Coming of Age in the 1960s

Key West was the ideal place to grow up in the 60s. It's a small island at the southernmost tip of Florida where the temperature averages 65 to 89 degrees year round.

Saturday mornings started around 5 am for us kids. We'd load the cooler with sodas and food while Dad would hitch our 14 foot boat to the station wagon. Then we'd make the drive to our favorite launch ramp at Sugarloaf or Big Pine Key, sometimes Tavernier.

Photo: Diego Pitt via Unsplash

He'd back the boat down the ramp while we watched the car inch close to the point of no return. Once the boat was afloat, my brother would move the car and trailer and we'd head out for a day of fishing. We'd use shrimp and mullet to catch snapper, grouper and grunts. The fish fry was always a feast with fresh fillets of snapper, hush puppies made with cornmeal and coleslaw.

Back then, we walked to school or rode our bikes. On the way home, we'd keep an eye out for empty soda bottles tossed on the side of the road. Recovered ones jostled in our wire bicycle baskets, clinking out a merry tune as we rode home.

After our homework was done, we'd head outside to scrub the bottles clean using the garden hose and ride to the corner store to cash them in for two cents each. A little work paid for a ten cent comic book or a candy bar. If business was really good, we'd splurge on a Coke from the machine at the back of the store.

I recall our disappointment when they put a canned drink vending machine in front of the store. Our return-bottle business faltered with each purchase. Worse, the aluminum canned drinks were fifteen cents. It was our first encounter with inflation.

Miss Jordan's 4th Grade Elementary School Class

After school on the side street by our house, we played "Four Square" with a plastic bouncing ball. We'd draw four boxes in a larger square on the asphalt and write numbers in each square. Whenever a car came along, we'd holler "CAR!" and move out of the way while they drove through.

At the local A&W, we drank root beer brought to us by car hops on roller skates. They'd hang a tray from the driver's side window and skate around delivering orders wearing metal change-makers on their belts.

There was only one Burger King in the small town, and one Dairy Queen. They served the best soft-serve cones. There was a Royal Castle with their famous Birch Beer in a frosted mug for a nickel.

Families enjoyed dollar-a-carload night at the drive-in movies. Cartoons always played before the main feature. We saw mostly Westerns or a comedy like The Three Stooges.

The Conch Train, took tourists around the city on connected cars behind an engine car with a tour guide announcing all the historical data.

When relatives came to town, our family went to the A & B Lobster House near the docks with the best lobster salad and Key Lime pie in town.

Our school day began with the Pledge of Allegiance with our hands over our hearts. Afterward, we sang, "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Then, the teacher, Mrs. Price, would pick someone to read a short passage from the Bible. Yes, it was a public school and we exercised this religious freedom.

When Cape Canaveral, now Cape Kennedy, had a scheduled launch, our Principal, Mr. Carey, would roll an AV cart into the cafeteria/auditorium for the students to watch it live. Other times, we watched the launch from outside. On a clear day, we could see the trail of the rocket's arc from miles away.

21 Feb 1961 NASA Public Domain

In one of his last appearances in the Florida Keys, President Kennedy, traveling down A1A in his white Lincoln Continental convertible, turned to wave to our group beside the road. Soon after that visit, the announcement came over the school PA that JFK had been shot. Classmates cried and sadness prevailed, before we were dismissed from school early that day.

My Dad drove straight from the Navy Base to pick me up from school. Our family spent the evening in a state of shock watching Chet Huntley and David Brinkley recap the bad news.

We drove to Perrine to be with relatives for Thanksgiving and watched the funeral on their TV.

In 1964, Dad retired from the Navy and our family moved to South Miami and bought a house on Franjo Road. The model home, a 3 bedrooms was featured as a close-out for the subdivision with a sale price of $17,300.00. There was a swimming pool with a cabana and a separate bathroom which my brother, a Junior in High School, moved into. We lived in that house for 5 years.

My first car in high school was a 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible. At lunch time, we'd pile in as many kids that would fit in the car, put the convertible top down and with the radio blaring, we'd cruise to 7-Eleven. An order of French fries cost a quarter and were made to order. Or we'd head to Arby's for hand-sliced roast beef cut on their slicing machine at the counter and a Jamocha shake. chocolate ice cream, milk and a dash of coffee. At Burger King, we'd order a whopper with no onions, just in case of a close encounter.

Senior year, the mixed concert chorus  took a train trip to Washington, D.C. from Miami, Florida along with the high school band and parents serving as chaperones. It was a twenty-five-hour ride jostling along in standard cars with no sleeping berths. Not that we did much sleeping on the trip.

We performed the Battle Hymn of the Republic in the Rotunda with its magnificent acoustics and our young A Capella voices. Later, we took a tour bus to the National Archives and saw original documents like the Declaration of Independence.

In Arlington, Virginia we competed in the Cherry Blossom Festival of Performing Concert Choirs. Afterward, we headed home on a much-subdued train ride home.

For our final performance of the year, the Mixed Concert Chorus performed Lerner and Lowe's 1954 musical "Brigadoon" for which we rehearsed endlessly. Tickets were sold to raise money to buy a new recording system for our music room.

That last year of the nineteen sixties, graduation day sneaked upon us far too soon, setting off major changes in our lives and the way things had always been. It was the end of an era and the commencement of a new one: the seventies.