In 1963 we were less than

[SheilaT]

twenty years from the end of WWII.

And less than fifty years from the start of WWI.

I was 15 in 1963, and both world wars seemed impossibly distant to me. And yet, fifty years have now passed from the seminal event of my life.

[llmart]

1. I could never understand.....

why my American History teacher would spend the better part of the year on WWII. To my 16 year old self it seemed so far in the past that I couldn't relate to any of it.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. I was always fascinated with things that happened before I was born

Even when I was just 5 years old, I loved to look at dates on coins, and go through my grandmother's collection of old calendars and license plates (when the actual plate was replaced every year). A little later, I loved to listen to my grandfather's stories about chasing after Pancho Villa in Mexico, and looking at beautifully engraved postage stamps from days gone by, especially if they had dates on them. I loved history so much that my mom bought me a child's encyclopedia of US history in 1969, which I read from cover to cover.

[llmart]

10. Interesting......

My son is like that and has been since a little boy.

[RKP5637]

2. Yep, I can relate to that, just a couple of years older than you. Also, the

60's were a turning point in my life, in college then, I though we were getting it together on bypassing the establishment ... now, I feel we have lost over the years in many ways. To me, the damn drugs really screwed it all up. It has been one of the few times in my life I thought a major portion of the populace had some kind of collective sensitivity.

[Egalitarian Thug]

11. Younger here and from my POV we were getting it together, that's why so much

of what's passed since was made to happen.

I think of it like this. From the end of WWII through the '60s, this country was on an upward trajectory and it all came to a head during the late '60s - early '70s. The reagan program successfully radicalized this nation far more than the yippies ever dreamed of and altered its very character.

[RKP5637]

13. I recall the shift in the mood of the country so well, one could feel it in the air, my friends and

I went, for example, from a sense of euphoria about the future of the country to a feeling of oppression/suppression. I also recall a DJ so well saying after his win, "Oh, now the wealth will magically trickle down."

Many mocked Reganism, but it took hold, because great wealth has power, and often the rest of us just talk.

I had thought OWS might be the beginning of an alignment of wealth, but it was sabotaged I feel by a concerted DHS effort. Wealth, is not going to let its pillars be eroded and wealth controls the strings of government.

[Egalitarian Thug]

14. I remember exactly that as well, it was like a switch was flipped.

Don't write off Occupy, they're/we're still around and still working. What we need are some really rich people to join the middle class and ordinary rich that are putting their money where their mouths are.

[elleng]

3. Vietnam pretty 'seminal,' imo.

[lapfog_1]

4. Post World War II Blues

I was a post-war baby in a small Scots town
I was three years old when we moved down south
Hard times written in my mother's looks
With her widow's pension and her ration books
Aneurin Bevan took the miners' cause
The the House of Commons in his coal dust voice
We were locked up safe and warm from the snow
With "Life with the Lyons" on the radio
And Churchill said to Louis Mountbatten
"I just can't stand to see you today
How could you have gone and given India away?"
Mountbatten just frowned, said "What can I say?
Some of these things slip through your hands
And there's no good talking or making plans"
But Churchill he just flapped his wings
Said "I don't really care to discuss these things, but
Oh, every time I look at you
I feel so low I don't know what to do
Well every day just seems to bring bad news
Leaves me here with the Post World War Two Blues"

1959 was a very strange time
A bad year for Labour and a good year for wine
Uncle Ike was our American pal
And nobody talked about the Suez Canal
I can still remember the last time I cried
The day that Buddy Holly died
I never met him, so it may seem strange
Don't some people just affect you that way
And all in all it was good
The even seemed to be in an optimistic mood
While TW3 sat and laughed at it all
Till some began to see the cracks in the walls
And one day Macmillan was coming downstairs
A voice in the dark caught him unawares
It was Christine Keeler blowing him a kiss
He said "I never believed it could happen like this
But oh, every time I look at you
I feel so low I don't know what to do
Well every day just seems to bring bad news
Leaves me here with the post World War Two Blues"

I came up to London when I was nineteen
With a corduroy jacket and a head full of dreams
In coffee bars I spent my nights
Reading Allen Ginsberg, talking civil rights
The day Robert Kennedy got shot down
The world was wearing a deeper frown
And though I knew that we'd lost a friend
I always believed we would win in the end
'Cause music was the scenery
Jimi Hendrix played loud and free
Sergeant Pepper was real to me
Songs and poems were all you needed
Which way did the sixties go?
Now Ramona's in Desolation Row
And where I'm going I hardly know
It surely wasn't like this before but
Oh, every time I look around
I feel so low my head seems underground
Well every day just seems to bring bad news
Leaves me here with the Post World War Two Blues

Oh, every time I look at you
I feel so low I don't know what to do
Well every day just seems to bring bad news
Leaves me here with the post World War Two Blues


-Al Stewart

[Skittles]

5. my mum survived WWII bombs

it always seemed close to me

[Fumesucker]

6. Yeah, mine too

We're both lucky to be here.

[LumosMaxima]

8. I often think about things like this.

WWII seems so long ago to me, but both of my parents were born during the war. My maternal grandfather was born when Queen Victoria was still on the throne. Two of my grandparents were born before women could vote. Looking at history that way, it doesn't seem very long ago.

[Hekate]

9. My mother was determined to never forget. Because of her I knew about the internment of ...

... Japanese-Americans and that it was a shameful injustice; that in her Colorado high school she knew a refugee Jewish boy who had witnessed piles of books burned in the streets of Germany; that our neighbor across the street fled Austria ahead of the Anschluss with her family; that six-million Jews and God knows how many others were systematically slaughtered by Hitler; that the Rape of Nanking by the Japanese army was a real event, likewise the Bataan Death March. She told me about a woman visiting another neighbor who had survived imprisonment by the Japanese in the Philippines, and who kept a diary of sorts on whatever tiny scraps of paper she could find and conceal.

This was never, ever about hatred or carrying forward the fights of the past -- it was about knowing, and it was about Santayana's dictum that those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.

I ended up majoring in history in college -- WW I was far away, as you say, but WW II was all too real.

During the Bush Junior regime I was active against his wars of choice, and met several very elderly Europeans who were getting unpleasant flashbacks to their youth in Europe and the run-up to Hitler's war.

Interesting thing about WW I -- PBS did a series on it a some years ago, and the finale just blew me away: the conclusion of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles set the stage for every subsequent war of the 20th Century. If I'd known that I would have paid a lot more attention to that part of history myself.

[ananda]

12. We had Vietnam.

..

[snagglepuss]

15. I have often pondered about this myself. I was younger than you back

then but the Beatles are bascially to 8 yr olds what WWII was to us. Remeber how ancient 1940s fashion seemed?