40 Years Later, Things Haven't Changed Much

By STEVE OTTO The Tampa Tribune

Published: Apr 20, 2008

They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't really there.

I remember the '60s and I was most definitely there. But what you do forget is how much our world has changed in 40 years, although maybe not as much as we would have liked.

A reader sent me half a dozen magazines last week from 1968-69. It was a lot of fun looking at them but I hope you don't see this as an opportunity to empty out that back room where you have those National Geographic magazines stacked up wondering what to do with them and think of me.

These were old Life and Look issues … you do remember magazines, don't you?

One is a Life special issue on the year 1968, and it was a lulu of a year. Forty years down the pike and we think these are difficult times in this country. Step back for a second for a quick almanac of that year.

It Was Another Unpopular War

It began that January with the Tet offensive in Vietnam and the realization by the American public that we were losing a war we weren't sure we wanted to fight.

By February, Richard Nixon had started his presidential campaign and a guy named George Romney had dropped out.

By March, an average of 500 Americans a week were dying in Vietnam and Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not run.

In April, 40 years ago this month, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis. More than 125 cities faced riots that would kill 46 and injure close to 3,000.

In May there was a march on Washington led by the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and in the presidential race Bobby Kennedy was winning big primary votes.

It came crashing down in June when Kennedy was assassinated and Vietnam became the longest war Americans have fought.

July adds to the gloom as thousands of children starve every day in a place called Biafra.

August brings the political conventions and Chicago turns into a blood bath as cops and demonstrators face off. Almost unnoticed in this country, the Russian army rolls into Czechoslovakia.

Remember Zond 5? I don't either, but in September the Russians circled the moon with it and Americans figured we were about to lose the race to the moon.

New Marriage For Jackie? Oh!

The big news in October is the marriage of Jackie Kennedy to Aristotle Onassis, although it shares the billing with the Olympics marked by American winners giving clenched-fist black power salutes during the national anthem.

In November it is Richard Nixon over Hubert Humphrey as peace talks drag on in Paris and demonstrations rock college campuses.

Finally it is December. Peace talks stall when they can't agree on the size of the peace table and Arab attacks on Israel threaten a major war.

If there is any solace at all, it comes on Christmas Eve as the crew of Apollo 8 heads for the dark side of the moon and reads from the book of Genesis to a weary world far, far away.

So here we are 40 years later. We are still in a war we aren't sure we want to be in, have a controversial Olympics coming up and face an election season as depressing as it was in 1968.

With our luck we'll end up with Britney Spears reading the Christmas story on her TV special.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.