Friday, December 26, 2008

Boom!

I recently read a thought-provoking book called Boom! Voices of the Sixties, Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today, by Tom Brokaw. With such a high-profile author, a former TV network newscaster, it's not surprising that it got a lot of attention. It's well-deserved.

My most active and engaged adult years were spent from that time until now. Obviously I have reason to have an interest in the period. It's one thing to have lived those times from the inside and another to reflect upon them in hindsight. And yet another to have those personal reflections reflected in the thoughts of someone who was up-close-and-personal with prominent figures of the time and present at many significant events. In addition, the book fills in ancillary facts of which we might not have been aware at the time.

Reading history has always been a pleasure to me. Reading revised history has, too. Reading history one has lived provides even more insights as one approaches eldership.

I was going to comment on this book anyway, but in conversation with my daughter and her boyfriend yesterday at our intimate Xmas dinner, they mentioned how interested they were to see the movie Milk. Although a native of San Francisco, Deirdre was a toddler at the time of the Jonestown catastrophe, followed nine days later by the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. She wants to know more. I'm keen to fill in the curious. Boom! is a good start.

I recommend this book, especially to those who were not alive at the time but, along with everyone else older or younger, reap the benefits of social progress made during that era.


* Some day I'll relate a fun anecdote about George Moscone and me. And maybe another tidbit about Dan White. SF is not so big that you don't come into contact with people of note when you live there.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

One thing that is challenging when we look back at decades recently passed--like the 60s--is that, during those times, the country (USA) and its popular culture was much, much more distinctively regionalized. Even distinctively localized.

The SF Bay Area was, for instance, different from other regions in a variety of ways that are not so easy to recollect these days. What seemed ordinary to the locals often seemed exotic to the tourists (if that's a fair term).

I think that the mid 60s promotions of the hippy phenomenon was one of the beginnings of nationalizing American popular culture.

I mention this mostly because I think that the 60s probably influenced folks in the SF Bay Area more than in plenty of other locales and regions of the USA.

Nadya said...

Bright blessings at the turn of the calendar year. Found you 'researching' for my most recent broom/besom post (over at the Vale) - delightful to find your blog!
I've found a couple of shops in Oregon making what look to be lovely brooms & besoms for ceremonial use, & intend to get one soon :)

Blessings

Cat said...

Thanks for the tip!