1968: First Class Stamp $0.06 cents
"Buffy and Mrs.Beasley Dolls" and Kenner's Spirograph
were the "hot" toys
"HAIR, the Musical" debuts on Broadway
Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol as he enters his studio
The year of many movies: 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Graduate,
Oliver!, The Producers, Barbarella, Funny Girl
"Laugh In" debuts on NBC in color
Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated
I was twelve years old in 1968, and I remember the pop culture shift that year in this country well. I was in Galveston with my Aunt Boojy when Robert Kennedy was shot, and the upset adults around me, for the most part liberal Democrats, began to fear openly that if derisive conditions persisted in the population there would be a bloody revolution in the streets of this country. Thing was, there was a huge shift in perception that year, the actual revolution expressed itself best in pop culture. In my view all the greatest strides of revolution that this generation made were cultural for the next several years. I generally tell most people this is the year I knew I was a lesbian, but it was only because I finally had a word for what I was. I read the book "Well of Loneliness" that summer (snuck out of a library and hidden from adult supervision), and even though I could not really relate to the masculine "Stephen" character, I knew my attraction to women like her meant I was one too. So this was the first year in my life I became less focused on the narrow view of a child and began to look outward at society and politics. When my own revolutionary spirit began.
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