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Happens year on fifty five KRC the Talk stage show, Heyoh five and fifty five KRC Detalk Station, A very Happy Friday to you, extra special getting away from politics and actually kind of delving into politics at the same time. It was a crazy decade the year of my birth nineteen sixty five and the year that this book begins with. My next guest authored the book The Magical Decade, A personal memoir and popular history of nineteen sixty five through
nineteen seventy five. Welcome to the Morning Show, David hud Win. By way of background, real quick, David, to let people know who you are. Born in nineteen fifty So he's got fifteen on me in Chicago, which is a great place to be. I suppose back then we're going to talk about that. And so he was and eyewitnessed all
these things that were going on. Actually was at the Beatles concert there Comiski Park in nineteen sixty five during the British invasion, anti war press protesters in the Moonlighting You saw it All, per author of was a teenage Space Reporter, which is based on his Apollo eleven experiences. He went to med school rather than stick with journalism or his end and just recently retired. Congratulations on your retirement and write and having published the book The Magical Decade.
It's good to have you on the Morning show.
Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here.
All right, let me just throw a bunch of stuff at in rapid fire because I have a question that's predicated on all this. I was just sitting there thinking about I'm a student of this era. Actually it's just a real it's a fascination for me. But I go back to the Beat era, and you know Kerauak and and and the and the authors from the Beat era and how it progressed into the Hippie movement and all the cultural change that was going on, and it was amazing,
which is why I find the era so fascinating. But think about it right then and there in that decade, you got the formation of Greenpeace, got the free speech movement, and the Students for Democratic Society rioting over in Berkeley under Mario Savio, the anti war movement because Vietnam Black pans, you have assassinations JFK, RFK, Malcolm X Martin, Luther King. You have bombings from the Simines Liberinary Liberation Army up in Chicago, your neighborhood, the Watts riots in sixty five.
This is a and I'm just scratching the surface of all those things. Were you aware of how tumultuous and how transformative socially speaking a time it was while you were living at beginning at age fifteen in nineteen sixty five, No, I don't.
Think I had the perspective, you know, at that age to understand really what was going on. You know, each event would come, the assassinations, the riots, the events in space, the events in Vietnam, and I didn't keep them in perspective. But years later I decided to write this book as kind of the gifts to my kids and grandparents and grandkids as far as you know, what were the sixties
and seven these really like? And doing the research for the book, I got a much greater perspective on how revolutionary this decade from sixty five to seventy five was.
Indeed, And let us start with something very positive, something that I think everybody appreciates this day. You can go to any radio right now, anywhere. And I'm not talking about pre program radio or any particular identified satellite radio, but I mean, just generally speaking, they're still going to be playing music from the sixties. It was just it was like the best decade ever for music. You know, all the British Invasion bands, which had profound influence on
bands in the United States. Of course, they got their influence from all blues artists and acts. You know, musically speaking, we have I don't think we've ever had a better decade. Did you get to go to a lot of concerts. I knew he went to the Beatles concert at Comisky Park, But were you aware of the awesomeness of what was coming out material wise and creativity wise?
Yes, I was in the venue for appreciating the music. I was in high school then, the first part of the Magical decade. I was in high school till nineteen sixty eight, and high school had dances in the gym called sock hops because everybody had to wear socks. You couldn't wear shoes because it would wreck the basketball floor. And so I really got an appreciation for the music at these high school dances and.
Moving over to more tumultuous thing. Well, obviously, the Vietnam War was going on, clearly a lot of protesters, and I thought it politically speaking, I thought it was an interesting alignment that ended up forming, which is very analogous to what's going on today. And I suppose you two can draw some parallels disparate groups sort of working together to fight against the system. You know, it was Vietnam War protesters, it was the Echo warriors, Green Peace was
formed in sixty nine. Again, you had the free speech movement, but all of them seemed to coalesce into one giant coalition of protesters. I get a sense of that going on today.
Well, I think it was certainly going on then. And one of the catalysts for that was disdained by a lot of young people then. For President Nixon and President Johnson before them, both were kind of undone in different ways by the Vietnam War. And there was a great antipathy among young people then for the Vietnam War with fifty two thousand dead until the latter lottery was institute of the draft lottery, a very unfair draft system, and that and so the young people their personal safety was
at risk. You point out one thing out. So much of the issues then, more than fifty years ago, are issues now. You look at a voting rights, abortion, foreign wars. It's it's amazing how the more things change, the more they remain the same. The issues maybe in a different context or phrase differently, but we're fighting politically over the same type of thing that we fought about in this period nineteen sixty five to seventy five.
More things change, the more they say the same. Anyway, I understand for the notes you got tear gas at the Vietnam War protests. You were getting into draft territory there at your age at that time. Am I wrong?
No, you're right. And I had a student deferment, and then when the draft lottery came, I had a very high number, so I was not going to be not going to be drafted, And I don't know what I would have done had I had a load number in subject to the draft. I was against the Vietnam War when I was tear gas, though I was kind of
an innocent bystander. I was a student journalist then and I covered in nineteen sixty nine the March on Washington for my college newspaper, The Michigan Daily, and it was a night before the main demonstration, and I was covering a group of protesters who were headed towards the South Vietnamese embassy. And they make a long story short, everybody in the area was tear gassed. So I had my first taste, or I guess with of teary asse at that point.
