“Memories are not the key to the past, but to the future.” — Corrie ten Boom
“Life is divided into three terms – that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.” — William Wordsworth
It’s been a month since I wrote and posted an essay on Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! The present has been occupying my attention and engaging my time. In early June I intended to draft a reminiscence about 1968, the year I graduated from high school. In September I’ll attend a 50-year high school reunion in my hometown of Racine, Wisconsin. Oh, My!
The 50-year anniversary reunion of Madison activists was held here in June, The Madison Reunion which hosted radicals, musicians, writers, and artists reconvened at The University of Wisconsin, Madison. In mid-June, I attended a day-long series of teach-ins sponsored by the Gray Panthers at UW-Madison, Union South. The teach-ins, a throwback format to the 1960’s were entitled, Radical Perspectives on the Sixties and Beyond.
I realized when I was procrastinating a month ago about beginning my blog post — which I envisioned as the first installment of a series — a look back 50 years at 1968 — so much was happening in the present which grabbed my attention. It quickly became clear that I needed to be in the moment before I could flashback to the past and fast-forward to the future. The present was the bridge.
Flashback to 1968
There are times in a person’s life that become turning points. 1968 was one for our nation and for me. I was a senior in high school, and like most 18-year-olds, I was navigating the transition between adolescent and adult, between dependence on my parents, and independence. It was a messy time. I had missteps, made mistakes, and experienced awakenings.
I had been a good student, academically-tracked and college bound. I also desired to experiment with life as a young adult. That’s where it got messy. A friend talked me into falsifying an I.D. a few months before I could obtain one legally, so I could join her at the 18-year-old beer bars in Kenosha County.
At the same time, I became politically aware and active. I had been a student leader, the editor of our high school newspaper, involved in theater arts, and a volunteer leader for the American Red Cross. I spent 5 a.m. mornings sending off new inductees with care packages who were on their way to basic training and then, I’d see some return on the other side of their Vietnam tours at Great Lakes Naval Hospital. We’d spend the day with hospitalized vets, playing Bingo and distracting them from the emotional and physical trauma they had experienced.
The civil rights movement was heating up in my hometown and across America. My father and I couldn’t read the Sunday newspapers without engaging in heated debates about race, civil rights, hippies, and the counterculture. Our discussions — more precisely arguments — would clear the living room, family members retreated elsewhere.
The Summer of Love had already unfolded in San Francisco in 1967 and began to impact the youth culture in the Midwest. Young people protested the war and in the streets, fighting for civil rights, equal protection under the law, and for an end to segregation. Martin Luther King was assassinated that spring followed by Robert Kennedy during his presidential primary campaign in California, just days before my graduation.
High School Graduation
In June, I graduated from high school. My parents purchased luggage for me as my graduation gift since I was accepted at the University of Wisconsin – Madison for school. As the eldest, I would be the first in our family to attend college. More about that later.
The day I graduated it was hot and humid. I was one of over 600 graduates in our high school, so the event seemed never-ending. After the ceremony, I celebrated with my parents at a local pizzeria, Dino’s. I had negotiated with them that I could join my friends afterwards for another celebration with my peers.
My friends picked me up and we headed to Kenosha and the beer bars, first stopping off at The Spot, a local burger and malt drive-in on the way to The Brat Stop beer bar. Girlfriend Kathy had smuggled a bottle of gin from her parent’s house. We decided to order large orange drinks, pouring out half and filling the other half with gin. It was my first time drinking liquor, I had gotten drunk on beer before but never hard alcohol. I would later regret this decision.
I don’t remember much afterwards, until we arrived back in Racine. The bars had closed and it was early in the morning when we arrived at Leslie’s Continental Club. Kathy knew the owner whose living quarters were in the same building as the bar. The bar was in a neighborhood which my parents had warned me to stay away from. It was the south side of Racine and though we had once lived in that neighborhood when my parents were young and starting out, with the civil rights protests escalating and the divisions between races heating up, the neighborhood was off-limits for me.
Leslie was gracious, welcomed us, and congratulated us on our graduation, yet encouraged us young (white) women to return home. We were naïve about the consequences he might suffer and protested. He acquiesced. The next thing I remember I was in his bathroom, sitting on the toilet, still drunk, mesmerized by the laundry that was drying on the shower curtain rod and across clotheslines zigzagging the room. Hanging were socks, scattered around the room. I began visually matching the socks, by color, and pattern, by fabric, and style.
The next thing I remember was being awakened by my friends as I lay on the floor of the bathroom. I had been gone so long they worried about me. I had blacked-out, the first blackout of my young life, and a sign of trouble ahead. Yes, I was an Angel of the Morning.
That summer I received bad news. My work-study, scholarship, and financial aid package ran into a snafu, and I would not be able to afford to attend UW-Madison as originally planned. Instead, I was accepted at the hometown campus of the University of Wisconsin – Parkside. I would live at home. My new suitcases would remain in the closet.
Fast Forward
It’s 50 years later and I’ve lived in Madison, Wisconsin since I decided to return to school at The University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1974. Later this summer, I’ll revisit in the second installment what happened in between June of 1968 and the fall of that landmark year, a branching point in my life that created a template and foundation of who I would become today.
Stay tuned for the next installment of 1968, the year that changed my life,
Flashbacks from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
The Lone Ranger, Annie Oakley, and the Bride Doll