Where Did We Go From There

Where Did We Go From There

In 1964 Bob Dylan wrote a song, The Times They Are A-Changin. A song about the life in which we lived in a decade of unrest. 

In the 1960s, this country was torn by the Vietnam War,  racial divide, the change in traditional music, drugs, protests and sit-ins all plagued the nation.

Music played a major part in the lives of the youth as they would do their drugs and drift into another world through the sultry music.

Bob Dylan poetically and prophetically sang this song to nation in hopes of changing the way the youth of America thought.

Growing up in the 50s and 60s was terrific. Morals were taught, education was good, values in the American way of life were believed in. 

Most of our meals were consumed at home with everyone sitting around the evening dinner table being a family.

Occasionally, after working all day, Mom or Dad would treat us to either Shoney’s or McDonalds take out. 

On Saturday evening, GunSmoke with James Arness, Matt Dillion, would come on the black and white TV. My Dad loved GunSmoke.

After the show would go off, he would go into the kitchen and move the dining table away from the middle of the floor. It was then my three brothers and I would jump on him and we would all wrestle before heading to bedroom to go to bed.

Dad made time for us, he taught us how to be men, shake hands properly, look people in the eye when we talked with them, and how to make change so we could efficiently run our paper routes.

Every Sunday morning, he got my brother and me up at 5:00 am to take us on our routes to throw the Sunday paper. He could have slept in and let us ride our bikes, but he knew the Sunday paper was the biggest and thickest of the week.

After moving to Jones County, Ga, the Macon Telegraph was able to carve about 100 papers out of a large motor route so I could have a route. It was a morning and evening route, requiring me to deliver before school and after school.

Each morning Dad would wake me, get me into his VW Beetle and take me on my paper route before he left for work.

I was 12 years old and a rather shy young boy then, so a lot of conversation was not had between my Dad and me on those early morning runs.

I remember like it was yesterday, driving down the steep hill in our neighborhood on the way to pickup my morning papers, Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence was playing on WBML AM. 

I don’t know why but still today, the scene in that little VW and the sound of that song is so vivid in my mind. 

Every time I hear that song, I reminisce about that cold early morning in my Dad’s VW. If only I could go back in time, that shy little boy would not be so shy and get all the conversation in that he could.

My parents were disciplinarians, my brothers and I got our share of spankings. 

As my Dad grew in age, he would always tell us that maybe he was too hard on us as we were growing up. I can remember telling him that if I could raise my children only half as good as he raised me then they would be good children.

Times were really good then. TV was holsum and the programming was entertaining and clean.

Andy Griffin always had a life lesson to be taught, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore slept in separate beds, Lucy was always getting into trouble trying to be famous. 

Maynard G Greb, The Dobie Gillis Show, portrayed the new teenage coffee house lifestyle as a beatnik on a college campus, with sayings like Hey Man and sporting his little hairy goatee. 

On Friday nights we could all take a trip down Route 66 with Tod and Buzz in their ’63 corvette or spend some time with Cookie, “Cookie, Cookie lend me your comb” on 77 Sunset Strip.

The times were good and the living was much slower. Families were much closer in those years as the world was rapidly changing around us. 

I remember in 1965 after leaving what we then called grammar school, we moved to another county. 

I met my new best friend, Tommy Deane and was introduced to the world of music. He taught me to play the guitar and he and I would set up our equipment, along with microphones and play music.

I Want to Hold your Hand, and She Loves You along with other songs of the time that the youth of America was involved with were sang over and over. 

Tommy played in a band called the Belvederes and eventually I was able to join a group called The Good Guys.

We played parties and dances around the middle Georgia area and loved the attention we received as musicians.

Tommy was my best friend, where you saw one you saw the other. 

One morning before school, the phone rang and my Mom said it was for me. Upon saying hello, I realized it was Tommy and his words confused me. “Watch the Flowers Grow” he said. Not understanding I asked what do you mean? He again said, “Watch the Flowers Grow” laughing and he hung up.

I later found out Frankie Valle and The Four Seasons had released a new song titled “Watch the Flowers Grow.” We were kids and did crazy junk like that all the time.

As I said at the beginning of this column, Times they are a-changin. They did and they are very rapidly changing now. Our way of life has gone in a completely different direction than where we were as I was growing up.

The icons that helped shape our nation are slowly leaving us and the world no longer has the moral heroes of my childhood.

Names such as:

Bob Denver—Maynard G Greb and Gilligan

Donna Douglas—Ellie Mae The Beverly Hillbilly’s

Andy Griffin—Andy Griffin Show

Dean Jones—Herbie and Disney films

Martin Milner—Tod Stiles Route 66 and Adam 12

Shirley Temple, Joe Cocker, Leslie Gore and I could go on and on have left us and the world mourns a better and simpler way of life.

Come gather ’round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You’ll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth savin’

Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin’

I think I will dust off those old 45’s or maybe check out Netflix for some old TV shows, I feel sort of nostalgic.

“Life Happens”