1969

I moved to California 50 years ago, in the fabled watershed year of 1969.  As I continue reflecting on this my adopted state, here are some thoughts on that year in California.

We could probably look back on any year and highlight dramatic and culture-changing events, but 1969 certainly stands out as a year to remember.  If you’re old enough, you might remember exactly when or where you first heard about the Moon landing, Woodstock, Chappaquiddick, Stonewall, John and Yoko’s Bed-in for Peace, the first Sesame Street.

For this girl newly arrived from NY to California, as a freshman at Stanford, I expected 1969 to be about freedom (from parents), love (student health service provided birth control!), drugs (yes, marijuana) and rock and roll (Grateful Dead concerts.)   But consider these California 1969 events: 

• Richard Nixon (from California) inaugurated to first term with VP Spiro Agnew.
• Santa Barbara oil spill – largest ever, 100,000 million gallons, inspires environmental movement and new laws, the CA Coastal Commission.
• 6 month Student Strike at SF State results in establishment of Ethnic Studies Dept.
• UC Berkeley students claim abandoned lot as People’s Park.  Calif. Governor Ronald Reagan sends in troops, violence and death.
• Charles Manson orders/completes grizzly murders with his “Family.”
• The First Gap store opens on Union Square in SF.
• Anti Vietnam War protests (I was at the one in SF, half a million people in DC.) First draft lottery.
• Self named “Zodiak Killer” threatens and terrifies SF for months, claims 37 murders, never caught.
• Altamont Rolling Stones concert, Hell’s Angels, violence and death.

Notice how many of those are about violence, protest, destruction?  What happened to peace, love and happiness in the groovy Golden State?

• The two California leaders who took the national stage (Nixon and Reagan) were about repression and fear mongering.
• So much death – Vietnam (beloved cozy Life magazine first printed in 1969 pics of all 241 US soldiers killed in one week), protests, deadly rock concerts, Charles Manson, Zodiak killer.
• Protests – SF State, People’s Park, anti war.

Maybe my list is skewed because that’s what gets in the news – protest, violence, death.  Surely there was a lot of peace, love and happiness, maybe just not on the nightly news.  Many of us were liberated that year from all kinds of expectations and assumptions.

But there is a dark side to this sunny state, from celebrity murders (Manson was not the first nor last cult leader who was adulated before turning deadly – remember Jim Jones?) to income inequality (homeless folks living outside the Gap store, then and now) to environmental destruction in the midst of beauty (many more oil spills, plus fracking, fires etc.)

Maybe it’s just because we are such a big state, so many of us, there will always be strains and stresses.  But I think our position on the edge of the continent pushes us to higher highs and lower lows, “quakes” us into possibility and problems.  That’s a topic for another column – is geography destiny?

I do still proudly call myself an aging hippie, which I doubt I would have become in NY, and I am grateful that I spent those formative student and young adult years in a culture that actually did promote peace, love and happiness.  It’s just a little harder to find these days.

Copyright © 2019 Deborah Streeter