Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If it's happening, shut the government down, to secure the border.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Fight for a future, make America great. To get it.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Happens year on fifty five KRC the Talk stage show,
Heyoh five and fifty five KRC Detalk Station, A very
Happy Friday to you, extra special getting away from politics
and actually kind of delving into politics at the same time.
It was a crazy decade the year of my birth
nineteen sixty five and the year that this book begins with.
(00:27):
My next guest authored the book The Magical Decade, A
personal memoir and popular history of nineteen sixty five through
nineteen seventy five. Welcome to the Morning Show, David hud Win.
By way of background, real quick, David, to let people
know who you are. Born in nineteen fifty So he's
got fifteen on me in Chicago, which is a great
place to be. I suppose back then we're going to
talk about that. And so he was and eyewitnessed all
(00:49):
these things that were going on. Actually was at the
Beatles concert there Comiski Park in nineteen sixty five during
the British invasion, anti war press protesters in the Moonlighting
You saw it All, per author of was a teenage
Space Reporter, which is based on his Apollo eleven experiences.
He went to med school rather than stick with journalism
or his end and just recently retired. Congratulations on your
(01:09):
retirement and write and having published the book The Magical Decade.
It's good to have you on the Morning show.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All right, let me just throw a bunch of stuff
at in rapid fire because I have a question that's
predicated on all this. I was just sitting there thinking
about I'm a student of this era. Actually it's just
a real it's a fascination for me. But I go
back to the Beat era, and you know Kerauak and
and and the and the authors from the Beat era
and how it progressed into the Hippie movement and all
(01:40):
the cultural change that was going on, and it was amazing,
which is why I find the era so fascinating. But
think about it right then and there in that decade,
you got the formation of Greenpeace, got the free speech movement,
and the Students for Democratic Society rioting over in Berkeley
under Mario Savio, the anti war movement because Vietnam Black pans,
you have assassinations JFK, RFK, Malcolm X Martin, Luther King.
(02:04):
You have bombings from the Simines Liberinary Liberation Army up
in Chicago, your neighborhood, the Watts riots in sixty five.
This is a and I'm just scratching the surface of
all those things. Were you aware of how tumultuous and
how transformative socially speaking a time it was while you
were living at beginning at age fifteen in nineteen sixty five, No,
(02:27):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Think I had the perspective, you know, at that age
to understand really what was going on. You know, each
event would come, the assassinations, the riots, the events in space,
the events in Vietnam, and I didn't keep them in perspective.
(02:49):
But years later I decided to write this book as
kind of the gifts to my kids and grandparents and
grandkids as far as you know, what were the sixties
and seven these really like? And doing the research for
the book, I got a much greater perspective on how
revolutionary this decade from sixty five to seventy five was.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Indeed, And let us start with something very positive, something
that I think everybody appreciates this day. You can go
to any radio right now, anywhere. And I'm not talking
about pre program radio or any particular identified satellite radio,
but I mean, just generally speaking, they're still going to
be playing music from the sixties. It was just it
was like the best decade ever for music. You know,
(03:34):
all the British Invasion bands, which had profound influence on
bands in the United States. Of course, they got their
influence from all blues artists and acts. You know, musically speaking,
we have I don't think we've ever had a better decade.
Did you get to go to a lot of concerts.
I knew he went to the Beatles concert at Comisky Park,
But were you aware of the awesomeness of what was
coming out material wise and creativity wise?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yes, I was in the venue for appreciating the music.
I was in high school then, the first part of
the Magical decade. I was in high school till nineteen
sixty eight, and high school had dances in the gym
called sock hops because everybody had to wear socks. You
couldn't wear shoes because it would wreck the basketball floor.
(04:16):
And so I really got an appreciation for the music
at these high school dances and.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Moving over to more tumultuous thing. Well, obviously, the Vietnam
War was going on, clearly a lot of protesters, and
I thought it politically speaking, I thought it was an
interesting alignment that ended up forming, which is very analogous
to what's going on today. And I suppose you two
can draw some parallels disparate groups sort of working together
to fight against the system. You know, it was Vietnam
War protesters, it was the Echo warriors, Green Peace was
(04:46):
formed in sixty nine. Again, you had the free speech movement,
but all of them seemed to coalesce into one giant
coalition of protesters. I get a sense of that going
on today.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well, I think it was certainly going on then. And
one of the catalysts for that was disdained by a
lot of young people then. For President Nixon and President
Johnson before them, both were kind of undone in different
ways by the Vietnam War. And there was a great
(05:19):
antipathy among young people then for the Vietnam War with
fifty two thousand dead until the latter lottery was institute
of the draft lottery, a very unfair draft system, and
that and so the young people their personal safety was
(05:44):
at risk. You point out one thing out. So much
of the issues then, more than fifty years ago, are
issues now. You look at a voting rights, abortion, foreign wars.
