Henrietta Hay's Column

Recently a young friend at G. J. High School interviewed me as part of an assignment. She had to talk to people who were adults at the time of the Viet Nam War about their reactions to it. Then a few days later came the 25th anniversary of the death of Bobby Kennedy with reams of words about him and about the sixties. And the memories came flooding back.

It is impossible to make a young person of today understand what it was like then. It was the best of times and the worst of times. It was the time of a war that was not a war. It was a time of youth and hope, and a time violence and rebellion. It was a time in which three American heroes were gunned down in cold blood. It was the decade of hippies, drugs and free sex. And it was a time of new beginnings for the civil rights movement. Barbara Ehrenreich calls 1968 "the year from hell, a collective dive into extensive social And personal dysfunction or, depending on your outlook, a breakthrough for the human spirit." But it didn't all happen at once. I can't look back and say, "On Thursday I suddenly realized how significant all this is."

In trying to find answers, I spent an evening listening to people who were there. These are women who were not into the drug and violence scene, but were young, idealistic college kids from small towns, trying to figure out what was going on.

One of them went from college in Kansas to New York City, full of youth and enthusiasm and ideals, and convinced her generation could do something wonderful. She really wanted to be a hippie and save the world, but says she didn't quite make it. Her idealism blew up with the violence, which took place around her, and she realized that it would take more than words to change people's attitudes. She ended up a cynic--at least for a while. She does not agree that the period was a historical watershed. She says it was a mere blip.

One young woman was just entering her freshman year in college in Washington D. C. in 1969. She was a wet-behind-the- ears 18, fresh out of Denver. On November 16 a friend said there was supposed to be something big going on in front of the White House and suggested that they go down and check it out. They found themselves in the middle of the 250,000 people gathered to protest the war in Vietnam and became on the spot activists.

Another was in college in New Mexico. She reports that the student body scarcely knew there was a war, much less a student rebellion. They were into traditional patriotism. They saluted when they sang the national anthem, were angry when black athletes turned their backs on the flag, and the men avoided the draft by joining the National Guard, which in New Mexico was exempt from active service. She says that she was not really aware of what was going on until she left college and then she learned fast.

Another young innocent from Minnesota worked in Aspen during the sixties. She found herself in a strange new world, not unlike San Francisco, and went through years of confusion. She saw and sympathized with the activism and idealism of the young people around her, but also watched a bunch of rednecks in Snowmass throw hippies into a fountain, toss in soap, and shave their heads. She came through it with her idealism slightly dented, but not lost.

One was in college in Colorado. She was strongly opposed to the war, but she was working her way through college and didn't have time for demonstrations. She resented the students who had money enough to go to the good schools and then shut them down in protest. She emerged a strong civil rights defender, but deplored the violence. She believes that the rebellion of the sixties was motivated more by economics than by war. The kids who had the money and the time to protest were the rebels. The rest stayed home and protested the protesters.

I was beyond the generation that marched and protested, but I was with them emotionally. They were in there trying to make a difference and I even believed they could. I hated the war. I cried for the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, and the students that were shot down at Kent State. I deplored the drugs and the violence, but I felt the spirit. As Abbey Hoffman said of 1968, "They don't make years like that any more."

So, my High School friend, there is no one answer to "What was it like?" It was different for everyone. But as Barbara Ehrenreich says, it was, "one awkward, stumbling, half-step forward toward human freedom.