Protests

Looking at the news of January 1970 made me think of a few things.

People were getting laid off then too, governments were just as corrupt, and people were protesting.

What would make a high school student, or anyone else for that matter, protest by setting themselves on fire?

Why didn't we protest? Was Loudon such a nice place to live, and everyone got along so well that we had no discontent? I've mentioned the planned "walk out" of whatever year it was (68? 69?) that didn't materialize, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was about. It must have been something though to make so many people want to buck the system.

And I'd like to think the blacks and whites got along okay, but I obviously can't speak for Eugene, Cynthia, Morris or George. Maybe we did and maybe we didn't.

There was no war protest. I think everybody viewed it as something that was there, not necessarily something we could do anything about. By 1975 though I'm sure that more than a few people were getting fed up with it, just like they were everywhere else.

There was no NOW movement. No demand for equal treatment and positively no bra burning. I'm sure us guys would have remembered that one.

There was also no "make love not war" hippy types, no druggies and no flower children.

Were we too settled? Were we blind to it all?

I honestly don't know, but I do know what I would like to think was the reason for it all. Overall, we were happy. It may have been a little one horse town in the foothills of the Smokies, but it was our little one horse town. When we palled around with each other it was because we wanted to, and I think it crossed racial lines. None of us were filthy rich either. Oh, some had more than some others, but not really that much more. And we were always together -- all pretty much in the same boat. No private schools or clubs. We all went to the same school, the same churches the same "hot" spots. TV was limited and there weren't concerts every day or even every month.

If you want to look at it that way, we were each other's entertainment, and we were closer because of it.