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Owensboro Catholic High School Alumni Office:
http://owensborocatholic.org/alumni/
1964 Economic Data:
Federal spending $118.53 billion
Federal debt $316.1 billion
Unemployment 5.7%
First Class Stamp $0.05
Gas $0.30 gallon
Population: 191,888,791
Life expectancy: 70.2 years
Dow-Jones: High 891; Low 776
Inflation: 1.2%
Songs of 1964:
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
She Loves You
I Get Around / Don't Worry Baby
Baby Love
Leader Of The Pack
Under The Boardwalk
Dancing In The Street
I Want To Hold Your Hand
I Saw Her Standing There
Where Did Our Love Go
The House Of The Rising Sun
Goin' Out Of My Head
My Guy
The Zapruder Effect:
The Zapruder film is defined as the 26 second, silent, 8 mm, color, home movie of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, during his presidential motorcade in a 1961 midnight blue Lincoln with the bubble top removed and bulletproof side windows rolled down, inching through Dealy Plaza, Elm Street, Texas, on November 22, 1963. It was filmed by private citizen, Abraham Zapruder, and is the most complete visual recording of JFK's assassination, signifying the end of a mythical Camelot.
JFK's assassination and the sequence of events to follow would leave imprints in our minds impervious to the passing of time - the Zapruder Effect. Jackie's pink suit, her stately composure, John John's salute, and the cadence of the funeral procession are part of our repertoire. The real Zapruder reel is that of the 8 mm chronology played out for each of us who recall that ill-fated day in history -- our own "grassy knoll," so to speak. It was a sad day indeed when reality slapped us hard out of our childhoods and Camelot was no more. The Warren Commission never saw this film when it made it's final report concerning the Kennedy assassination.
How Did We Survive the 60s?
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.We had no child-proof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we did not wear helmets. As children we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from it. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter, and drank soda pop or Kool-Aid with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because...
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
WE LIVED IN THE MOMENT!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. Most of the time we rode our bikes all over town. There was no such thing as a "play date." We had slumber parties, parties in our basements with our parents upstairs, and parties in the school gym where we danced the night away to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Bobby Vinton, and the Supremes.
We did not have Play-stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround-sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms...WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! Many of us even went to the library and read real paper books!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from those accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! And the idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was something that rarely happened. They actually sided with the law!
Our generation produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had failure, success, honor, hard times and responsibility, and WE LEARNED HOW TO DEAL WITH IT all at a time when there were limited government regulations and few handouts! As products of our parents, the "Greatest Generation," we are the last of the true red, white and blue Americans envisioned by our Founders who can go back to the future and remember - yes, actually know what freedom use to be like. And it was good.
Today, a baby boomer turns 65 every 7.6 seconds, and by mid-century seniors will outnumber young people for the first time in history. Americans in their sixties today have it better than any generation before them; generations ahead have a less certain future. [PHOTO: The Bellew Family. Weenie is third from the left]
The "God Particle" was first theorized by physicists in 1964.
50 YEAR FACTS
U.S. Population in 1964 was 191,888,791. By the end of 2013 it was 316,128,839.
In 1964, only 11 percent of Americans families with children were headed by a single parent. By 2012, that figure rose to 35 percent. Now, in 2014, 48% of first born children are born to unwed mothers.
Back in 1964, 36 million Americans lived in poverty; today it's close to 47 million; the record low of 11.1 percent was achieved in 1973. "Over the past three years, ‘deep poverty’ has reached its highest level on record" [PolitiFact.com]. Overall, the U.S. poverty rate is up more than 30% since 1966.
The percentage of children living in poverty is essentially unchanged since 1964. By some estimates, Uncle Sam has spent over $15 trillion on anti-poverty programs and entitlements in the last fifty years. More than one out of every five children in the U.S. is living in poverty in 2014.
Nearly $104 million worth of food stamps were redeemed at military commissaries in 2013, according to the latest data from the Defense Commissary Agency. In 2008 only 26 million worth of food stamps was redeemed by military families at commissaries.
There have been nearly 56 million abortions in America since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
In March 1964, 87 percent of men between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four, the prime working years, were employed. By March 2012, that figure sank to 74 percent. At the beginning of 2014, 91.8 million able-bodied people were out of work in American.
