On Being Born in the '60's Now That I'm 50

As of today I have been alive for 50 years. That's 18,262 days or, as one of my student's reminded me, "that's half of 100!" I am a child in the sixties, those turbulent, unsettling, marvelous days of progress. My '60s childhood was more reminiscent of Father Knows Best and Donna Reed than of the Flower Power Beatlemania bohemian lifestyle. I have no first hand knowledge of the early days of the Vietnam War, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, or President Kennedy's assassination. I didn't know about church bombings in the South or the Freedom Riders. All I knew was what went on in my little world in the middle part of the United States.

I was born 5 days after Alan Shepard made his first sub-orbital flight. Kennedy made his "we will go to the moon" speech 3 months later. The United States was smack-dab in the middle of the Cold War and it was important that we beat them in the space race. Ultimately, it was to develop and maintain a technological base for the future. Politically it was, of course, to secure our superiority as a nation. In my baby book my mother wrote a message to me just a few months after I was born. It spoke of her hopes and dreams for me and reflected the uneasiness of the times. Much of what people worried about back then never happened. More of what they could possibly dream of or imagine has.

My earliest memory is of a cargo net strung across the roof of my dad's car. I don't know why I can remember it or how old I was but I still have a very clear picture of that net. I remember walking with my sister, and the neighbor boys, Larry and Dennis, three blocks to Mr. Pechin's store. I also remember getting in trouble because we did. I remember sticking beans in my ears and having my mom run me next door to a neighbor to have her fish them out.

I remember tornado warnings- or at least what we did during a warning. Because we had no basement in our house on Green we would load up our dogs and the family across the street and drive a couple of miles to grandma's and camp in her basement until the all clear was sounded. One of those warnings was on the night of my fourth birthday! I don't think there was ever any near danger during those tornado runs. However, in September of 1965, the weekend we moved into our house on Edgemoor with a basement, a tornado went directly over our house and destroyed the neighborhood two blocks away. Where were we? Upstairs.

There are two plane crashes etched in my memory. On a Saturday morning in January of 1965, a fully loaded jet fuel tanker faltered just after take-off from McConnell AFB. The pilot attempted to turn the plane around to return to the base but continued to lose altitude. As the plane turned it flew over our house on Green at a very low altitude making a disturbing amount of noise that rattled the windows. Now, my memory varies from my mother's at this point. As I remember it, we were eating pancakes at the breakfast table. I wasn't eating mine. When the plane flew over, my parents went to the backyard to see what was happening. I couldn't go because I hadn't eaten my pancakes. My mother says that they did go outside but that we weren't eating pancakes and I wasn't being naughty. I stick with my story. Anyhow, the tanker crashed a half mile away near 21st and Piatt. Thirty people were killed and 10 homes were destroyed.

The second plane crash wasn't in the '60s. On October 2, 1970 I came home from school on my green Schwinn and learned that the Martin 4-0-4 aircraft carrying the Gold team of the WSU Shockers Football team had crashed on a mountain in Colorado. It was a Friday and I had piano lessons so I took my little transistor radio, tuned into KFH, and listened to Gus Grieve as I rode my bike to Mrs. Middleton's. When I got there, she was crying but we went on with the lesson. I learned later that the parent's of one of her students were on the plane that had crashed and had been killed. Thirty-one people died on the side of Mt. Trelease that afternoon. Two students from Murdock Elementary, my school, were also orphaned. I remain interested in this tragedy and wish that someone would write a book about it. Maybe that someone will be me.

Now that I'm 50, I enjoy music from the '60s. When I was a kid, I don't recall listening to the Beatles, Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones and others. When I was 7 we joined First Bible Baptist Church. Now, don't get me wrong, I loved my church and it was a great place for a kid to grow up. But, being a Baptist church, they sort of indoctrinated me. I thought rock and roll was the Devil's music! People who listened to "the Rock of Wichita-KEYN" must be horrible sinners who smoked pot and hung out in disreputable places. And of course, you didn't wear mini-skirts or other mod clothing. I did have a pair of white go-go boots that Aunt Cheryl gave me and I loved "These Boots Were Made For Walkin'". I even won a twist contest at the Rec Center one Tuesday night. I guess those songs weren't as sinful.

In the '60s I was faintly aware of the Civil Rights movement and of course as I got older I became familiar with prejudice. My parents bought their first house in the northeast part of Wichita. 2613 N. Green. The neighborhood was home to young post-war families, and was mostly, if not completely, white. Around 1963 an epidemic of white flight began. In my neighborhood it was because a black congregation had purchased a church nearby. Realtors started going door to door warning residents that they'd better sell now before their property values went down. Neighborhood grocery stores were bombed and one by one, houses went on the market. And, one by one, house went back to the bank. I have a memory of walking to the school playground with my dad and seeing all the boarded up houses. Eventually, in 1965, my parents left the neighborhood too. They sold their house on an FHA loan. When the buyer reneged, they house came back to them and eventually, back to the bank. My school, Murdock, was slightly integrated. At that time, black parents could enroll their children in schools outside of their neighborhood if they so desired. One of my best friends in Kindergarten was Sonja. Sonja's mom would never let her come to my house to play but she did come to my birthday parties. Later, my best friend was Karen. I went to her house to play and she came to mine. I don't know how Karen and Sonja felt or what their memories are but to me, they were my friends and my parents did nothing to discourage it. I think that's partly why I bristle so when a parent or a child calls me racist. They don't know me, they don't know my background and they don't know how I think or feel.

There is so much more and I really haven't revealed any deep thoughts here. These are just my memories. I was a child in the '60s, not of the '60s. I grew up in the '70s, still sheltered and a little naive, but that's another story. I was fortunate to have Christ-centered parents and to grow up in the church. I was blessed to have parents who were concerned about how I grew up and what I was exposed to. Today I stand amazed as I look back over the last 50 years and catalogue how much the world has changed, some for better, some for worse. The '60s laid a foundation for the world and for this little Kansas girl.