1968 and Me
The year 1968 saw many horrendous events take place. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The TV showed the killing of a man by a Vietnamese Officer with a gunshot to the head of a bound prisoner. 70,000 North Vietnamese troops took part in the Tet offensive which took the battle from the jungles to the cities. The USS...
A Decade With Jesse
Jesse lived through one of the most transforming, eventful and tumultuous decades in human history. This decade in its own unique way equals the far reaching political, social and cultural occurrences such as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. This decade Jesse lived through in the late twentieth century in the United...
A Vietnam Reflection
During my school years in Brooklyn, New York, my experience of other students broke down into three categories: friends, bullies, and other kids. At Saint Malachy grammar school, Eddie Coffee was one of the other kids. I remember Eddie as always smiling and having very dark, straight hair that rather glistened in the sun. Eddie seemed perpetually...
Coincidence?
Coincidence? The sixties for me was a time of stabilizing my personal life. In 1960, I was twenty-eight, newly married, a substitute teacher and looking for a permanent job. But some things happened that were newsworthy and I participated in them. I voted for the first Catholic President and waited on South Main Street in Waterbury at 2:00 AM for...
Draft Lottery Number One
The late 60's had no shortage of issues to attract attention. I often felt that when the 50's ended, a wave of awareness swept across the country and we could see so many of our shortcomings. Maybe it was the fear tactics of McCarthy or Kennedy's organized crime investigation or Kruschev promising to bury us or opening the heavens to space...
Experience of a Lifetime: Kirkland College
I went to a wonderful college in upstate New York. It was the sister school to a very prestigious men’s liberal arts college. It only survived 10 years but I always saw the men’s school as the poor little brother rather than the other way around. Kirkland College was a glorious experiment in education built by Hamilton College in 1968. It fostered...
Integration
I I lived in government projects in the north end during and after World War II. I used to walk to Woodrow Wilson School during Kindergarten (I think) and from grade 2 (1945) through grade 6 (1949) when my family moved to a house in the Fairlawn section of Waterbury’s east end. In grade 1 (1944), I attended a special reading class at Slocum School....
Kennedy Assassination
FoldUnfold Table of Contents Kennedy Assassination Revisit Another view I was in fifth grade in Arlington, Virginia. Our teacher had been called to the principal’s office. This seemed odd but not worrisome and I am certain that we expected her to return promptly because we did not take advantage of the lack of authority to wreak havoc. That...
May Day Demonstration 1971
FoldUnfold Table of Contents Protesting a War Nixon's Reflections on Talking with Protesters Protesting a War I would love to be able to claim that I was one of those arrested and herded off to the parking lots of D.C. Stadium (renamed RFK at some point) during the May Day demonstrations of 71 but I was actually one of those doing the...
Moon Landing July 20,1969
I spent all my Virginia summer days at the pool. I went to swim team practice in the morning. I spent the rest of the day, until afternoon practice, goofing off at the country club. My friends and I spent our hours in between practices exploring little places we were not supposed to go. We knew every corner of the lifeguard building which was off...
My First Date - 1968
I have assigned this topic to my OLLI class but I am struggling to remember my own first date. I know that I hungered for a first date, a first kiss, a first someone, some prince charming to notice me and I suspect that is the deepest desire of every teenager and perhaps of every ager. I do remember being asked to dances, probably in 8th grade but...
Osher Lifelong Learning in Waterbury, CT
Story Chip's commitment to creating an archive of our stories in a living, historical record has expanded into authoring curriculum designed to increase participation not only in Story Chip, but gathering history for other audiences. We are delighted to team with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute branch at the University of Connecticut campus...
The Beatles Concert 1
The first records I bought were 45 rpm vinyl with tunes from Buddy Holly's group, the Crickets. After the plane crash that took his life, I do not recall buying any other music until I started my collection of folk music, Peter Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Tim Hardin. When British pop music began to make its way into the American...
The Blizzard of 69'
When people say that a couple’s marriage got off to a stormy start, they usually mean it figuratively. In my wife Judy’s and my case, the meaning was much more literal. We married in Brooklyn, New York on February 1, 1969 and honeymooned in the Poconos. We traveled by air between New York and Pennsylvania and returned to Kennedy Airport on February...
The Night the Lights Went Out
1960s - The Night the City Went Black It was a mild evening for the ninth of November as I started my return trip from East New York to Queens. I had just finished the forty-five minute train ride from Thomas Edison High School in Jamaica. I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of leaving home again to repeat the journey. But that night I had a mission,...
The Ugly American
June 1962 We left the deep night on the long trip to Paris. Bud had made it home from the base at Rothweston just in the nick of time to catch the train which would take the GI wives to Paris and then south to Orly Airport. Only one day earlier there had been the 2nd worst aviation disaster in history, when a Boeing 707 chartered by the most...
Viet Nam War
FoldUnfold Table of Contents The Worst Lottery May Day 1971 I have four brothers. In 1968 that was a desperate situation. The Viet Nam War was raging and the draft was our greatest fear. Two of my brothers were draft bait, the others were too young for the draft for the near future. This time was one of deep deep disturbance. Madmen were...
Women's Rights
Paper Route It was 1965, I was 11 or 12. I had 2 older brothers who had saved a lot of money delivering papers and I wanted a piece of the action. My brothers were able to buy their own cars = freedom. I was getting $.25 allowance/week and no car was going to come out of that. I called our local paper “The Northern Virginia Sun” and told the man on...
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