The Sixties, Wonder Years

Calumet Regional Archives volunteer Maurice Yancy came across his name and photo in my Sixties Steel Shavings (volume 25, 1996, subtitled "Social Trends and Racial Tensions"). On the inside of the front cover with the editor's note is a photo taken by Ray Smock showing me attending the 1967 March on the Pentagon with Professor Louis harlan and fellow grad students Pete Daniel and David Goldfield. I mentioned that the decade easily lends itself to stereotypes either in the form of Sixtophilia ("those were the days") or Sixtophobia ("there went standards"). As traumatic as that time was, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Whenever I came to the Sixties in my survey American History course, I'd pass volume 25 around (among the photos in it are of IU Northwest's first graduating class and Gary Mayor Richard Gordon Hatcher campaigning in 1967) and read an article former student Molly Harvey wrote that served as a prologue. She began: "Growing up, for a long time I wished I lived back in the 1960s, at least Hollywood's version of the "Age of Aquarius." My favorite TV shows were reruns of "Gidget" and "The Monkees." I wanted to be just like Gidget, and I'd fallen in love with Davey Jones. I used to turn on these shows and wish I were there in that funky, psychedelic dream world where everyone was free to do their own thing. I'd take out my mother's old high school yearbooks, reading them over and over and observing the fashions and styles. I'd listen to an oldies radio station that played soul music by the Shirelles and folk songs by Peter, Paul, and Mary. I loved the Beach Boys and Jimi Hendrix, especially his version of the National Anthem. I added such expressions as "groovy" and "far out" to my vocabulary.

Harvey continued, "After a while, I decided I wanted to be a hippie like the older sister, Karen, on "The Wonder Years." In my fantasy my name would be Sunshine, and I'd paint little peace signs on my face and go to Woodstock. Sometimes, in a more political mood, I'd put on my father's old dashiki and go around the house saying "Black Power! Black Power!" My mother would joke that God had made a mistake, that I'd been born in the wrong era.

Molly wrote, "When I started reading up on the decade, however, I discovered that real life then wasn't as carefree as I thought. There was an ugly side to it: violence, racism, generational confrontation, battles between the sexes. At one point I was so disillusioned that, to borrow a phrase from "Peanuts" creator Charles Schultz, I wondered, "Good grief, what was I thinking?" Of course through interviewing people I learned that despite its bizarre elements, some things remained normal. One thing for sure though, young people voiced their opinions as never before; and thankfully, minority groups demanded to be treated with respect. However one remembers those years, they left a unique and enduring legacy."

Molly let me use a photo on her parents Dennis and Sally (he is African American, she is white) to go along with the article. She graduated before volume 25 was published, but I wasn't able to track her down to give her a copy unfortunately.