50 Years Ago---The Beatles

1964 Wow, a lot was going on fifty years ago. I am trying to remember what I was doing while all these momentous events were happening. I was 18 and a half years old. I was in my second semester of my freshman year at Purdue University. I was involved in pledging a sorority, Alpha Phi. I was trying very hard not to be homesick so I guess a lot of my thoughts were about myself.

I never have been much of a popular music connoisseur. I liked popular music, but the titles of the songs or the names of the artists never stuck with me. I remember standing in someone's dorm room and being told who the Beatles were. Most of my time was spent going to class and studying. When I say that I spent time going to class, I literally mean that it took time to go to class. Getting to class was a real time management issue for me because I had to walk quite a distance from my residence hall to my classes. I was in a residence unit out at the end of State Street near the married student courts and the Purdue University airport. It was no easy feat to be at some lecture hall at 7:00am at the center of campus behind the Student Union. Too bad I didn't have a pedometer to wear fifty years ago, I am certain that I more than racked up the current recommended 10,000 steps per day for heart health.

I am not saying that I didn't have music in my life back 50 years ago. It just obviously wasn't the “cool” kind. In the Spring of 1964 I was a sorority pledge. This means that I had to learn the Alpha Phi songs and the songs used for “rush.” The instrument of choice for these songs was a guitar and it was not electric. This music is called “folk music.” When I read about the passing of Pete Seeger this year I had a real nostalgic urge to pull out all my vinyl albums and listen to Gale Garnett or Peter, Paul, and Mary. Unfortunately, our Heathkit assembled turntable doesn't work anymore.

Since I was the first member of my family in my generation to go away to college, I was in real uncharted territory on a college campus. My time and energy was definitely consumed by my day to day existence. 50 years ago my problems centered around how to do my own hair and iron my own clothes. Stitched down, knife-pleated skirts were very popular. Also there were no permanent press fabrics. So until the first time I did my own laundry, I never realized how much time and effort my mother put into ironing.

50 years ago President Johnson was declaring war on poverty. I know that piece of “current events” was not part of my day to day vernacular back in '64. I had my own war on poverty going on. I was trying to handle my own checkbook for the first time and get by on the $5.00 a week allowance that my parents could afford to give me. I was struggling with the day to day urges of wanting a candy bar or a new outfit and not having the money for either.

I guess this ramble down memory lane says that it is hard to really know what will be remembered as momentous in 50 years. Not too long ago I was watching a movie about Woody Guthrie and upon hearing the song 500 MILES, I was wrapped up in the same emotions that I felt 50 years earlier in the thralls of homesickness while at Purdue University. At that time in my life I wasn't ready to receive the message from the world that “it isn't always about you!?!”