Just heard this on my truck radio. Been decades since I last heard it. Brought back some foggy memories of 1969. Beer, weed and being baked and horny most of the time. It was 2 years since I'd escaped from Ricks and I was a broadcasting/journalism student at Mount Royal College (now MRU) in Calgary. I was in full hippie mode then with a mustache (still have it) and shoulder length hair. What were y'all doing in '69 (if you were even alive then)?

RB

Waiting for my parents to perform 69 so I could get here! I guess 69 wouldn't actually get me here, but...never mind. :/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2016 04:38PM by Elders Quorum Drop-out.

I turned 16, got my drivers license. Had my first kiss.

In 69 I was listening to Simon and Garfunkle, Three Dog Night, and the Mommas & the Papas. Sonny & Cher were big, Ed Sullivan, Kojak, and Gilligan's Island with Mary Ann. I even remember Have Gun - Will Travel re-runs, Rawhide, Sea Hunt, Mighty Mouse, and of course The Graduate. Seen that one a few times at the drive in.

There must have been a lot of us watching 'The Graduate' at a drive-in. That's where I saw it, too. While working full time and going to college full time. It was a pretty full time.

I can't imagine doing all of that, now.

In 1969, I was in college at a state university. Things were different back then. For example, today many university campuses are tobacco free, with smoking prohibited not only in dorms and academic buildings, but also in outdoor areas on campus.

In 1969, the university where I was a student supplied each desk in the dorm rooms with an ashtray, and ashtrays were on the tables in the dining halls for students who wished to have a cigarette at the conclusion of a meal.

Ironic that Kenny Rogers was the hippie artist & then switched to Cowboy dude.

Now I'll have that song stuck in my head all night.

I was ten years old in 1969, and my flirtation with the hippy scene was nothing more than a pair of bell bottom blue jeans in my wardrobe. A young woman stayed with us (around that time,) my mom brought home from the radio station she worked at in town who hailed from Chicago. Carol was very into the modern movement of the day, but was polite and respectful in our home. She was a college student working the summer there with some not-for-profit and my mom let her stay with us. She was awesome. I shared my bedroom with her during her stay, it was like having a big sister that summer staying with us. Since all I had were brothers growing up, I didn't mind at all. :))

Carol sewed a colorful border on the hem of those bell bottoms that I thought was radical at the time. They quickly became the most favorite pair of pants that I owned.

I was also 10 in 1969. Not yet a mormon, just an only child living in poverty with a single mom in a tiny town in upstate (OK it was upstate to me!) NY.

My family was poor too, as I recall. Mom had to work, dad did seasonal construction during those years.

Mom had an interesting job at the radio station. I remember when Carol and one or two of her colleagues were being interviewed on live radio broadcast for whatever it was they were there for, they were kind of a sensation in our little Mormon community because they sounded a lot like Communists lol. (Maybe they were?)

It didn't matter to me. It was like bringing a part of the real big world into our little home. As a child I loved reading stories of children growing up in NYC and faraway places. It was part of my escape mode from where I lived as a child.

You were close to Woodstock where it all began (1969.) I'm really rather glad that was before my time. I might not have survived the 60's. I feel fortunate to have survived the 70's.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2016 08:37PM by Amyjo.

Moved away from home, lost my virginity (Ellie, where are you now?), got stoned for the first time (not the last), rode a motorcycle in the dark into the side of a barn, got the clap, read Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Sartre, Camus, Kafka, Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, William S Burroughs, Ken Kesey et al. Fell in love (Gwen, where are you now?) Listened to Cream, Led Zep, Jeff Beck, Joe Cocker, Sly Stone, Crosby Stills & Nash, and a hundred other bands for the first time. Saw Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Ten Years After, Canned Heat, Neil Young and several other groups live in concert for the first time. Fell in love (Lesley, where are you now?) Saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" for the first time. Went to a screening of experimental films that included a curious little flick by a student filmmaker by the name of George Lucas. Went waterskiing and sailing for the first times. Studied political science while sitting at the foot of Lincoln's statue at the Lincoln Memorial. Testified before a Congressional committee. Went to several states for the first time: Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, West Virginia. Hitchhiked probably a thousand miles or so.

So, nothing out of the ordinary. Just your basic typical boring year.