How about that. That's interesting. And then you also were at the first Moon launch. I know that was a subject matter of your other book. I was a teenage space reporter, right.
I had been interested in space since Sputnik, which is in nineteen fifty seven, and I was a very impressionable seven year old boy then, and like a lot of boys of that era, I was fascinated by space. And when the moon landing attempt was announced for the July nineteen sixty nine, I had turned I was just turning
nineteen then and was able to travel by myself. So with a buddy of mine, we were able to get NASA press credentials and that was actually down there as armstrong columns and all, and lifted off towards the Moon. And it was one of the most exciting experiences.
Of my life, I imagine, And you know, even as a four year old, I do remember the television coverage of the Moon launch, and of course, you know, one small step for man, one giant step leaf for mankind. Don't remember the words at that young age, but do
you remember watching on television. I was just just fascinated by space program, and I had all kinds of rocket toys and my little tang moon rover that came with your jar of tang, which we drank because that was what I guess the astronauts did you Were you at this sixty eight convention by any chance, because obviously that was a rather momentous, riotous occasion.
Well, luckily, in retrospect, I had to go and start school at the University of Michigan in ann Arbor the week of the convention. They were on a trimester system and started early in August, so I just missed it. That I had volunteered in the McCarthy Eugene McCarthy campaign and would have been there if I hadn't had to go to school and friends of mine were beaten up and arrested.
Yeah, there was a different view of law enforcement back then. There's the law enforcement folks were rather applauded for their there I say brutality on some of the protesters. It was just sort of, you know, we're in for law and order, and these punks are out here protesting and they deserve the police baton beating that they get. I've heard many comments like that over the years. What was
it like growing up in Chicago back then? I lived in Chicago between nine in nineteen ninety eight, and I know it was obviously during that period of time even more murders and homicides per year than there is now. But it was an interesting reality living there, growing up in Cincinnati. What was it like back then? Because it was far more segregated and divided back then.
Right, Chicago was a city that was segregated, perhaps even more so than certain parts of the southern United States.
There were certain neighborhoods where blacks lived in other neighborhoods that were white neighborhoods, and by a series of restrictive covenants in leases by pressure, the people in one neighborhood did not sell to people from another group, and it was very segree I think it's telling that doctor Martin Luther King that after he concentrated on voting rights in the South that he came to Chicago in nineteen sixty six, started a campaign for fair housing in Chicago, and there
is all types of conflicts over this at that time. And I think that would be amazing to someone who lived then that African American is now the mayor of Chicago compared to then when the mayor was a long term mayor was Richard J. Day, a politician of Irish descent. So in terms of the power base of Chicago, things have really changed through the years.
Yeah, no doubt about it. I guess the Harold Washington first black mayor in Chicago, he was there between eighty three and eighty seven. I actually it was a little later than that, if I recall. But yeah, during my closener of my time there, let me get your comments on the Hipbie movement. Always fascinated by the Hipbye movement, the idea that having longer hair, which is ubiquitous these days on a guy was looked down upon by society
at large. Where were you in terms of your acceptance of that philosophy, that concept, the free love and the long hair and the beautiful colors and all that relative the more conformist, you know, very tight high and tight haircuts that men typically had. Clearly this was a divisive thing within families. What was your personal experience along those lines.
Well, when I was in high school, I had a tight military type crew cut. Yeah, and that kind of laugh when I look at the pictures of myself from you know, sixty five sixty six, the start of what I call the Magical decade when I was in high school. Later on I hit kind of a long, bushy haircut
and mustache, but it was still pretty conservative looking. But for example, a cousin of mine, the first cousin of mine, in nineteen sixty seven, went to San Francisco for the Summer of Love, and he got involved with drugs and all kinds of stuff while they are and it's created in the family a great deal of concern, and he stayed up there and joined the commune.
Communes collunes and ashrams didn't work out real well for most folks because from each according's ability to each according to his need typically doesn't work out because people tend to get lazy. My observation, not necessarily yours, mister Chudwin. David Chudwin, author of the book We're Talking About Today, which you can easily get on my blog page fifty five KRCY dot com. The Magical Decade, a personal memoir of and popular history of nineteen sixty five nineteen seventy five.
Is it just a history of the era? You're an autobiography? You what would you characterize this book as for part Company today?
Well, I think I turn give a different perspective. It's an intersection between a personal memoir and a popular history of the era. And I was very lucky to be kind of the Forrest Gump during that decade in the middle of everything, and so I talk about my personal experiences but put it in the context of popular history.
It's been a great conversation this morning. I'll strongly encourage my listeners to get over to my web page fifty five Caresee dot com. Click on the link you two can get a copy of the book The Magical Decade by my guest today, David Chudwyn. David, it's been a real pleasure today, and thanks for sharing your experiences a little bit here this morning. I know my listener is going to really enjoy the book.
Thank you very much. It's good to talk.
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