If you were 15 or above at any point during the 1960s, questions

[Commander Kielbasa]

If you were 15 or above at any point during the 1960s, I have a few questions:

1) When is the first time/around what year you recall seeing long hair (meaning say chin length or longer) on a male who wasn't a celebrity or a rockstar? What were the reactions of both your peers and those of your parents and grandparents? What about when you yourself grew your hair long?

2) What were the views on Richard Nixon by people you know ranging from 18-65 prior to the bombing of Cambodia? Do you recall if any of your parents were 1968 Nixon voters? Were any here voters for Nixon in 1968 or 1972? Was anyone here "clean for Gene" in 1968 or anyone here a Humphrey supporter or whose parents supported Humphrey?

3) By the late 1960s, did "Greasers" still exist (as a separate subculture from bikers) or were they viewed as anachronisms of an earlier time at that point? Was there any animosity between say those in their late 20s/early 30s in the mid-late 1960s and those who were in their teens to early twenties?

4) Did your parents begin embracing any aspect of the '60s counterculture? If so, what and around when (and adding in their birth years would help out of curiosity)? For example, my grandfather sometime between 1969 and 1972 grew long sideburns and began wearing bellbottom slacks, and he turned 50 in 1970.

 

[LAFR]

I was born in '56; however, I had 2 older siblings, one born in '50 and the other in '47. By eldest brother had long hair in about '65 (when I was 9). My peers were in grade 4,so there was not much discussion. Many of them were the eldest in their families and were of Italian descent. By the time I was in grade 6-7, I, too, had long hair. My parents had already had to deal with my two older brothers over it.

I am Canadian so the Nixon thing is moot. I do recall the whole Vietnam thing happening as I had American family members and they were very vocal about it.

All the people I hung around with and saw coming and going to see my brothers were just long hairs. Some true hippies but mostly everyday people of that generation. I knew a lot of people in the 18-22 range. I was 13 at time. What the difference in age gave to me was a love of 60's music. I still recall my brothers friend bounding up the stairs, holding "Beatlemania!" in his hand. He would have been 16; I, almost 8. It shaped my musical future.

My dad absolutely loved the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the like. There was always a radio playing in our house or a record player with "revolver' spinning on it. Dad was 43 and Mom was 39 in '65. Dad was a blue collar guy so jeans were his preference. Looks like your grandfather and my father were of the same generation.

Ron

 

[Velocity]

1. I don't remember when I first saw the longer hair on boys at school, but probably in junior high school, mid sixties.
2. Most people I remember respected Nixon as a president. He easily won both elections, after all. Eugene McCarthy was seen as being a little goofy and Hubert Humphrey was tainted by association with Johnson. George McGovern seemed wimpy.
3. I don't remember Greasers or Beatniks by the late sixties, just hippies and civil rights activists.
4. My parents and my much older sister never embraced the counter culture, as I remember. They never embarrassed me that way. However, my dad did wear a white belt with matching white shoes for awhile AND the notorious Leisure Suit. Yeek!

What sticks with me the most from those days was the draft looming large over our lives during Viet Nam. Guys talked about what lottery number they received and how to avoid getting drafted (by going to college or having kids or relocating to Canada, for example). My husband got a low number, so he enlisted with the Air Force to avoid the Army (the Army did call him up when he was in boot camp). He ended up in Germany until 1973. His best friend was the first killed in Nam in our home town. They named a grade school after him....

 

[Tora Ziyal]

1) Don't remember when I first saw long hair on guys.
2) Neither my parents nor I ever supported Nixon. I wasn't old enough to vote in 1968, but I supported Bobby Kennedy and then Humphrey. In 1972, I voted for Humphrey.
3) No idea.
4) The only thing I can think of is that my classical-music loving, immigrant grandmother loved the folk music that became popular in the Catholic Church in the 1960s.

(I was born in 1950.)