{"id":13757,"date":"2012-05-08T22:28:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T02:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=13757"},"modified":"2012-05-08T22:28:03","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T02:28:03","slug":"the-last-ozzie-and-harriet-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=13757","title":{"rendered":"The Last Ozzie And Harriet Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past weekend I attended my husband\u2019s 50th<\/sup> high school reunion in Great Neck, New York<\/a>. Out of a class of over three hundred students, about one hundred attended. About thirty of the class members have died in the fifty years since they graduated. I have no connection with Great Neck and up until this weekend had never been inside Great Neck South High School<\/a>. The school is impressive.<\/p>\n

I have a few comments on the reunion. First of all, I would like to say that the people who organized the reunion did a fantastic job\u2014even those of us who married members of the class felt welcomed and included. It was an awesome weekend.<\/p>\n

But that is not what this article is about. The reunion was for the Class of \u201962<\/a>. I was part of the Class of \u201965. For anyone old enough to remember the early sixties, it was a time a tremendous change in our country. The Class of \u201962 was the last of the \u201cOzzie and Harriet\u201d Generation. For those under the age of sixty, \u201cThe Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet<\/a>\u201d was a television situation comedy that ran from 1952 to 1966. The show depicted the lives of Ozzie and Harriet and their two sons David and Ricky. The show launched the singing career of Ricky Nelson.<\/p>\n

The Class of \u201962 graduated in bobby socks, saddle shoes and poodle skirts (at this point, anyone under the age of 35 reading this is looking for a dictionary). The Class of \u201965 graduated in knee socks, penny loafers, and discovered miniskirts shortly (no pun intended) after graduation. \u00a0The disorderly students in both classes were guilty of such offenses as chewing gum, talking in class, and being impolite to a teacher. In Great Neck the drinking age was eighteen and some older students frequented the \u2018clubs\u2019 in the area that catered to eighteen and nineteen year olds. In New Jersey, where I went to high school, the drinking age was twenty-one and those clubs did not exist.<\/p>\n

Drugs had not yet arrived in high school by 1962 and did not arrive in most high schools until the late 1960\u2019s. The Class of \u201962 went off to college or off to work\u2014the war in Viet Nam<\/a> in 1962 had not yet heated up; although by 1963, America had 16,000 advisors in Viet Nam. The class of 1965 went to college or to Vietnam. \u00a0As the Class of \u201962 graduated college, they were drafted and headed overseas.<\/p>\n

One of the events that were pivotal to the lives of both the Class of \u201962 and the Class of \u201965 happened after the Class of \u201962 graduated\u2014the assassination of John F. Kennedy<\/a>. I truly believe that event, along with the escalation of the war in Vietnam and the draft, ended the naivet\u00e9 of the Class of \u201962.<\/p>\n

The Class of \u201962 graduated in a world that had obvious values generally supported by society. No one in mainstream society was using drugs for \u2018recreational purposes.\u2019 All work had value\u2014there was a work ethic. If you wanted to live with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you got married and raised a family. If you got in trouble with a teacher, your parents sided with the teacher. It was a structured world that generally worked.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to the Class of \u201962 for all the things you have achieved in spite of the challenging times in which you graduated.<\/p>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past weekend I attended my husband\u2019s 50th high school reunion in Great Neck, New York. Out of a class of over three hundred students, about one hundred attended. About thirty of the class members have died in the fifty … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2961,2962,2963,792,2960],"class_list":["post-13757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class-reunion","tag-great-neck","tag-great-neck-south-high-school","tag-new-york","tag-the-class-of-62"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13758,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757\/revisions\/13758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}