One of the things I love about this, my most favorite series, is how carefully everyone connected with it guards its secrets. There are many movies and tv shows I have never bothered to see because the previews have given the whole thing away.
But this morning's paper does say that the new season opens around Thanksgiving of 1964, which has got me wondering ~ what were we all doing then?
I was 11, which means that I was in Mr. Curran's 6th grade class ~ in the one year of school that I really, really loved, because Mr. Curran ignored the fact that our tiny rural school had no science curriculum to speak of, and taught us about amoebas, euglenas, and paramecium.
It was also the first year of endless arguments with my stepmother over my attire and appearance ~ the year that some girls began to wear hose and lipstick. It's hard to believe that we imagined the girdle to be a desirable undergarment! I guess this was my idea of how I should look:
And it was the year I fell in love for the first time, with Toby Adams, the smartest boy in my class. Since The Addams Family was on television, my main role model was Morticia, whom I planned to become when Toby and I got married and both became brain surgeons (that science class influence was pretty strong):
And lest you think we were all about love and marriage and careers, let me remind you that Bewitched was also a hit that year. My friend Sarah and I spent our recesses dunking basketballs (we staged a fruitless demonstration for the institution of a girls' basketball team) and hopefully twitching our noses.
We were little girls in penny loafers and pleated skirts, playing basketball on a crumbling blacktop in farm country, far from the glamorous women we longed to emulate ~ but we were full of hope.
It will be interesting to see if either the Addams or Stephens families makes it into Mad Men's advertising portfolio.
What do you remember from 1964?
Since you like it so much, I'll have to check this show out!
ReplyDelete1964 seems a very long way back. I was a sophomore in high school and could not have been more self-conscious about my towering height and my dismal prospects of ever being like the glamorous women on tv. I did love Carol Burnett, another native of San Antonio, and her show--especially the Gilbert and Sullivan and soap opera parodies!
I had just turned 5. Because of a really unfortunate turn of events related to hip surgery in early 1961, I had been in a full length cast for almost 4 years. It was in 1964 that I got to get out of my cast, stood for the first time and realized that the floor was cold. I still remember that day...
ReplyDeleteWow, Rosa. What a memory.
ReplyDeleteI remember the repeats I watched from 1964. I turned 1 that year.
ReplyDeleteQG, YOU could've convinced them that we needed a girls' basketball team!
ReplyDeleteRobin,
ReplyDeleteMaybe. But then I would never have played on it because they would want players with some actual athletic ability!! :-)
I turned six in the autumn of 1964, so that's the year I was in first grade. I remember having impetigo and being kept out of school and my mother having to wash me with Physohex three times a day. We also moved that year . . . into the house my family still owns. Anyway, I wasn't much into fashion yet, but I did have a terrible crush on a boy named Jim Lund. Fortunately, the crush didn't last because we were in school together all the way through high school.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the trip down memory lane!
I turned six in August of 1964 and also started first grade. We had moved to a new town - Tallahassee - and we lived in a small house near other families with kids.
ReplyDeleteI remember Halloween and dressing up for it. I remember my brother's bunk beds were made of metal and it was a long way to fall down from the top.
I remember my mother being frightened a lot. Only much later did I realize this came from her addiction to watching and reading the news ... assassinations, the Vietnam War, race riots, hippies, drugs.... no wonder she was scared!
I wanted to be grown up, to have long silky blonde hair, and I wanted my name to be either Bridget or Claire.
I remember Captain Kangaroo. And playing outside all day on Saturdays, from early morning til dark.
Dark, dark episode.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Sally Draper may be the barometer to watch.
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ReplyDeleteDuh...I just posted a whole comment about the wrong year. I was in fourth grade at Thanksgiving of 1964. My teacher was Sister Elizabeth, and I was SOOOOOO teacher's pet. The last year of my life I enjoyed that particular status...
ReplyDeleteFor one reason or another I have never watched this show....but I love this reflection. I was 7, my parents were divorced, I was living with my paternal grandparents, and not particularly happy - but I watched all those shows on tv and dreamed my own dreams.
ReplyDeleteI grew up with reruns of the shows...especially loved Bewitched. I was gestating at the time you mention. :) (is that what I mean to say?!)
ReplyDeleteCindy and I grew up living on the same block. She was two years younger than me. I was 8 then and remember watching My Favorite Martian, Mr. Ed, Lost in Space (oh how I loved that show). There seemed to be a sweet innocence back then. We had a new president as a result of an assassination the previous year. And, we played outside - long hours - a neighborhood full of children.
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