According to a recent CBO Congressional Budget Report, over 2 million Americans will lose their jobs by 2024 due to Obamacare alone. Since 2000 all the net gains in jobs have gone to immigrants, both legal and illegal. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/27/job-gains-equal-number-immigrants/?page=1
$1.00 in 1964 had the same buying power as $7.54 in 2014.
According to a new study by the Russell Sage Foundation, the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36% decline... Welcome to America's Lost Decade.
In the year 2000, a five-year CD would pay out about 6%. If you had a million dollars, you could generate $60,000 per year with very little risk. The average CD now pays 1.5%, which means you would now need four million dollars in retirement savings to generate that same $60,000 in annual income—four times as much as would have been needed 14 years ago. One out of three Americans currently have no savings.
Social Security pays out 50 billion dollars more than it takes in each year. Sustainable?
Out of the 180 nations in the world, the USA ranks no. 47 for Freedom of Speech. Why? Because we now threaten, arrest, and spy on journalists.
79% of US residents are satisfied with their level of freedom, down from 91% in 2006, according to a Gallup survey released July 1, 2014. That 12-point drop pushes the US from among the highest in the world in terms of perceived freedom to 36th place, trailing Paraguay and Rwanda. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2014/0701/Land-of-the-free-Not-so-much.-Americans-sense-of-freedom-drops-poll-finds
Our country is currently 17 trillion dollars in debt, compared to just a little over 300 billion in 1964. From the time of George Washington to William Jefferson Clinton, who was our 42nd president, we accumulated $5.5 trillion in debt—and now we’re up to $17.5 trillion. ”Quantitative Easing," fancy name for inflation, is destroying our future.
Inflation in 1964 was 1.2%. Today, if measured by the same criteria as in 1964 (included fuel, food, and taxes), inflation is almost 10%. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
The cost of beef and dairy products has increased 19% this year alone. The price of a pound of ground beef has hit $3.55 a pound, a record high even when adjusted for inflation, according to government readings for February. That's up 56% since 2010. Eventually eating beef and cheese will be a rare treat. Did you know we now must regulate cow farts? That is udder nonsense! http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/14/news/economy/beef-prices/ http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/28/white-house-looks-to-regulate-cow-flatulence-as-part-of-climate-agenda/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/03/18/beef-prices-post-biggest-surge-in-a-decade/
The year it all came apart
'The Last Innocent Year - America in 1964: The Beginning of the Sixties' by Jon Margolis
"I fear for the little ones, the innocents, who are already paying for our mistakes. There exists a great army of occupationally orphaned children today. They are attending government-controlled daycare centers and schools. And latch-key kids are running wild in the streets. And the lopsided, emotionally wounded children of single welfare mothers, born only for the sake of more money on the monthly government check. Open your eyes and look at them, for they are the future. In them I see the sure and certain destruction of this once-proud nation. In their vacant eyes I see the death of Freedom. They carry with them a great emptiness - and someone someday will surely pay a price for their suffering."
"If I Were the Devil" by Paul Harvey. Gadsden Times. 13 October 1964, p.4.
If I were the Prince of Darkness I would want to engulf the whole earth in darkness.
I'd have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree.
So I should set about however necessary, to take over the United States.
I would begin with a campaign of whispers.
With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve, "Do as you please."
To the young I would whisper "The Bible is a myth." I would convince them that "man created God," instead of the other way around.
I would confide that "what is bad is good and what is good is square."
In the ears of the young married I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you.
I would caution them not to be "extreme" in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct.
And the old I would teach to pray — to say after me — "Our father which are in Washington."
Then I'd get organized.
I'd educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull, uninteresting.
I'd threaten TV with dirtier movies, and vice-versa.
I'd infiltrate unions and urge more loafing, less work. Idle hands usually work for me.
I'd peddle narcotics to whom I could, I'd sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction, I'd tranquilize the rest with pills.
If I were the Devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions - let those run wild.
I'd designate an atheist to front for me before the highest courts and I'd get preachers to say, "She's right."
With flattery and promises of power I would get the courts to vote against God and in favor of pornography.
Thus I would evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, then from the Houses of Congress.
Then in his own churches I'd substitute psychology for religion and deify science.
If I were Satan I'd make the symbol of Easter an egg
And the symbol of Christmas a bottle.
If I were the Devil I'd take from those who have and give to those who wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious.
Then my police state would force everybody back to work.
Then I would separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines and objectors in slave-labor camps.
If I were Satan I'd just keep doing what I'm doing and the whole world will go to hell as sure as the Devil.
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