Baby Boomer Rewind: Growing up in the 60'S

By Mario Russo

This is the story of the Boomer Generation and what it was like growing up during the 1960s, arguably the most exciting and momentous time in our nation’s history.
Over 77 million Baby Boomers witnessed the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war, the moon landing, Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the sexual revolution and so much more!
Whether it was school air raid drills, a first kiss, surfing escapades, Italian Sunday dinners, Christmas Eve celebrations, visits to Brooklyn relatives, cross-country trips, high school proms, part-time jobs, college applications, sexual encounters, or family funerals, we all went through some variation of these adolescent experiences, all delightfully described in Baby Boomer Rewind in a series of entertaining stories.
There will never be another Woodstock, nor another Beatles. The author recounts these and other memorable events as well as his personal experiences growing up in the 1960s with amusing stories that reveal what life was like in those amazing times, and how different life was then from now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Nov 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665733717

Mario Russo

Mario Russo was born in Brooklyn and raised in a second-generation Italian-American family on Long Island, New York. A successful attorney and real estate entrepreneur for more than forty-five years, he is a longtime professional writer. He is married with two children and enjoys golf, tennis, boating, and the beach, sharing his time between West Palm Beach, Florida, and Westhampton, New York.

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Copyright © 2022 Mario Russo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3370-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3369-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3371-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022921196

Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/30/2023

I have dedicated this book to my loving sister, who worked with me passionately to recollect the details of our family history in the months before her passing.

CONTENTS

PART ONE

Introduction

Chapter 1 Roots

Chapter 2 Goodbye Brooklyn

Chapter 3 Hello Long Island

Chapter 4 Welcome To Deer Park

Chapter 5 Summer Camp

Chapter 6 The Cold War

Chapter 7 Sunday Dinners

Chapter 8 Deer Park Geography

Chapter 9 Summer Vacations

Chapter 10 John F. Kennedy and Cuba

Chapter 11 The JFK Assassination

Chapter 12 John F. Kennedy Junior High School

Chapter 13 Summer of ’64

Chapter 14 Meet the Bed-Stuy Cousins

Chapter 15 The Greenpoint Cousins

Chapter 16 The Beatles

Chapter 17 The 1964 New York World’s Fair

Chapter 18 The Winds of Change

Chapter 19 Deer Park High School

Chapter 20 The Russian Dentist

Chapter 21 Surf’s Up

Chapter 22 The Day I Died

Chapter 23 High School Jobs

Chapter 24 The Vietnam War

Chapter 25 The Draft

Chapter 26 Christmas Eve Dinner, 1969

Chapter 27 1968, The Most Turbulent Year

Chapter 28 The Mother of All Boomer Years: 1969

Chapter 29 Spring Break

Chapter 30 The Knicks Make a Key Move and Win It All

Chapter 31 The Saxophone V. the Trombone 2.0

Chapter 32 The Summer of 1969

Chapter 33 The 1969 Mets

Chapter 34 Apollo 11

Chapter 35 The Charles Manson Story

Chapter 36 The Summer of Love

Chapter 37 Woodstock – Three Days That Changed Everything

Chapter 38 Woodstock, Day 2

Chapter 39 Bon Voyage

Chapter 40 Welcome to Rutgers

Chapter 41 The Longest Summer

Chapter 42 My Sophomoric Year

Chapter 43 Dog Patrol

Chapter 44 1972 - Another Epic Year for Boomers

Chapter 45 On Becoming a Lawyer

Chapter 46 The Watergate Scandal

Chapter 47 All Grown Up

PART TWO

Chapter 48 A Look Back

Chapter 49 A Fork in the Road

Chapter 50 The Greenpoint Cousins

Chapter 51 The Police Investigation

Chapter 52 A Brooklyn Funeral

Chapter 53 Another Funeral Next Week

Chapter 54 The Super Bowl

Chapter 55 The Gia Game

Chapter 56 Ain’t that a Kick in the Ass

Chapter 57 Cutting Ties

Acknowledgements

PART

ONE

INTRODUCTION

O k, I am a baby boomer and proud of it. If my parents’ generation, having survived the Depression and World War II, is known as The Greatest Generation, it should be acknowledged that the boomer generation, now in our 60s and 70s, should be viewed as the Wow Generation, raised during the most exciting time to live in the United States ever. Growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, I and other boomers witnessed the cold war, the threat of nuclear war, the moon landing, Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the sexual revolution and so much more. Much of this boomer history will be recounted in this book. It will be told, however, through the lens of my story of growing up on Long Island, New York during this time, in a second-generation Italian American family of modest means.

Deer Park, Long Island was and is largely a blue-collar community located about an hour east of New York City. It is part of the suburban sprawl that followed the end of World War II, drawing people from NYC, mostly residents from Brooklyn and Queens. Brooklyn and Queens are west of Long Island and on the way to Manhattan aka The City. I always thought that Brooklyn and Queens were part of NYC until my cousins, all of whom were from Brooklyn, educated me otherwise. Brooklyn was simply Brooklyn. If you wanted to cross the East River into Manhattan, you were heading to The City. Go figure.

