Are there many, some, a few of us over 50??

[Lise]

and Bike Goddess, you RULE!!!! Hands Down!!!!!

Absolutely. 20 years from now I hope to have built up to the same kind of annual mileage! Thanks for telling us.

I liked those old phones, by the way. I liked dialing a rotary dial. You knew you were doing something. Nobody got called by mistake!

[salsabike]

What an interesting thread this has turned out to be.

I was born in '53. At my 10th birthday party we saw a tape of Jack Ruby shooting Harvey Oswald. I have the same memory of the elementary school principal coming to my class the week before to say that Kennedy had been shot. It was as close as you get to a collective national mourning--everyone was devastated.

We did the get-under-desk-atomic-bomb thing at school (my, how silly). We watched Twilight Zone, the greatest. That Was The Week That Was. Laugh-In, Mod Squad, Room 222, 77 Sunset Strip.

Re the 60s: I couldn't have asked for a better time to come of age. It was exciting and inspiring (in the early days, anyway), politically, musically, socially. 70s and disco--sort of a mixed bag. Early 80s and Reagan--ugh. AIDS in the 80s--lost a whole generation of both dancer and psychologist friends.

I liked George, by the way, and yes, my sister and I watched The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Never an Elvis fan---always a 60s rock fan, also soul music. First concert: Sonny and Cher, at age 12 1/2. Saw Jimi Hendrix two years later in a small local club. Saw Janis Joplin, saw the Doors.

Bike Goddess DOES rule!

[crazycanuck]

Ohh...you saw Jimmy hendrix, janis & the doors..ohh...I envy you!! Am i showing my young age?

Did any of you funky chickies go to Woodstock???

Lise-the quilt-everytime i see pics i'm in tears..

c

off to look for early grey hairs...

[jeannierides]

I was born in 1950. I have a very tattered picture of me on my bike in my little shorts and gypsy-style halter top & pony tail! I'm still pining for those days!
We didn't get a tv until the 60's, but I remember going to my grandparents before that & seeing Edward R. Murrow on the news... Laugh-In, Hullabaloo were the silly programs of the decade. I was on the school bus to go home when I heard the news about JFK. I lost several friends in the Vietnam *conflict*, and a few more returned with serious emotional and physical disabilities.
I was absolutely NOT athletic at all... although I played ball with the neighborhood kids and rode my bike, I was very skinny and too much of a sissy to do anything remotely un-feminine! What a waste of time! I wish I had known how much fun I could have had!
I was 53 when I ran my first half marathon, and 54 when I got back on the bike...

Bike Goddess, you are my hero!

[Tater]

I just wanted to say to Bike Goddess, I want to be like you when I grow up! What an inspiration.

[mimitabby]

Ohh...you saw Jimmy hendrix, janis & the doors..ohh...I envy you!! Am i showing my young age?

Did any of you funky chickies go to Woodstock???
.

I actually had the tickets, I got them in the mail. But my guardian (long story)
wouldn't let me go.
I worked as a waitress at Howard Johnson's on the New Jersey Turnpike that summer and served lots of cute boys that day who were going to Woodstock. I was SOOOOOOO sad and jealous.

and YAY! Bike Goddess Rules !!

[ClockworkOrange]

Soon to be a

Good enough reason to have a little dance about


Hey Bike Goddess, you are really amazing, 7500 miles...........

Sally

[Lise]

I was born in '53. At my 10th birthday party we saw a tape of Jack Ruby shooting Harvey Oswald.

You saw WHAT? And nowadays they give goodie bags. What are they thinking?

Seriously, though, what I remember of JFK's assasination is the sense (I was just 3 years old) that my parents felt powerless. That is a very scary feeling for a little kid. Then my dad died (of a brain tumor) in 1965, then RFK was killed, then MLK was killed, and it all seemed so crazy. There was that sort of cheesy song about "Have you seen my old friend John...Bobby....Martin..." in the '70s, but it summed it up for me. The 70s and 80s (for me) were a time of no living heroes, and a lot of science fiction.

Nobody's mentioned the moon walk--it was a hot summer night, July 9, 1969. We'd been at the pool in Des Plaines, and got the ultimate treat: Drumsticks. You know, the ice cream cone with vanilla ice cream dipped in chocolate and nuts? To tell the truth, since Mom never let us get those, I don't remember if that one time we actually did, or if the moon walk later that night was such a cool experience that my memory just threw in a bonus memory of Drumsticks at the pool! But we came home and stayed up really late to watch Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon. Amazing. One of my favorite movies is A Walk On the Moon, about that summer.