It's it's amazing how the more things change, the more
they remain the same. The issues maybe in a different
(06:08):
context or phrase differently, but we're fighting politically over the
same type of thing that we fought about in this
period nineteen sixty five to seventy five.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
More things change, the more they say the same. Anyway,
I understand for the notes you got tear gas at
the Vietnam War protests. You were getting into draft territory
there at your age at that time. Am I wrong?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
No, you're right. And I had a student deferment, and
then when the draft lottery came, I had a very
high number, so I was not going to be not
going to be drafted, And I don't know what I
would have done had I had a load number in
subject to the draft. I was against the Vietnam War
(06:59):
when I was tear gas, though I was kind of
an innocent bystander. I was a student journalist then and
I covered in nineteen sixty nine the March on Washington
for my college newspaper, The Michigan Daily, and it was
a night before the main demonstration, and I was covering
(07:21):
a group of protesters who were headed towards the South
Vietnamese embassy. And they make a long story short, everybody
in the area was tear gassed. So I had my
first taste, or I guess with of teary asse at
that point.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
How about that. That's interesting. And then you also were
at the first Moon launch. I know that was a
subject matter of your other book. I was a teenage
space reporter, right.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I had been interested in space since Sputnik, which is
in nineteen fifty seven, and I was a very impressionable
seven year old boy then, and like a lot of
boys of that era, I was fascinated by space. And
when the moon landing attempt was announced for the July
(08:09):
nineteen sixty nine, I had turned I was just turning
nineteen then and was able to travel by myself. So
with a buddy of mine, we were able to get
NASA press credentials and that was actually down there as
armstrong columns and all, and lifted off towards the Moon.
(08:30):
And it was one of the most exciting experiences.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Of my life, I imagine, And you know, even as
a four year old, I do remember the television coverage
of the Moon launch, and of course, you know, one
small step for man, one giant step leaf for mankind.
Don't remember the words at that young age, but do
you remember watching on television. I was just just fascinated
by space program, and I had all kinds of rocket
toys and my little tang moon rover that came with
(08:56):
your jar of tang, which we drank because that was
what I guess the astronauts did you Were you at
this sixty eight convention by any chance, because obviously that
was a rather momentous, riotous occasion.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, luckily, in retrospect, I had to go and start
school at the University of Michigan in ann Arbor the
week of the convention. They were on a trimester system
and started early in August, so I just missed it.
That I had volunteered in the McCarthy Eugene McCarthy campaign
(09:30):
and would have been there if I hadn't had to
go to school and friends of mine were beaten up
and arrested.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, there was a different view of law enforcement back then.
There's the law enforcement folks were rather applauded for their
there I say brutality on some of the protesters. It
was just sort of, you know, we're in for law
and order, and these punks are out here protesting and
they deserve the police baton beating that they get. I've
heard many comments like that over the years. What was
it like growing up in Chicago back then? I lived
(09:58):
in Chicago between nine in nineteen ninety eight, and I
know it was obviously during that period of time even
more murders and homicides per year than there is now.
But it was an interesting reality living there, growing up
in Cincinnati. What was it like back then? Because it
was far more segregated and divided back then.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Right, Chicago was a city that was segregated, perhaps even
more so than certain parts of the southern United States.
There were certain neighborhoods where blacks lived in other neighborhoods
that were white neighborhoods, and by a series of restrictive
(10:43):
covenants in leases by pressure, the people in one neighborhood
did not sell to people from another group, and it
was very segree I think it's telling that doctor Martin
Luther King that after he concentrated on voting rights in
(11:07):
the South that he came to Chicago in nineteen sixty six,
started a campaign for fair housing in Chicago, and there
is all types of conflicts over this at that time.
And I think that would be amazing to someone who
(11:31):
lived then that African American is now the mayor of
Chicago compared to then when the mayor was a long
term mayor was Richard J. Day, a politician of Irish descent.
So in terms of the power base of Chicago, things
(11:52):
have really changed through the years.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, no doubt about it. I guess the Harold Washington
first black mayor in Chicago, he was there between eighty
three and eighty seven. I actually it was a little
later than that, if I recall. But yeah, during my
closener of my time there, let me get your comments
on the Hipbie movement. Always fascinated by the Hipbye movement,
the idea that having longer hair, which is ubiquitous these
days on a guy was looked down upon by society
(12:16):
at large. Where were you in terms of your acceptance
of that philosophy, that concept, the free love and the
long hair and the beautiful colors and all that relative
the more conformist, you know, very tight high and tight
haircuts that men typically had. Clearly this was a divisive
thing within families. What was your personal experience along those lines.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well, when I was in high school, I had a
tight military type crew cut. Yeah, and that kind of
laugh when I look at the pictures of myself from
you know, sixty five sixty six, the start of what
I call the Magical decade when I was in high school.
Later on I hit kind of a long, bushy haircut
and mustache, but it was still pretty conservative looking. But
(13:04):
for example, a cousin of mine, the first cousin of mine,
in nineteen sixty seven, went to San Francisco for the
Summer of Love, and he got involved with drugs and
all kinds of stuff while they are and it's created
in the family a great deal of concern, and he
(13:26):
stayed up there and joined the commune.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Communes collunes and ashrams didn't work out real well for
most folks because from each according's ability to each according
to his need typically doesn't work out because people tend
to get lazy. My observation, not necessarily yours, mister Chudwin.
David Chudwin, author of the book We're Talking About Today,
which you can easily get on my blog page fifty
five KRCY dot com. The Magical Decade, a personal memoir
of and popular history of nineteen sixty five nineteen seventy five.
(13:54):
Is it just a history of the era? You're an autobiography?
You what would you characterize this book as for part
Company today?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Well, I think I turn give a different perspective. It's
an intersection between a personal memoir and a popular history
of the era. And I was very lucky to be
kind of the Forrest Gump during that decade in the
middle of everything, and so I talk about my personal
experiences but put it in the context of popular history.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
It's been a great conversation this morning. I'll strongly encourage
my listeners to get over to my web page fifty
five Caresee dot com. Click on the link you two
can get a copy of the book The Magical Decade
by my guest today, David Chudwyn. David, it's been a
real pleasure today, and thanks for sharing your experiences a
little bit here this morning. I know my listener is
going to really enjoy the book.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Thank you very much. It's good to talk.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
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