiggers of dust (from cutting concrete blocks with a masonry saw) out of my nostrils. If breathing concrete would kill you, I would have been dead over 40 years ago. By the time I cleaned up and found something to eat, it was almost time to get up again. I didn't have much of a social life that summer, although I did manage to get my nose broken the night before we landed on the moon. That's another story for another day.
One night, after getting home late and cleaning as much concrete as I could off my worn out, aching body, after drying off, I sat down on the edge of the bed, covered only by the towel around my waist. The bed felt soooo good, I decided to lie back just for a minute to rest before heading to the kitchen to break some bread. The next sound I heard was the honking of the horn on that rickety old van as Charlie and another cohort waited impatiently for me to get myself in gear. I was totally disoriented since, in my world, it was still the night before, I was virtually naked, and still hadn't eaten supper! How did tomorrow sneak up on me so quickly!
At the end of my construction job that summer, I decided that my future interests would be better served by applying myself to my studies when I returned to classes that fall, to ensure that I never had to depend on pitching bricks for a living again. I hope my ramblings have stirred up some memories of your youth, and I hope yours are as fond as mine.
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