The Year was 1970

The year was 1970. I would be sixteen that June. I find that to fully understand the world as it today in 2025, one must go back to that particular year first. So, I hope you will indulge my urgings to watch this "flashback" to get a glimpse into what life felt like from the perspective of a teenager (who didn't have instant access to information from either a cell phone or computer and had to rely on newspapers, libraries, and only three networks of television News: ABC, CBS, & NBC.)

*The genesis of Climate Change took place in 1970 with "Earth Day" being formed along with the "Clean Air Act" and the "EPA" (environmental protection agency becoming instituted.) It is noteworthy to say that cigarette smoking aboard airplanes in the United States continued until fully banned in 2000.

*Computer advances were being made with this design of a "mouse," but it would be years before an American household would have a computer (or a mouse attached) in it.

*The World Trade Center in New York (better known as Twin Towers) was completed in December of 1970. And sadly, we all know what happened on 9/11/2001. America still remembers!

*Civil Unrest & Riots have sadly been a long part of American history...long before 1970 (as seen on a Wiki timeline) and unfortunately, there seems to be no end to them!

But, I wouldn't have thought to write of this, except for an old letter written to me by my Aunt 'Cile, dated: May 8, 1970. You see, I had written to her of my anxiety involving an incident which had occurred on a college campus in Ohio only days before, on May 4, 1970.

Kent State University...

The letter reads:

Honey, about the campus hippies and radicals: At one time I thought I knew the cause and all the answers for such action by such people (they were known as misfits, thugs, hoodlums, and criminals when I was growing up,) but now it seems like a nightmare that so many of the college and high school students have absolutely lost all sight of who they are, and what and where they are going (whether it be a fad nowadays to get yourself killed or if a great deal of them are on dope. Seems rather futile and shallow to me.) I suppose there are various reasons why, but this overly-populated world is attributing to most of it.

I just pray that you and your siblings can cope with all the realities and never feel you have to be a part of or associate with maladjusted people. Because, believe me honey, something is wrong with a bunch of kids who think they can destroy the country and all that it stands for, while all the time pretend they want "Peace," "Love," and "Understanding."

If my generation, who went from the depression years, lived through the horror of the atom bomb, and now are living in the Space Age, can adjust and still survive, still feeling that this is the greatest and only nation on earth who cares that the freedom and liberties we cherish so much today will remain with the generations to come after us--it is very strange anyone can rationally think they can change for any period of time, our great republic and democratic process for a nation without law, order, respect or productive responsibility.

I am saddened and concerned deeply today for your sake, and for your siblings, and for what you may have to face tomorrow, next month, or next year. Looking back, I wouldn't trade for one minute all the hardships, neither the happiness nor the sadness I experienced growing up for the turmoil you are having to experience today.

But I am optimistic--because you see these people will become thirtiesh and fortiesh (or die earlier) and hopefully, the ones who follow will have a new perspective and truly work for the good of this nation and its people.

*But what have we learned since then??? (By the way, Aunt 'Cile would have been 100 years old last year)