Living In The 70's and Present

Living In The 1970's and Present

I grew up living in the 70's and things were really going on, GoGo boots- patent leather, mini skirts, Hippies, Flower Children, Black Panthers,Water Gate, Vietnam War. Don Cornelious(Soul Train), American Band Stand. Who could live in a better world. Flip wilson, Johnny Carson, Ike and Tina. the Jacksons and the Osmonds. I actually grew up in the era of Marvin Gay singing "WHAT'S GOING ON" and James Brown shouting "Say It Loud! I'm Black and I'm Proud". There were so many great things to imagine of what you could become. As a four year-old I could remember all these things, on television and radio there was the Watergate scandal, then finally Nixon "Your President is Not a Crook" resigning, the war and scandal was what we heard; then there was a revolution of teens against their parents, I remember my mother explaining to me what was happening at that time.

My father was a enlisted army soldier: I remember moving from Fort Hood, Texas to Witchita Falls. He was called to fight in Vietnam, that war was awful, my father was away so long I thought he was dead but of course I was only five years old, and my father leaving when I was three. I remember him coming home a couple of times on leave and then no coming back, that's when I thought He was dead. Eventhough I was four or five years old actually talking to him on the phone, I could not comprehend what was happening. The worst about this was when he came back from Vietnam, he came to my classroom during the last minutes of the day when it was rest time. I remember being awakened by a man in a army fatigues, whispering my name; saying lets go home. I was freightened by this, a stranger waking me. I immediately began to cry not knowing he was my father. My teacher became involved, I told her that my father died in the war, and she questioned my daddy. I listened to him as he explained to her, that he was serving in the war, we had not seen him for a long time and his call was over. I saw my father brush away tears as he explained. It wasn't until we went to the car and I saw my two older siblings sitting in the car that I believed he was my father, I was over joyed to know that my father was alive. Well over fifty years have past and I had conversation with my mother about my father picking me up that day, come to find out he had never discussed to her what happened that day in the classroom.

I ponder about those days how my mother brang us up in a household with six children alone to nurture, then wishing my father to come home from Vietnam alive. Seriously she worked as a house maid to keep the family whole. I can only say I don't know how she felt but I can wonder, when I saw tears rolled down her face when she read mail from him or talked on the phone. I'm grateful to say that we made it through that time in war.

What motivates me is how we made it through times of adversity, the adversary is the complications that seem to hold us back, when we fight against these adversities, we can accomplish what we set out for our goals. We had music, acting and groups that inspired hope to achieve what was right. So today we're back fighting for rights and there is civil unrest.

I'm writing this article to say that now is the time for change, we can change our adversity into credibilty. To change what seems impossibe to reality. I would write more but that's for another article. Dream well!