In many ways it is all about what was, and what wasn’t.

Though alive at the time (there goes a hint on my age) I was not old enough to weigh in on the memory (another hint).

It seems to me though that it was all about what was but also what was not.

It was a time when war was done (WW2 and Korea) but also was not (the Cold War, nascent Vietnam).

It was a time of the young and energetic (JFK, Peace Corps, Freedom Riders) but also about the old guard (LBJ, U.S. Steel & the Union, KKK).

It was a time for securing civil rights for all but, then again, it wasn’t.  At least not yet. 

It was a time for addressing and eradicating poverty- it was addressed but was not eradicated.

It was a time when many fought for the expansion of entitlements.  Under JFK this was not an immediate initiative but later was under LBJ and “The Great Society”.

It was becoming about sleek, fast cars and no longer about “your father’s Buick”.  “Fast and loose, isn’t that right Bert?”

It was not about openly attacking communism in war but was about trying to contain it in peace through strength.  And several fuses were lit.

It was about beginning to throw off your inhibitions on many social mores but was not about foreseeing where all of that may eventually go.  A truly open classroom experiment.

It was about the growing experimentation with sex and drugs and music and not about locking yourself into what you had been brought up to believe.  Mom and Dad were just plain wrong; or at least not very hip or cool.

It was about what you can do for your country and was not about what your country can do for you.

How true is that these days?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

London and Paris; Britain and France; Camelot.

Washington, D.C. and Anytown, U.S.A.