Even though I, like almost everyone else in Deer Park, was born in Brooklyn, Brooklyn was a different world to me, largely unknown except for occasional visits to my cousins who lived in small apartments in lousy neighborhoods. Long Island, geographically, is both long and an Island, as one would expect. Therefore, surrounded by water. But there is no water anywhere near Deer Park as, on Long Island, the most affluent residents live near or on the water, and the progressively less affluent move toward the center of the Island. When you reach the center of Long Island, you find Deer Park. There are exceptions, of course, like Garden City, Old Westbury and Dix Hills, but, as a rule, the money flows away from the Island’s center and toward the North Shore and the South Shore off Long Island. The North Shore is bounded by the Long Island Sound to the North, and the South Shore is bounded by a bunch of really cool barrier islands like Fire Island, which adjoin the ocean. By the way, Long Island snobbery dictates that North Shore people—particularly those residing on Long Island’s fabled Gold Coast—generally turn their noses up at South Shore people. Oh, you live on the South Shore? Mostly, South Shore people consider North Shore people assholes, or at least entitled. Ever hear of the term Locust Valley Lockjaw? Really, it’s a thing.

Moving east from Nassau and western Suffolk counties, Long Island splits into two forks, separated generally by the Peconic Bay. The Hamptons are located about 90 miles from Manhattan on the South Fork of Long Island’s East End. The Hamptons are to Manhattan what Nice is to Paris. Glitzy, Show me the money and fantastic beaches—some of the best in the world. Beyond the Hamptons is Montauk, called The End because it is at the very end of Long Island. How clever. When I was growing up in the 60s, Montauk used to be a quaint little fishing village and the surfing capital of Long Island. Then it got "Hamptonized about ten years ago. The The North Fork" of the East End has a completely different vibe than the Hamptons. With more wine vineyards, small villages, and farming, it is much more low-key than the Hamptons, although there is pressure to change. When I was a kid growing up in Deer Park, I never even heard of the North Fork. So that’s Long Island Geography 101, the backdrop to my world growing up.

One more thing and it is geopolitics, not geography. If you grew up on Long Island, chances are you were a Mets, Jets, Nets, and Islander fan. If you grew up anywhere in New York City other than possibly Queens, chances are you were a Yankee, Giant, and Ranger fan. Because Shea Stadium, where the Jets and Mets played for years, was located in Queens, Queens fans are a mixed bag. Nobody in New York is a Boston fan of anything. And the Knicks were a crossover team, appealing to everyone.

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CHAPTER 1

ROOTS

A round 1920, all four of my grandparents arrived in Brooklyn from Palermo, Sicily, penniless and without much formal education. None spoke a word of English. My mother had three sisters, Lena, Loretta and Ann Marie, and they all grew up on one floor of a three-story flat. The first floor was a grocery store, operated by my grandfather with the help of his daughters. The second floor was a one-bedroom apartment that they lived in and the third floor was rented out. My mother’s parents passed away before I was five, and while I have no memory of my grandmother, I have a few vivid memories of my maternal grandfather, Anthony. He didn’t smile much—it’s a Sicilian thing—and was always dressed in a shirt, tie, and vest or jacket, very formal. What I most remember about my grandfather was that, whenever I saw him, he greeted me by pinching my cheek and twisting it. It hurt like hell, but evidently, it was an old Italian ritual, a sign of affection. Thanks, Grandpa. I once asked my mom what her mother was like. She said her mom cried every day of her life after she came to America, as she missed her family in Sicily. We all get homesick, but, come on. I guess she was slightly depressed.

Anyway, my father Louis was the youngest of nine children, six boys, and three girls, spanning a period of twenty years. Except for my Uncle Johnnie, who ran numbers for an unidentified employer in Brooklyn, pizza was the family business. Uncles Tony and Larry owned pizzerias in Brooklyn and Deer Park, and when my Uncle Johnny moved to California, he too opened a pizza joint. There was never a shortage of mozzarella in our refrigerator.

My parents grew up in the depression, and everyone was expected to help the family survive by working. So, my mother left school after the 8th grade to work in one of the many garment district sweatshops of the time, working piecemeal, where she would only get paid for what she produced. Nice life for a 14-year-old, right? My father, on the other hand, stayed in school until he was 16 years old because, at the time, it was considered more important for a male to be educated than for a female. Then, he went out to work. This was a tough time for first-generation immigrants, regardless of their ethnicity, as they were easily taken advantage of. Child labor laws were just coming into place and often ignored. It was the Great Depression. It didn’t sound so great to me. My parents’ families, like others, just needed the money. These times and experiences had a lasting effect on my parents and their generation. What struck me in discussing these times with my parents and relatives of that time was the fact that many either resisted or refused to take public assistance, despite their obvious needs. It was a matter of pride. The family looked after itself. I am not saying that this was the smartest or most noble thing, or that people who took the money or food—then or today—are any less for doing so. I think it’s just a reflection of the difference in attitudes and roles of the family. Maybe that’s why they were called the Greatest Generation—and we weren’t.