Thank you for the slide show!

I didn't enjoy education until I went to university. You didn't have to listen to the professor repeating things a dozen times so the dummies could keep up. There WEREN'T very many dummies. Learning became a joy.

Got drunk - VERY drunk - for the first time with the result of my first, and WORST - hangover. Being a quick learner, I figured that this was not something I cared to pursue.

I was far enough away from home that my mother could safely be ignored most of the time, and I could pay for school with survivor's benefits from my deceased father from both the VA and Social Security.

My roommate and I were both Spanish majors, so we had a lot of classes together, and were competitive as hell. We were usually nose-to-nose gradewise, and generally left the rest of the class in the dust. Our professors loved us.

We raised enough hell to round out a good college experience, but not enough to get in jail for anything. And we both drove Honda scooters!

It was one of the best times of my life. I have often wondered if I should have stayed in Academia. It seemed like a good fit.

And oh, yeah - there was time for riots, marches, protests and sit-ins, too. A good, well-rounded curriculum.

"It was a very good year."

I moved to Provo, UT and got a job instead of staying in college. Why? Because my fiance decided he just "had" to go on a mission 3 months before the wedding was to take place. I decided to drop out of college and work to save a bunch of money for when he got back. What a silly, naive idea that was.

I signed up for night classes at BYU but it was futile because I knew I wasn't headed for any kind of degree but Mrs.

Back in those days, we could call our missionaries whenever we wanted to and so there were monthly (at least) phone calls back and forth.

I watched the moon landing on a tiny black and white tube TV in a Manhattan apartment. Later that year I turned twelve in Pennsylvania, and that was the age I was when I figured out the Book of Mormon hoax. I was dissatisfied with the way my life was going and I read a lot of books. I tried to talk to my father about it, and he turned his back on me forever.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2016 06:07PM by donbagley.

Same here--watched the moon landing and walk that July on TV at age 12. The scene where Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon surface was a memory of a lifetime.

I didn't know anything about Woodstock until some years later.

I saw Buzz Aldrin in person at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in May 2015 and got my copy of his book autographed. It drew a big crowd. My sister and I were among the first 10 into the door that morning and were able to sit down in front row seats to listen to him and his co-author discuss the book.

Correction: May 2013, not May 2015.

Buzz Aldrin's book was entitled MISSION TO MARS: MY VISION FOR SPACE EXPLORATION.

Everyone knows that the moon landing was faked. Armstrong & Aldrin
"landed" on a set in southern Utah. If they really would have landed on the moon, they would've met 6 foot tall Quakers that live there.

I shot a hippie.

They cut the barbed wire and drove into the pasture. Cows got out. I went looking for the break in the fence. Found the hippies.

Why they argued with a cowboy wearing a six gun I'll never understand.

Anyway, I ordered them off the land. Guy got ornery and walked up to me in a threatening way. I was young and nervouse.

Pulled the revolver. Cocked the hammer and promptly squeezed the trigger all in one move.

Shot went right in his foot.

They piled in their scooby do van and drove off.

The sheriff said I showed commendable restraint.

I never did confess it was accidental.

Lloyd damn me if that wasn't a great story!

I don't like that it sounds like a complaint... 1969 was probably the most boring year of my life. I'd gotten married in May of 1968, at the Y. We were expecting our first baby in May of 1969, and she arrived on time. I was attending the Y year round, and working nights at Mr. Steak, and was the EQP at Lakeview ward, out by Utah Lake. Busy, busy, boring, busy...

But there was the draft! I passed my draft physical and got my draft notice, but appealed and stalled it long enough to have the first draft physical save my Lloyd-damned butt.

Two worst years of school. When someone above said they watched the moon landing, it brought back memories of watching it with my dad on our black and white TV in the front room. We'd get ready for school with our older brother playing The Doors.

I was also 12 and remember the overly-sheltered me asking Mom what "making out" meant, as kids at school were talking about two of my classmates who had reportedly been doing that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2016 06:31PM by seekyr.

I was 16. My boyfriend had a red Corvette.

Funny thing. My husband has a red 69 Corvette. I spent the day at a car show with him. He has what the Corvette junkies call the Holy Grail.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2016 08:16PM by madalice.

Good times!

