Did anyone take a bath with Mr. Bubble and come out so clean that your mother didn’t recognize you? Did the police get involved?

Not the definition of belonging to a country but how you treat others within your community. I think if you called it citizenship today, people would lose their minds. Maybe call it Group Facilitation. Anyone else used to get graded on this? And why did they stop?

Born in ‘62. Grew up in SW Pennsylvania. Rough times as a teenager.

How many folks here were affected by the seemingly overnight end of US manufacturing dominance?

My dad was an extremely competent blue-collar worker. He lived and died for his employer.

The crap hit the fan for us in ‘76-‘77. My dad lost his job and suddenly everything was different.

My mom was a labor + delivery nurse, so we had a basic level of income. My dad worked as a day laborer for 4-5 years, but man that was a rough patch.

I’ve done fairly well for myself and my family, but I will never, ever forget that period. Can’t afford a barber to cut your hair in high school? Can’t afford to go to the prom? Those were the greatest insults to my self-centered self of all time.

I look back and I’m amazed at how my parents kept it together.

Has anyone else been affected by the ‘70’s disruptions? Gas lines, loss of jobs.

For me, I internalized this stuff. I still have a chip on my shoulder - which is totally irrational, I know.

Folks involved in this regard, how did it affect you, and how did it work out?

I get a lot on Pluto.tv or the minor OTA channels. Binged on Flipper yesterday.

I finally had an air conditioned home when we bought our first place in 1991.

This is one that will probably tag me as a boomer, but do you have any memories of the Kennedy assassination?

I was in the 1st grade and I remember class getting let out early on a Friday. I also remember the funeral was held on the same day as my 7th birthday, but that's about it.

I know my younger brother had no memories of it, so I think I'm about as young as you can be and still have any memories of the event.

Mine was Broadway Baby....high school aspirations of Broadway stardom!

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Remember using real potatoes?

Younger people seem to believe that all of our mothers were full-time homemakers. Mine was not. Was yours? If she was, did she seem happy about it?

Along with the various popsicles and ice creams, there was a paper bag full of mystery items for 50¢, with things like bubble gum, maybe a toy, and I don’t know what. Was it called a Grab Bag? I could look it up, but this is more fun.

I lost my POW bracelet while swimming in the Catawba river. One of my big regrets of my youth. Anybody still have theirs?

The term "New Age" is impossible to define precisely, but I think we all have a general sense of what it's been about. For me, there's a lot of overlap between New Age and the Human Potential Movement. I have been influenced strongly by both.

"The Age of Aquarius" was a song in the 1967 musical Hair. 2 years later the band The Fifth Dimension recorded it, and it became a smash hit single. To my young impressionable mind this song gave a hopeful perspective about all the changes going on in the world around me.

By 1969 I was old enough to be aware of the Social Justice movements and the Anti-Vietnam War movement. The Environmental movement was starting and the threat of nuclear war loomed.

In the 70s, I was just trying to survive my puberty and adolescence, and I almost didn't. My inelegant and self-destructive rebelliousness dovetailed nicely with my perception that the world needed some paradigm shifts. I was convinced that adults - at least all the adults that I had encountered - were misguided.

The 80s and early 90s were a time of exploration for me. I went to a ton of workshops, retreats, seminars, trainings, and lectures. I was influenced by Stan Dale and his Human Awareness Institute and also by Harvey Jackins and his Re-evaluation Counseling. The idea was to attain (or reclaim) one's full humanity as an open loving creative rational human being. I could list a bunch of other influences, but you get the idea.

I wanted a peaceful world. I thought that we should at least give it a chance. I joined different peace activities and groups, but did not know how to square the fact that some of those activities and groups were very far from peaceful. Trying to do anti-sexism work as a man was laughably futile, due to all the toxic masculinity that I had and unconsciously exhibited. Same with racism. I learned a lot about institutional and systemic racism, but just learning about it did not make mine go away.

As much as I wanted to teach people to make the world a better place, what I realized is that I was teaching the world about me. That's all any of us ever do. We teach who we are. The book that best helped me to understand this is called A Course in Miracles (ACiM).

ACiM is the most important book ever published. I feel like it was published at the perfect time for our age cohort -1976. I was given the book as a gift when I was 30, and I finally read it when I was 34. I have since read it eight more times. It answered all the questions that nobody else could, such as why would God allow suffering? It tells me that the two most useful things that humans can do are choosing to be at peace and actively forgiving yourself and "others."

There is something else that has happened during our lifetime. The 12-Step recovery movement has burgeoned. The programs for alcoholics and narcotics addicts were founded in 1935 and 1953, respectively, but all the rest of them were born after we were. These programs are not really New Age nor "self-help." They are based on a medical model and propose a spiritual cure with a heavy social component. It's Generation Jones that has grown up believing that joining a 12-Step program of recovery is a perfectly normal thing for anybody to do.

I still remember his name all these years later. I’ve often wondered if ever made it back home. Praying he did.🙏

Pen pals had- their zenith in the 60s and 70s and PeeWee Herman even tried to revive it again. I did a lot of handwritten correspondence in grade school and into teens. I still like writing in cursive too and I know that's been covered a lot here, but would love to hear some cool or not so cool Pen Pal stories!

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I would love to hear how you were raised.

I look at some of my Asian (by marriage) relatives of similar age and don't see much to compare with in generational terms. Culture-specific trends of their time and heritage, obviously exist.

But they'd never get a hard on about "Etch a sketches" and "Slinkies" as some people around here do ....

So, when we in the west (specifically the USA) talk about generations, are we just living in a self-made bubble?

Most personally meaningful Bob Dylan album.

Blood on the Tracks=>Gen Jones 60’s folk stuff =>Boomer

I love the folk stuff, but…most meaningful?

What’s yours?

Yep had it. Yep I listened sometimes. Nope learned nothing

We had a man that would walk up and down the streets in my neighborhood hawking vegetables. He would sing a chant promoting his goods. He would carry a basket on his head and a bag. I always enjoyed hearing him come down the street sitting on the curb barefoot. I grew up in the south.

Who joined one? I tried est and Siddha Yoga and the Self- Realization Fellowship. But not Scientology; that was too offbeat.

I was text chatting with a service rep who said something along the lines of - oh it’s a pleasure to have you as our customer for so long, etc. After the third time I said - you’re blowing smoke and the chat person was clearly confused.

Where oh where have the weed references gone? When was the last time you heard someone say “drop a dime”?

Anything else?

4/20 a national holiday before we all die, that’s my hill.

Husker Du?