[Fredwina]

I remember we were staying at a hotel in St. Louis when Dad called us in from the pool to watch it.
I also remember either JFK or RFK funeral. I was mad because they had pre-empted cartoons! the nerve!

[Bad JuJu]

I remember all that stuff--pretty clearly, for how long ago it was.

We were sent home from school early the day JFK was shot, and I think that's my first memory of an historical event that was covered by TV news, and the first time we had the TV on at other times of the day than in the evening--very strange!

The moonwalk was very exciting. When Project Mercury began (Alan Shepherd, John Glenn), whatever we were doing in school was always suspended so we could listen to or watch the launches/landings. By 1969, it had all gotten kind of old, so the moon walk made it exciting again.

I was in high school when MLK and then RFK were shot--a scary and solemn time. My friend and I had had such high hopes for RFK--we even contemplated hitchhiking to DC for his funeral. But our parents caught wind of the plan and nixed it.

And my twin brother went to Woodstock, but I stayed home. *sigh*

[Crankin]

I was staying with my aunt and uncle during the moon walk and Woodstock summer. My aunt had just had a baby and I was there to help them. I remember the moon walk so clearly, because my aunt had gone back into the hospital for something and I was exhausted from taking care of 2 kids plus a newborn (I was 15, almost 16). My uncle was totally obsessed with the moon landing. He was so amazed, I guess because as a child of the forties, it all seemed like science fiction to him. It's a really special memory, because he died young, at age 52. Even though he wasn't a blood relative, I felt very close to him. They would not let me go to Woodstock, even though they were younger than my parents, who probably would have let me go.
I saw Jimmy Hendrix at the Boston Garden in November 1968. Anyone else at that show?

[Bike Goddess]

I saw the Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco. Remember them? What about the Kingston Trio? They used to play at a bar called Rossottis in Woodside. My ex husband was a manager for awhile for Country Joe and the Fish. Oh the old days of jazz and funkie music!

Woodstock would have been fun!

[nancielle]

Nobody's mentioned the moon walk--it was a hot summer night,
July 9, 1969.

It was a hot summer night but it was July 20th. I remember it because it was my 12th birthday and we were all having birthday cake as we watched Neil Armstrong take those steps.

[Lise]

It was a hot summer night but it was July 20th. I remember it because it was my 12th birthday and we were all having birthday cake as we watched Neil Armstrong take those steps.

You are so right! Where did I get the 9th? My birthday is the 19th (I was *9* that year, maybe that's where I got that number). I'll bet we did have Drumsticks at the pool that day. That's the kind of treat we only got for something like a birthday! Thanks for clearing that up. We're nearly birthday sisters!

[newfsmith]

While Biking Goddess beats me for age, I'm only 59, I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. My childhood memories seem older than hers: Our telephone was a wall-mounted, wooden, hand-crank model. There was a "peeping Tom" latch that let you pick up the ear cone to see if the 18 party line was clear (or to evesdrop) before you cranked out your call. Our ring was 2 shorts, my cousin's was long-short-long. To get the operator (a real person) you cranked 1 long, she then manually connected you to a phone not on your party line by connecting bananna plug wires on the switch board. She was the only person that wore a headset. I also went to a one-room country school with 8 grades and 1 teacher. She had to start the fire in the furnace in the morning (coal), there was one big floor register. Cold days the water that was piped across the road from the farm next door got there fine, but we couldn't use it to wash our hands because the sink drain just went out the wall and onto the ground. Any time it got below 10F (which was most of the time from mid-December to mid-February) the drain would freeze. Since the rest of the plumbing was two 4-hole outhouses, we all developed strong bladders and tending not to drink anything during the day in the winter.

I was in high-school, waiting for after lunch history class to start when one of the kids came in saying President Kennedy was shot. Several kids in the class that were Kennedy supporters attacked the president of the high school Young Republicans club, saying things like "Are you happy, now?" I never heard any of them apoligize to the poor kid, for venting their grief on him.

I was a newly-wed, visiting friends for the moon-walk. My husband was thrilled to the core (he went to MIT at 16, with advanced placement and was fascinated with space travel although he ultimately became a computer geek).

Although we didn't get television until 1959, I do remember "Rocky & Bullwinkle".