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CHAPTER 2

GOODBYE BROOKLYN

L ike everyone else in Brooklyn and elsewhere, my father enlisted in the service to fight for our country during World War II. He was stationed in the Philippines and as far as I know, never saw action. But, he served his country. He was a cook—hey, everyone’s gotta eat! Even though I never saw him cook a meal at home during the next 50 years, my father often critiqued my mother’s cooking, telling her, I was a cook in the Army. That didn’t go over well with my mom. I often thought that my dad faced more danger at home telling my mom how to cook than he ever faced during the war.

Dad and Mom married after the war. They moved to the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, and after my sister Jennifer was born, they moved to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, where I was born. My father was a restless soul though, and we moved around quite a bit before finally finding our home in Deer Park. My father saw the suburbs as the way to a better life for the family. For my dad, Brooklyn had become too crowded, dirty and dangerous. It drove my mother crazy, but she went along. Dad was always looking for the next hot place to live. After the war, Long Island was booming, as was California. So, Dad made an executive decision—we were leaving Brooklyn for a new life in the suburbs of Long Island.

It doesn’t sound like much, right? Head east from Brooklyn about 40 miles and boom, you are in Suffolk County, where farms were being replaced by tract subdivisions everywhere you turned in the mid-1950s. But it was a big deal and had a huge impact on my family and my life. My dad was the youngest of nine brothers and sisters—they all remained in Brooklyn, mostly in the same neighborhood. My mom had three sisters, all of whom remained in Brooklyn—two in the same walk-up apartment that mom’s parents lived in. So, for two second-generation Italian-Americans to be the first to leave the nest and familiarity of the old neighborhood with two young kids in tow and venture out to the unknown suburbs of Long Island, it was quite a big deal. Often, those fundamental life decisions have lifelong consequences that emerge over time. That was certainly the case with my parents’ families.

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CHAPTER 3

HELLO LONG ISLAND

T he next few years were a blur to me. My dad found work at Republic Aviation Corporation , a Long Island-based military aircraft manufacturer of historic prominence. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Long Island’s economy was dominated by large defense contractors such as Republic Aviation, Fairchild Aviation and Grumman Aircraft, all located in the Farmingdale-Bethpage central Long Island area. Collectively, they constituted Long Island’s largest employer and a great opportunity for thousands of blue-collar workers and veterans, including my dad. Mom’s job, being a homemaker, was portable.

Our first stop was Wyandanch, about which I remember little, except for a birthday party. Things started to accelerate when my parents bought our first home on a cul-de-sac in Smithtown when I was about 5 years old. This is where I started Kindergarten. Let’s call this Elementary School number 1. Our stay in Smithtown was short, lasting less than a year, but memorable. Kids’ bedtimes then were probably a little earlier than now, but my parents were ridiculous. For some reason, they insisted on putting me to bed before the sun went down. I don’t know why, I was never tired, but they never asked me my opinion about it. Parents were really weird back then, they just told kids what to do and kids did it, for the most part. Other kids stayed up during the summer. Not me. In my one summer in Smithtown, come 6:30, it was lights out. No exceptions. It was broad daylight and all I could do was peer out my bedroom window on the second floor and watch my neighbors cutting the lawn and kids playing in the street. Looking back, I get it, Mom and Dad want to get the kids down and have a life of their own, but this was a little extreme. And who the hell was around to play with at 6:30 am the next morning? No one! Back then, there were no video games, no Xbox, no internet, no nothing. Just sit around the kitchen, watching my mother smoke cigarettes all morning.

But there was some real action while we lived in Smithtown. One afternoon that summer, some of the kids on the block, boys and girls, were playing a game of running bases in the street. For the unacquainted, running bases is a game where any number of kids run between two baseball-like bases spread several yards apart while two players throw a ball back and forth to each other from each base, hoping to tag one of the runners out with the ball, at which point, the player tagged had to sit out until all runners are tagged out. It’s usually a low-risk, friendly game, and can be played coed, which, this being a neighborhood game, was coed. That is, until the girl next door got beaned in the head with the ball, started screaming, and raced home. At that point, the game was quickly declared over, and everyone went home, including me.

I swear it wasn’t me who tagged the girl! When I got home, I told my mother, who was cooking dinner, what happened. She didn’t seem concerned. That is—until she saw the girl next door’s mom racing across our front lawn. My mom beat her to the front door and quickly locked the door. Good thinking Mom. At that point, the woman started screaming for my mom to open the door and beating on the front door. She was irate, undoubtedly more so because my mom refused to open the door. Then they started talking through the door, our neighbor accusing me of beaning the girl’s head and my mom denying it. Mom finally suggested she search elsewhere on the block for justice, which she did, and she walked away. As I watched through a crack in the living room curtain, I saw the crazy lady heading toward my neighbor on the other side of our house. I was relieved, but speechless. My mother grabbed another cigarette and lit it up. As I looked at my mom, I noticed that her hands were shaking.

It gets worse. So, the crazy lady goes next door and starts banging on the door and screaming again. What’s behind door number 2? Another crazy lady, this one with scissors in her hand! Same drill, different outcome. Since we were hunkered down in our house, what happened next was not exactly clear, but the