Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Signs of the Times: A trip back to 1965 through my mother's eyes

In today's world many of our children's lives are chronicled and documented through the multi-billion dollar industry known as scrapbooking. When I was born you simply purchased a "baby book" and then filled in the lines. The book my mother Judy used is titled, All My Life. The information below is was transcribed from several pages from that book.

My mother's first words after my birth were, "It was supposed to be a girl! He has lots of black hair!" My father's were, "Hows Judy?" Although disappointing mom right from the start may not have been the best way to enter the world, it was the best I could do, and quite frankly I don't think I would have been a very good daughter, or wife. Luckily my sister Nicole arrived in November of 1969 and with the birth of her perfect child mom was able to forgive me, at least for the time being.

Within this book are my mother's notations of my early life as well as the events that occurred near the time of my arrival in 1965. It is now old and falling apart, but it still treasured, and I enjoy looking back to see how my mother saw the world back then.

Enjoy the trip!

The Headlines:
World - Trouble in Far Eastern Vietnam, Civil Rights Movement in Southern and Eastern States.
Local - Utah's local Democratic Party in Trouble with (Bad Boys) in Salt Lake County Government (A Grand Jury was called in May of 1965).

The President was Lyndon Baines Johnson
The Governor of Utah was Calvin L. Rampton
The Mayor of Salt Lake City was J. Bracken Lee
My father Michael T. Miller was a news reporter and photographer at KUTV Channel 2 (The book didn't ask about Mother's occupation).

Famous Names

In Entertainment were Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Peter O' Toole, Richard Burton.

In Sports were Don Schollander (4 Gold Medals), Utah State University All American, Wayne Estes, Craig Breedlove.

In World Events were Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Ralph Bunche.

Others of Note: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (assassinated 1964), Adlai Stevenson.

The Best Selling Book: Mary McCarthy's, "The Group".

Popular Songs were Downtown, King of the Road, Girl from Ipanema.

The Popular Dance was, The Surf, The Swim, The Watusi, The Pony Jerk, The Clam, The Frug.

The Fashions were: Short skirts, Ruffle or Tom Jones Blouses.

The Most Advanced Cars were Avanti, Barracuda, Corvette.

The Most advanced Home Appliances were Hair Dryers and Electric Knives.

Thanks Mom.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rob,
Hope you had a nice birthday yesterday.
I must be showing my age because I can remember some of the events that happened in 1965.
But as an Aggie, thanks for posting the Wayne Estes story. 40 years later and they still talk about him in Logan. He is a legend as a great basketball player and as a person.

Anonymous said...

At first I discounted this post until I discovered your links.

Thanks for a fun trip back in history.