On this day in 1968

1968 was a remarkable year.
In Europe, it included the Prague Spring and "les evenements de Mai".
In America, there were student protests about the war In Vietnam, two historic assassinations, violence at the Democrat Convention, the first victory of Richard Nixon.
The year was not far advanced before I was beginning to think "Good grief, this is 1848 all over again."
(You really have to be a student of history to get that reaction. Somebody else can do the 1848 thread.)
So I am offering this thread to mark the various 50-year anniversaries as they come up.

I should have thought of it earlier. Things have already started happening in January.

In Czechoslovakia, Antonin Novotny has been removed as First Secretary of the Communist party, though he remains President of the Republic.
The Spectator's reaction is more prescient than most people realised at the time;

The downfall of this odious figure is not only a cause for rejoicing in itself—it might very well become the most important turning-point in Czechoslovakia's tragic postwar history, perhaps even in that of Eastern Europe as a whole. Yet, curiously enough, it does not seem to have evoked much more interest in the West than the recent coup in Dahomey.

The North Koreans have seized the U.S. Navy boat Pueblo.
The Americans have announced their intention to place an "inconspicuous" barrier across the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.

Governments worry about their economies.
President Johnson urges American tourists not to go abroad this year, to help relieve the balance-of-payments crisis.
In England, five typists from Surbiton volunteer to work longer without extra pay, thus founding the brief enthusiasm of the self-sacrificial "I'm backing Britain" movement. Union leaders disapprove.

The former Vice-President, Richard Nixon, is named "Good Scout of the year" and receives a silver statuette.

All this information, including Richard Nixon being a Good Scout, comes from the Spectator online archive.
archive.spectator.co.uk...

1968, to me, has always seemed to be one of those years where things just teetered on the edge of a cliff, getting pulled back at the last moment. Kinda like now.

When I think of 1968, in my mind it's always punctuated by two events, it starts with The Tet Offensive, and ends with Apollo 8, and the entire world staring, with open-mouthed wonder, at the first broadcast of an Earth-rise, as seen from space.

It's just one of those nexus years where every day something happened that had a significant impact on every day that followed, for all time.

a reply to: DISRAELI


Ummm...1968...

I was at summer camp...it was an idyllic summer...a summer of firsts...

I learned to play the bongo drum there...had my first taste of shark and sword fish...watched Herbie the luv bug...
I learned to canoe...stayed up all night to watch the moon landing and walked outside to stare up at Luna...thinking how I’d like to one day place my own footprints in the dust of another world...

I remember there was one morning that thousands of tiny frogs were everywhere...we caught them by the jars full...only to set them free again...

The most memorable and perhaps significant aspect of that long ago summer...was loosing innocence at the behest and hands of a young black girl from New York City...
There was a tool shed that we would sneak into...I remember being afraid...I remember thinking how much saltier she tasted down there than...?
Not bad...just saltier...

I was eight in that summer of 1968...all these years later...with those many decades now fled...each moment is with me still...is alive within...calls me back from time to time...
I puzzled over that flavor of salt for many years...how did I know...?

But that’s a story for another time...another place...

For a moment I was eight years old again...where the sun and experience burned much more than skin...where a shy boy burned bright...alight with more than he should have been...consumed by what was...

That was my 1968...







YouSir

was on uncle sams all expense paid tour of s.e asia in 68 .
uncle sammy sucks as a travel agent .

originally posted by: VengefulGhost
was on uncle sams all expense paid tour of s.e asia in 68 .
uncle sammy sucks as a travel agent .

Holy crap...
Then let me extend to you my sincere and never-ending thanks and respect, my friend, for your service. My grandfather was among the first Marines who landed on Okinawa at the end of the Second World War, and his stories could always chill my blood. What outfit were you with?

a reply to: DISRAELI
I remember the Prague Spring because a Czech family had just moved into our neighborhood, having fled their homeland. The son was my age and was very worried about parts of his family who were still there.
I was a teenager in Nashville so life was all about Civil Rights and Anti-War marches.

Doesn't seem like all that could have been 50 years ago.
Some of those events left impressions on me.

The disbelief and sadness over MLK.
And then the horror of RFK.....I can remember clearly how warm the weather was that day....my mother telling me the news, as she got up early to get my dad off to work.

Then...the Moon Landing, which I boycotted at my house.
Deciding that listening to The Doors and Jimi Hendrix, rebel that I was back then.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe
Wasn't the moon landing the next summer? In '69?

a reply to: diggindirt
I'm glad people are coming in with extra memories and details.
That's exactly what we need, for a full story.

originally posted by: VengefulGhost
was on uncle sams all expense paid tour of s.e asia in 68 .
uncle sammy sucks as a travel agent .

Then you will know the TET offensive is coming up any moment now. Were you there already?

originally posted by: diggindirt
I remember the Prague Spring because a Czech family had just moved into our neighborhood, having fled their homeland.

Two or three years before 1968, a party from my school went on a school trip to Czechoslovakia.
On their return, our French teacher reported back to the class that a man had come up to him and remarked "I am a Czech- and ashamed of it". He was startled that the man should take such an unnecessary risk.

a reply to: DISRAELI
That young Czech man went to college, became an engineer, got married, worked for a few years and decided to become a US Marine. He served for over 30 years, active and reserve. Having traveled all over the world, he's now retired and back in the neighborhood.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
Two or three years before 1968, a party from my school went on a school trip to Czechoslovakia.
On their return, our French teacher reported back to the class that a man had come up to him and remarked "I am a Czech- and ashamed of it". He was startled that the man should take such an unnecessary risk.

Something has only just occurred to me. I've always assumed that this comment was made in English. However, it strikes me now that the teacher might have been getting round Prague on his knowledge of German, which he also taught.
If the man had said "Ich bin ein...", it would have been a bitter parody of Kennedy's famous declaration.

Half a century... Goodness, time flies, doesn't it?

I was 4. Capt. Kangaroo was about as deep as I got... Vietnam was just a bunch of pictures on a black and white TV. Even the Moon Landing was still a year, or so away.

a reply to: seagull
It goes faster as you get older.
Your next fifty years will just flash by.

originally posted by: diggindirt
a reply to: DontTreadOnMe
Wasn't the moon landing the next summer? In '69?

Ummm...Yessir...your right...I misremembered...

I am a September child...so my being eight during that summer that I spoke of above would have made it 1969...(sorry everybody)

However...uncannily "the summer of 69" would have fit my tale much more succinctly...

Thanks for the reminder...



YouSir

a reply to: diggindirt

Yep.

NASA's glory days. When we thought that the sky truly was the limit. I still think that, but sometimes doubt we'll ever grow up enough to get there...

a reply to: seagull
Yep, we were sure we'd have flying cars by the turn of the century at the latest. I remember sitting in science class and listening to an explanation of a possible "Magnetic Car" that was being tested. Blew me away!

Still waiting...

I'm still having a bit of an issue with accepting the "50 years ago" part of this thread. So much of that year is so clear in my mind. That was the year of grief, national and personal. But in January our family was full of joy as we celebrated my older brother's wedding to the only woman he'd ever given a second look. We also celebrated him being declared 4F when he went for his military exam. (His glasses were coke bottles.)

The cars were cool that year!

Was a very good year as far as I am concerned

a reply to: diggindirt

Oh, that whole 50 years things got me, too... When the Hell did that happen??