Slc..concert at the terrace ballroon. Weed everywhere.
Watched a little known band called "the Ike and Tina Turner Review "
Tina was wearing a see thru knit top.

Boing

I was five. My main interests then were fingerpainting, ring-around-the-rosie, and Kraft macaroni and cheese.

1969 is really hazy. I found my first Playboy and spent MANY hours, days, weeks in the bathroom. I also had my first girl friend who was really a wonderful friend who happened to be a girl. The Boner.

I bought my first Playboy at the gift shop at the Little America hotel in downtown SLC in December of '63 while mom and dad were out shopping. I used it for it's intended purpose and hid it in my suitcase.

RB

The issue I had was, "The Girls of Texas." This was long before the term "Daisy Dukes" would enter the lexicon. The issue had cutoff jeans, pearl snap button shirts undone, cowboy hats, and beautiful women! Then, I joined the Morg and did my best not to think f such devilish things!

Returned to college with a fat disability check (thanks to some guy who was a better marksman than me) and proceeded to waste the next ten years of my life, and a lot of brain cells as well. I did, however, manage to get my degree--my B.A.--my "Bachelor of Alcoholism."


And yes, I remember all the bands the rest of you old farts do.

Oh boy! That took me back. What was I doing in 1969? I was busy raising three kids under five, like a good Mormon wife, doing several "callings." We were living in Orange Co, CA in our first house, (which was great), with one car which Leon took to work, in Newport Beach, or I drove him and picked him up. Leon had graduated from BYU and was working at a decent job as an electrical engineer. We bought our first 1966 red Datsum, SSS, RL11, Roadster Engine, four on the floor. Great fun to drive. This is where the term: "Datsun turns" came from as Leon loved to take people for a ride in the hills and scare them silly!

I had a new '69 Nova SS so life was good. My old man couldn't believe how fast I could go through a set of tires.

Yep. Polyglass tires. My first car was a 69 Chevelle SS396 (in 1975). Just what every 16 year old kid needs. Upgraded stock wheels for some Cragar SS's & 60 series tires. Still can smell that rubber burning. Good thing premium gas was .36 cents a gallon.

StillAnon
I don't know what kind of tires I had except that they were white walls on my first car - a 1955 Plymouth Savoy 3 on the tree, "old ladies car" as the hot roders said! Hubby eventually "killed it" -- he had a 1956 Ford dual glass packs - real man's car! But he couldn't keep it!
Ahh.. early marriage!!

I bought it new in '69. Midnight blue with a white top. Fast. (I sold it in '75 and bought a '75 Monte Carlo that was so damn gutless I was afraid I'd get rear ended.)

That same year my boyfriend of 5 years got married. Two weeks later, he called to say he'd made a mistake. I wanted to watch the moon landing but instead went to meet him on a country road.

Wish I knew then what I know now.

Neither I nor my parents were yet born. My grandparents were courting. On the occasion of the Apollo moon landing, my grandmother records that church was cancelled so that everyone could go home and watch it.

I guess you haven't seen the big lebowski.

"Fuck it Dude, let's go bowling."
-Walter Sobchak

Shut the fuck up, Donny.

Obviously, you're not a golfer.

In 1969, I was wasting time in Torino, Cagliari (Sardinia), and Milano preaching the "Gospel." Quite successfully, too. I had thrown myself into the work after learning that my long-time girlfriend was shagging a couple of guys at BYU, all while writing me letters with names she wanted to give our many kids when we got married. It's times like that when you see how she was doing the correct thing, that which young people are supposed to do, and I was doing the unnatural and stupid act of being "chaste."

3rd grade; grades suddenly in the crapper; parents wondering/worrying about what happened to me until we learned I was near-sighted and couldn't see the chalkboard from the back of the classroom. With my vision restored, I resumed my status as the annoying kid who raised his hand for all of the teacher's questions.

Yes, I was beat up a lot as a kid. Fond memories. ;) Thanks, LR.

I was in 5th grade, living in SoCal after my family escaped SLC three years earlier. When we'd go visit family in SLC, relatives would all chide my TBM mom for letting us kids "go all hippie" (we had normal length hair for SoCal).

I learned to ride motorcycles that year. My dad had a Yamaha 250, and he bought me a little 50cc minibike that I loved. You couldn't get me off it!

