I subscribe to a small handful of YouTube channels, half of which are related to hiking or backpacking. Some are ministry related. The one I most recently subscribed to is “Recollection Road.” I stumbled across one of their videos on the “recommended for you” list. The title caught my eye, “If You Grew Up in the 1970s…”, and the next ten minutes reminded me of a host of things long forgotten.
When that video was over, I saw another: “If You Grew Up in the 1960s.” That, too, resurrected buried memories. But it’s how the video started that struck me.
“Those of you who grew up in the 1960s, most likely remember it as a simpler time, even through all of the chaos that made up much of the decade.”
He’s right—at least, for me. (By the way, I wonder if today’s 5-6-7-year-olds will remember this time of chaos as “a simpler time”?)
Anyway, back to the 60s…. It took some noodling, but I do recall some of the chaos—but it wasn’t perceived as chaos through my childhood eyes.
It was just life.
We didn’t think anything of the occasional nuclear attack drills, any more than the periodic fire and tornado drills. The alarm sounded, we headed to the basement level of the school, sat down on the hallway floor, and tucked our heads between our knees. Surely, that would save us in the event of a nuclear attack!
Strangely, I have no recollection of being afraid of the almost-certain annihilation. Ads for bomb shelters? Well, why not?
One summer in the mid-60s—1965 or ’66, I’m sure—I’d heard bits and pieces of a motorcycle gang called The Hells Angels. Again, didn’t think much of them—just knew they were bad guys. That is until word came that hundreds of “Angels” were planning to ride through our small Ohio town. The message sent ahead was they intended to attack churches and the homes of ministers.
That got my attention. Dad was a minister in the town’s Baptist church—especially loathed by the bad guys.
We loaded up in the car and left town for a couple of days.
Near the end of the decade, being ten and eleven years old, I became more aware of some of the chaos. The Vietnam War, protest marches, sit-ins, etc. made the news, but frankly didn’t dominate my attention. Since I had a paper route delivering the Niles (Ohio) Daily News, I couldn’t miss the headlines and front-page photos. But again, I folded the papers, delivered them as quickly as I could, and got on with more important things, like playing football or baseball with the neighborhood kids.
Hippies and drugs and psychedelic “art” and the Woodstock Festival and the Summer of Love, I heard, threatened the moral fiber of the culture. But again, what does a ten-year-old kid understand about the “moral fiber of the culture.” Goodness, at that age I recall visiting a friend’s house and, just goofing around, we opened the door of her sister’s room—and sis was under the sheets with her boyfriend. I just assumed they were taking a nap….after all, what else?
I didn’t perceive the chaos as particularly chaotic. I guess one needs a larger point of reference.
“A simpler time.” That’s a good way to describe it.
My earliest memories centered in the rural town of Litchfield, Ohio. Just the name sounds simple, doesn’t it?
A milkman delivered our milk in quart and half-gallon glass bottles, placing them in an insulated box on the porch. In the summertime, if I happened to be outside when the milkman came, he’d give me a chunk of ice to chew on.
In Litchfield, my older brother and I were playing next door at the neighbor’s house when the mom discovered her daughter had chicken pox. I can still see our mom coming through the door, taking us by the hand, and getting us out of there. Yep, a few days later, the pox visited our home.
And so on through the decade.
We moved twice within the state of Ohio. From Litchfield to Wellington (where the Hells Angels were supposed to attack)…then in 1967 from Wellington to Niles. The first move doesn’t register in my brain. The second was a little more traumatic; I was older, leaving several good friends behind. Nevertheless, I wasn’t scarred by the move—at least, not that I know of.
Part of the simplicity, I suppose, is that so much of life revolved around church. To be expected for a minister’s kid, I guess.
I can faintly see the platform in the little Baptist church in Litchfield. My vantage point was mom’s lap, probably halfway back. In the living room of the parsonage there, I set up a makeshift “pulpit” and played church, leading the singing and delivering the sermon. No idea what it was about.
Early in our days in Wellington—I was maybe four years old?—one of the men in the church died, and the funeral was in the church. For the first time, I saw a casket—though it was through the nursery window at the back of the church.
Summertime in Wellington brought the week-long Vacation Bible School for kids. During the school year, in addition to regular Sunday School and church services, we attended the kids club program on Sunday evening.
In early fall, just after school resumed, Mom conducted an after-school Bible class for elementary-age kids. I’m sure they happened weekly for several weeks; I remember but one.
Held in the large living room of the old farmhouse parsonage, Mom gathered us kids around her, sang some songs, learned a Bible verse, and listened as Mom taught the Bible lesson. No doubt, she served us some cookies and Kool-Aid.
I couldn’t tell you what the lesson was about, but God used it to make me aware of my need for a Savior—that even though I was just a kid, I was a sinner kid—I knew how to tell a lie, sass my mom, disobey my parents, and take what didn’t belong to me. As a sinner, I came to understand, I needed a Savior. I didn’t quite know where to go from there, but I knew who did.
Mom.
So I asked her. “Mom, how can I be saved from my sins?”
On the sofa in the living room of the old farmhouse parsonage, Mom told me. I needed to trust Jesus who died in my place for my sins, she said, and I simply needed to ask Him to save me!
And so I did.
And that, one of my fondest memories from childhood, has made all the difference in my life.
The more I’ve thought about the spiritual influences of my childhood—my father the pastor, Sunday School teachers, children’s church and kids club leaders, summer camp counselors—it was my mother who probably had the greatest impact upon me. Even in my teen and college years, I could talk to Mom about spiritual things more easily than just about anyone else.
Brings to mind something Paul wrote to his young protégé, Timothy:
“…I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.”
— 2 Timothy 1:5
Apparently, some of Timothy’s fondest childhood memories also involved sitting at his mother’s side as she shared her faith.
Ah, the blessing of growing up with under the stabilizing influence of a good and godly mom!
