Summer of Love Revisited

Ugly street protests, demands for law and order, inflation, wars, COVID, constitutional crises—many believe the US has never encountered today’s threats to its existence.

Seriously? The country has weathered such storms before and survived. Are you old enough to remember the turbulent ‘60s?

The tranquil ‘50s of “Ike,” hula hoops, “The Honeymooners” and “Howdy Doody” got a rude awakening with the civil rights movement, Vietnam, marijuana, women’s lib, Woodstock and a restless college Baby Boomer Generation. The 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles resulted in 34 deaths and spawned a revolution. The 1967 “Summer Of Love” witnessed similar deadly uprisings — 43 in Detroit, 26 in Newark, with millions in property destruction.

Racial and economic inequality were worsened with the Vietnam “Conflict,” which took a disproportionate number of non-college males drafted for a rich man’s battle, but poor man’s fight.  In the ‘68 Tet Offensive, US deaths surpassed 500 a week, leading LBJ to refuse to run for re-election after winning 1964 by landslide. “The Green Berets” were out, “Platoon” and “Apocalypse Now” were in.

In the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, all hell broke loose. Protesters and rioters chanted “the whole world is watching.” Richard Nixon, exhumed from his political graveyard, promised a “secret” plan for ending the war by “Peace With Honor,” whatever that meant. His “Silent Majority” was the forerunner for Reagan’s ‘80s MAGA agenda.

Assassinations? No decade can touch the ‘60s with JFK, MLK, RFK, and the crippling of arch-segregationist George Wallace, the last third-party candidate to win electoral votes. The hatred in our midst was intense.

A college student myself at the time, I remember seeking advice from elders we now call “The Greatest Generation,” then in their 40s and 50s. I inquired if they had ever witnessed such incendiary rhetoric and violence.

Their response?  “Kid, you didn’t live through the Great Depression and World War II.” Think of it. The former had at its height (or depth) 25% unemployment and another 25% underemployment. The latter killed over 400,000 Americans and 70 to 85 million worldwide. Different times, different perspectives.

There was one area the ‘60s had it all over past and present. The music of the era—Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, Supremes, Temptations, etc — will still be groovin’ when Generation Z tells their grandkids about surviving life in the second “Roaring ‘20s”/ “Summer Of Love.”

Rock on, America.

ED ENGLER, Sebring, Fla.