We were trying to be Mormon.....to get our daughter blessed. But DH & I had a big fight that Sunday morning......so it was postponed a month. I think it was all about pleasing his parents. And he was being a jerk. I called him a Son of a B and the shi hit the fan.

Anyway, we finally stopped the Mormon nonsense & our married & family life was good.

We were BYU grads.........but never married in their temple.

I remember the moon landing........with a two year old & a preemie.

AND it was about this same time we found a lil fun with special brownies etc.

OH the memories....

Exmo-K Tutu

1969? The year started out with the deadly Ventura County flood, then the Santa Barbara oil spill (third largest in US history); on the plus side, at school I had a crush on Cindy V. (still do!). Having older brothers meant that the record player had Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Doors, Beatles, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Bill Cosby comedy, and Frank Zappa./ Oldest brother came back from Vietnam and transitioned from West Point grad to anti-war protester.
Psychedelic was everywhere, from the sets on 'Laugh-In' and 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' to florescent optical art things I could order from Edmunds Scientific.

By the time summer rolled around and we'd finished up the harvest I got such a horrible sunburn at the local swimming hole that I was awake 24 hours smelling of Noxema that my mom had smeared on me and watched every single second of the moon landing coverage; having the TV broadcast all night was a first for me.

That's just off the top of my head. In the intervening times I used much of my paper route money buying Revell, Monogram, and Hawk plastic kits; any guys remember the Revell Supersonic Clipper?
http://www.fantastic-plastic.com/RevellBoeingSSTPanAm%20BOX%20ART.jpg

I too was a plastic model builder. AMT was my fave. Built the "big" models from Monogram too.

I was baptized in 1969. I listened to a lot of Beatles too......not while getting baptized.

I was eleven going on twelve in 1969. Wonderful summer spent playing baseball and riding bicycles everywhere. I listened to a lot of radio and seem to remember "Lay Lady Lay" was a big hit in the summer of '69. Sadly, so was "In the Year 2525".
I remember very clearly going into the backyard that Sunday night in July and looking up at the moon with humans on it. What a fantastic night in history!
Also, my brother left to go to college in Tucson and I was able to move into the "big" bedroom. He later took me to my first big-time football game that fall and I've been a Wildcat fan ever since.
For me 1969 was one of the best years of my life.

Are you me? My story except I don't have an older brother.

Best year of my life as well.

I think being 12 in 1969 was the year I had both the least amount of responsibility and the greatest amount of freedom.

It was a great time. No real responsibilities. Nothing but fun!

I started out 1969 at age 14. My dad was in the Navy stationed at NAS Dallas TX and we lived in Arlington. We were not Mormon, I barely knew what one was. I was a true-blue teeny bopper, huge Monkees fan (still am!), and my life was all about hanging out with my best friend, finishing up Jr. High, listening to records, watching TV, and being the oldest of 6, helping my mom out with my siblings and around the house. A major life goal for me was to have the perfect arrangement of Tiger Beat pictures on my bedroom wall.

In June my dad was transferred to Davisville, Rhode Island and that was a major upheaval in my life, from Texas to New England, although I came to love the beauty of that part of the country. We lived in the enlisted man's Navy housing in Quonset Point, which was basically concrete block row homes. I remember watching the moon walk on TV with my family. I turned 15 in July, started school in September, and made some new best friends. Some favorite songs from that year were Sweet Caroline, Hair, Hooked on a Feelin', and a song I blast on the radio to this day, Build Me Up Buttercup.

I was in my second year at Secondary School, I was 11/12.

Listening to Radio Luxembourg as Radio Caroline (North and South) had been closed down the previous year.

Learning how to master bait (knowing I'd Sunday be a fisherman), at 9 (months). In The Summer Of 69



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2016 05:04PM by moremany.

-- and I was thirteen in 1996...


Most of you guys are boomers it seems



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2016 06:37PM by anybody.

Graduated High School in 1969.

It's been downhill ever since.

Thanks for all the wonderful posts....put a smile on my face a couple times. Might have to fire up the bong and let the good times roll tonight!

RB

Viet Nam

I was born in December 1970, so I'm guessing I had just been shot out of daddy's ball sack about that time.