Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
The Question of Time: What Was Life Like in 1963?
Bucky:
While I can't remember the 1960's clearly I do remember them especially 1968 and 1969. I can remember the political assasinations on television of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. I remember seeing on television the riots over Cambodia during the Vietnam War and when Nixon resigned as President and went back to California and when we evacuated from Vietnam in 1975.
There are many things I can remember that took place during Jack and Ennis' twenty year affair but I can safely say that I can remember things far better from 1973 until 1982 than I can from 1963 until about 1970. I was born in 1963 so I would have been just a small baby while they where herding sheep and falling in love on Brokeback Mountain. ;D
ZouBEini:
I don't recall 1963 very clearly as I would have been about four. Oddly enough, my first actual memory is the assassination of President Kennedy. I recall being in the back seat of the car, when the announcement came on the radio that JFK had been shot. I recall how frightened my mother and her sister-in-law were.
From my perspective, in those days everyone seemed old and dressed in baggy, dowdy clothing. As I think of it, some of those "old" people were in their mid- to late-20's!
When working in the yard (pulling weeds, working in the garden. etc.), my mother wore shorts slightly above the knee, but she always laid out a wrap-around skirt on the bed before she went outside. Her mother highly disapproved of females of any age wearing jeans or pants of any kind. When Mamaw would drive in, my mother would drop everything, dodge behind the bushes, run (and I mean she sprinted!) for the house to put on the wrap-around skirt. Then she would come out as if nothing had happened. Hmmm, she wasn't "out" about her wearing of shorts.
We lived in farm country (Indiana) and at that time, still had a crank phone on a party line, shared with at least three other households. "Two longs and two shorts" was our "number". Dial phones arrived pretty quickly, but my parents had a party line until around 1969 or '70. Nearby towns had phone numbers like KLondike 3 -1234, but we went from a crank phone to seven digit phone numbers. Until the regional phone operators were shut down, we could dial only the last four digits as long as we shared the same three digit prefix.
I've posted this at IMDb before, but long distance calling simply didn't happen. We were not without money, but "we can't call them" meant the person was long-distance. If someone who was long-distance needed to be phoned, my parents would call a family member or friend, who would pass the message to another person, and so forth, until the message reached the final recipient. If there was a response, the process was reversed until the message reached us.
The term "gay" meant "happy", and there was no discussion of homosexuality (or sex of any kind) in my school. Women who had children "out of wedlock" were basically shunned. Two unmarried men living together would have been the topic of much suspicious gossip within the community, and people would have openly stared at them in public. They most likely would have been confronted in public with (at least) angry rhetoric. Mailbox bashing was and still is common in that area. The men's vehicle would most likely have been "egged" and their trees toilet papered at the very least. Actually, I can still imagine those things happening today. Now I'm a bit depressed.
In 1986, while my new hubby shared my apartment (after my divorce from a female), we were called to the apartment rental office. The lady there told us two unrelated men weren't allowed to live in a one-bedroom apartment, that we would need to make other arrangements or one of us would have to move out. I denied any wrong-doing (I didn't/don't think our living together was wrong!) and I asked to see that specific regulation on my rental contract. Of course there was no such clause, and she reluctantly recanted.
~Larz
Front-Ranger:
Very interesting, Zoub! I also remember when President Kennedy was shot. I was at my locker in middle school, and Kirstie Alley (yes that one, she's from Wichita) came up to me and said, "Kennedy's been shot!" I was horrified, and it was because she said "Kennedy" without the "President" in front of it. Back in those days you didn't get to go home early from school because of a national tragedy, and there was no such thing as a lockdown. We just trudged on as normal.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 05, 2006, 04:29:50 pm ---I also remember when President Kennedy was shot. I was at my locker in middle school, and Kirstie Alley (yes that one, she's from Wichita) came up to me and said, "Kennedy's been shot!"
--- End quote ---
Interesting anecdote, F-R! Those of us who were cognizant then all remember when/where we heard the news, but you're the only person I know who got it from a celebrity! (Not including Walter Cronkite, of course.)
ZouBEini:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 05, 2006, 04:29:50 pm ---Very interesting, Zoub! I also remember when President Kennedy was shot. I was at my locker in middle school, and Kirstie Alley (yes that one, she's from Wichita) came up to me and said, "Kennedy's been shot!" I was horrified, and it was because she said "Kennedy" without the "President" in front of it. Back in those days you didn't get to go home early from school because of a national tragedy, and there was no such thing as a lockdown. We just trudged on as normal.
--- End quote ---
Sorry about the long rambling dissertation. Ugh.
For me, it was like the world stopped for a split second when JFK was shot. So many people can say where they were when he was assassinated. Just like with 9/11. I'm almost the same age as JFK Jr., and when he died I felt as if I had lost a friend, almost a brother. Kind of stupid to feel that way, but we had grown up together albeit in different "worlds".
I think it's very cool that you knew Kirstie Alley and that she's the one who gave you the news. Thanks for sharing!
~Larz
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