A few days ago, an old and dear friend of mine sent me a link to one of those nostalgic websites where you can hear music from the 50’s and 60’s and be told how wonderful the good old days really were. There is something about the era in which you grew up that can bring back good thoughts and fond memories, especially when it is presented with music that appeals to you, even if not everything about your childhood was hunky-dory.

This particular presentation began, “Sit back and let me take you back in time to a decade when life was simpler. If it’s before your time, just sit back and enjoy the music.” The original premise seems plain enough; things were simpler fifty years ago. And, in many ways they were. The big war and Korea were over by the sixties; the economy was growing and as the graphic explained:

The unemployment rate was 5.5%

The national debt was $286.3 billion

The average salary was $4,743/ year

A teacher’s annual salary was $5,174

Minimum wage was $1.00/hour

A first class stamp was $.04

A gallon of gas was $.31

A McDonald’s Big Mac was $.28

Popcorn at the movie was $.20, soda was $.10.

A brand new Chevrolet was $2,529.

As you think about these economic factors, remember the music is playing in the background, nostalgic tunes. The next set of declaration ups the anti a bit.

Kids didn’t get new cars for graduation presents back then. Most parents only bought what they could afford because “credit” was something you used for necessities.

Nobody at the bank asked to see your I.D. and neither did anybody else at the grocery store when you wrote a check.

Private phone lines were rare, we had party lines. The neighborhood busy body could listen in when you were talking.

Everybody picked up hitchhikers.

It was at this point that I began to have a sick feeling in my stomach about this “nostalgic” trip down memory lane. Some of my recollections were far from what was being represented.

For example, of course parents bought cars for their kids at graduation. At least those parents at the top of the food chain did. I’ll never forget the blue and white convertible given to a friend of my brother’s at graduation from high school. There were no credit cards. Only some people got credit. African-Americans / Blacks / Negroes / People of Color as they were called at the time and other minorities were denied credit on the basis of color alone. They could have checking and savings accounts but were denied mortgages because they wanted to live in “unsavory” neighborhoods. The fact that they were forbidden to live in “white” neighborhoods was not a factor. The same was true for car loans. Credit was used by those to whom it was available. The first time my mentor, Albert Boothby, took me into the Federal Courthouse in Greensboro, North Carolina, I saw that there were two drinking foundations. One for “White Only.” Not only was credit not available to all, neither were bathrooms.

One day I asked Al why there were so many old big cars in poor neighborhoods. He said, “If you couldn’t buy a house or a new car, what would you buy?” The first time I saw a brand new Volkswagen in an urban parking lot, my heart cheered.

Nobody at the bank asked for an I.D. because if you weren’t known and known to have money in that bank, you couldn’t get anything from the bank. When you traveled you had to have enough cash for gas, lodging, etc. If you didn’t have considerable resources, you didn’t travel.

Everybody did not pick up hitchhikers. Maybe one in a hundred. Anybody who hitchhiked knew that you took great risks. People of color did not hitchhike. In the sixties it was cool to belong to the John Birch Society, a version of the Ku Klux Klan belonged to by the corporate and banking elite. The Union Club in Cleveland and other “distinguished” clubs around the country had no women, Jewish or non-white members. And, Tiger Woods would have been allowed to be a caddy at Augusta.

From here on out, with the exception of the recounting of sports, stars, music and fads, almost everything that was discussed raised red flags.

SAT scores were higher. We had to diagram sentences and memorize the Gettysburg Address.

SAT scores in the 50’s and 60’s were written for white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Most public schools were segregated. If African-Americans were treated like second-class citizens, Native Americans were treated like third class citizens. Most independent schools were “private” and designed to stay that way. Scholarship programs were for the most part new and minimal.

Mothers gave up professional careers because they thought it was their responsibility to raise their children, not the government’s.

White, middle, upper-middle and upper class mothers gave up careers because they could, because in many cases the were told by a male-chauvinistic world that it was expected and because some recognized that it was the most important job in the world. Other mothers worked three jobs, managed to raise a family and send kids on to college or further training.

All of a sudden I realized that the nostalgia and the music were designed to help me forget the rest of the story. The website I have been describing has a perspective, a point of view, grounded in a retelling of only part of history. We, as Americans are especially good at telling stories with perspectives.

In the 60’s, people who lived in the ghettos were thought to be lazy. We confused people’s worth in the world with their social standing, job or net worth. I wonder when we’re going to admit that most of the “welfare programs” were designed to create a dependent voting block?

The language was English. Foreigners learned and spoke English; they wanted to blend into the “melting pot.” They wanted to be Americans, not hyphenated Americans.

Perhaps one of the reasons people aren’t interested in being simply “Americans” is because there isn’t much room within that definition. In the sixties we believed that corporations and certainly those in government would never intentionally lie to us. Today we know that there is unwellness and insecurity at every level of our society and our world. In one sense we are in much better shape because we are beginning to understand the causes of damage and what we can do about it.

Imagine for a moment, the world twenty years from now. Imagine what it would be like in a world where we really took ownership of the condition of the planet and all its inhabitants. Look and see if you can imagine that world, how it would be and what it would contain. Here are but a few of the things that come to mind for me.

• What people experience most in the world is loving-kindness.
• It would be a world where we would have begged the forgiveness of Native Americans and African Americans and they would have granted that forgiveness because it was real and heartfelt, not some action without meaning. We would acknowledge that we stole this land from one nation and built an economy on the uncompensated backs of another. We would have acknowledged that they came from our arrogance born of insecurity and fear.
• We would have stopped similar behavior in other places in the world.
• We would acknowledge that all damage and violence in the world arises from our personal and collective need to be right about things. We would have stopped trying to tell others how to live or believe. Respect, dignity and consideration would be our benchmarks for interactions.
• Self-care / care of the soul would be an understood necessity.
• Businesses would run on a true system of enlightened capitalism, where all were compensated well and appropriately. We would have looked at how a company is wildly successful as Gore Industries has no titles and everyone agrees regarding the compensation of all the employees.
• We would know that when a youngster or anyone acts out, that they have forgotten who they are and are in need of nurturing, consistency and loving-kindness.
• Religions would agree to nurture themselves and not seek to “convert” those who disagree.
• We would have stopped the lie in any war that “God” is on our side.
• We would have ended hunger and starvation as causes of unnecessary death.
• No family would ever go without shelter.
• The monies we spend on guns and weapons would have gone to cure every disease and educate every child.
• We would stop talking about anything as if it were inevitable.
• We would be interested and honored to learn the history of every people.
• Those who would seek to undermine the well-being of the planet would be recognized as unwell and therefore the subject of great attention, care and loving-kindness.
• People would so know their worth in the world that they would no longer feel the need to hoard goods and money.
• The success of everyone would be the goal of each individual
• The people and the planet are whole, healed and grateful for the opportunity to be alive.

What would make the picture complete for you?