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I wrote this for my high school graduating class, the Hammond High Class of 1967.
Hammond High Class of 67
We are the Class of ’67. Most of us were born in 1949, as America neared the end of her short-lived time of peace between the end of World War II in August of 1945 and the beginning of the Korean War in June of 1950. We were having our fourth birthdays during 1953, the year that the fighting in Korea came to an end.
We watched TV when one had to get up and walk over to the TV set to manually turn the mechanical tuner in order to change stations; there were no “remotes†in those days. We had only four or five channels to choose from, and the picture was in black and white during our earliest viewing days. We watched Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo, and the Mickey Mouse Club. As older kids, we watched Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and the Andy Griffith Show.
We remember the tremendous joy that came with the first color TV sets that were brought into our homes.
Although we enjoyed TV, it did not dominate our free time. TV was mostly for after dark, except for Saturday morning cartoons, of course. During the daytime, we played outdoors, and we played with other kids; we did not sit inside all day playing electronic games.
As we entered our teens, we listened to Larry Lujack and Dick Biondi while they played for us the best music ever recorded. They now call our music “classic rock,†and it is still being played and enjoyed by the current generation, over forty years later.
We rode around in the coolest cars ever to roll off Detroit’s assembly lines. Just as our music is now called “classic,†so are the cars we rode around in. At no time before or since the period from the late fifties through the late sixties have cars held so much romantic appeal.
Yes, life was good back in the fifties and sixties, as we grew from infants to toddlers, then to elementary school children, then to junior high students, and then on to our days at Hammond High School together.
Life certainly had its up and downs, as we grew up. We were the first generation of kids to have to live with the fear of nuclear annihilation. Kids are not supposed to have to worry about the end of civilization, but we did. As eighth graders in October of 1962, we huddled in fear while the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded. At any moment, a button on either side of the Atlantic Ocean might be pushed, triggering a nuclear holocaust. We found out later that such an event came even closer to becoming a reality than we feared at the time.
We were just about to begin the big adventure of high school, when on August 28, 1963, Dr. King shared with us his dream for America. His dream was not for America to become something new and unheard of; he only dreamed that America would become what she was already supposed to be, a land of equality and freedom. We should all embrace that dream, no matter what color our skin may be, because in that dream lies the fulfillment of America’s purpose.
Dr. King, if you are reading this from Heaven, I admire you for loving your country so deeply, even though your country did not love you. You loved a country that told you that you had to ride in the back of the bus, drink from separate fountains, sit in separate waiting rooms, eat in separate restaurants, and stay in separate motels. You believed in America, even though she had not lived up to her promise of equality for all.
It seemed that we had only just recovered from the trauma of the Cuban Missile Crisis when the rug was pulled out from under our feet again only a year later with the news coming just after lunch break on November 22, 1963, that our president had been shot and killed in Dallas. This was America; things like that just didn’t happen in our country! We were shocked, frightened, and saddened by this tragedy.
We were only freshmen in high school, but we had stood at the brink of nuclear holocaust as eighth graders, and now, only a year later, we had seen our president assassinated.
Events were taking place at a maddening pace. After suffering through the horrifying times of the Missile Crisis and the assassination of our president, and after the American conscience was awakened by the Civil Rights Movement, some very pleasant things were about to be brought into our lives.
While still in our freshman year, on February 9, 1964, the Beatles made their debut in America on the Ed Sullivan show; it was the start of the “British Invasion†and the beginning of a whole new era in Rock and Roll.
Just weeks later, on April 17, 1964, we were introduced to the Mustang, and it was love at first sight. The muscle car era would soon begin. Things had definitely taken a turn for the better in our world!
Evil, however, still lurked, and we began to lose loved ones and friends in the war in Viet Nam. Although the writer is not aware of anyone from our class that was killed in that war, it would not be surprising to learn that we had lost some classmates there after graduation. If we did, then may God rest their souls.
We are the Hammond High School Class of 1967, and all of our lives have been shaped by the events chronicled in this essay. We have much in common with one another, and we, therefore, feel a strong kinship. We are the Class of ’67!
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One who cherishes his memories of growing up in the Hammond of the 1950's and 1960's.
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