1969

Woodstock festival
http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html
Nixon inaugurated as 37th president.
Sesame Street debuts.
Internet (ARPA) goes online.

1969. I am 23 years old. Michelle turned 3 in December of '68. And Beth is born on May 23rd. Now here's the real strange part. Our marriage was on the rocks big time and I knew it. I almost left the summer following Beth's birth, but quickly realized that I could not adequately care for a newborn and a 3-year-old AND work. But the real mystery is that I knew our marriage was on the rocks the prior year. Yet I still had some sort of ideal timetable to have children in - 2 kids, 3 years apart. That was the suburban dream. One boy, one girl, hopefully the boy first so that the girl will have a big brother to protect her. The fact that our marriage was shipwrecked and we were just waiting for it to die didn't enter in to this equation. So my entire pregnancy with Beth was one of fighting and anger. Poor little one. It's no wonder she was so clingy when she was little. And of course there was Michelle, 3 years old and not only hearing it but watching it fall apart. I was so bound up in it falling apart however that I had little energy to think of their current needs beyond the basics. Such was life. I try to enter into my consciousness then and just can't fathom myself, only to say that I am at this age very shallow and self-absorbed. Perhaps there is nothing else to fathom.

I think I cracked and broke in my early teens. My own dysfunctional family became too much for me to handle. While I had been able to retreat to the woods by myself as a young child somehow this seemed less of an option as a teen. I don't know. Maybe I thought it would be thought of as "weird". Or maybe I just desired more social interaction but then couldn't handle it. At any rate some kind of emotional development had not yet occurred within me.

I don't want to make it seem that 1969 was all bad. It wasn't. We lived in a little 3-bedroom house in Tallahassee. On a hill, lots of big trees, we had a swimming pool, little brick house. The back yard opened out into 4-5 other back yards, all with young families and young children. We were suburban moms, coffee klatches, back yard barbeques, sharing children. It was very sweet and nice. Funny though that I can't remember anyone's name - just the young boy Cotton - and I drew my best friends from outside my neighborhood crowd. And I can barely remember their names. :o) Perhaps they will come. That's part of what this exercise is about. To stimulate and exercise my own memory. To allow me to review my life from this lofty peak of 60.

Michelle learned to swim here. We got very healthy here. I did a lot of cooking from scratch back then. Wes had a garden and we also had nearly yearround access to a weekend farmer's market. I would go early in the morning and buy bulk fruits and vegetables. I baked all our own bread and pastries and I made jams and jellies. So, I wasn't completely self-focused I guess. :o) Our summer days were long and nice. I was not politically active or aware. There were earth moving events happening out in the wider world but for the most part I was content (or absorbed) in my own life.