I showed up fairly late in the 1964 world arena: America was nearly a year into an accidental presidency following a televised, public execution. My parents were both what I always refer to as Camelot-era kids, wed at a time of pillbox hats and elbow-length gloves, both younger than I ever got to see them, faces full of promise and, I will assume, a certain Cold War angst.
If you're an astrological purist, you might consider the time I was conceived to be more important than my actual birth. Was I conceived the night the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show (9 Feb.)? The Beatles (or Elvis, for that matter) were never on the radar for a young couple from East Harlem living in the Bronx. I was exposed to pretty much nothing but Sinatra on the turntable 'til I was old enough to get my own vinyl (the soundtrack to The Sting, but that's another story).
By October, the Summer Olympics were going on in Tokyo. (Yeah, I guess they wouldn't call them the Autumn Olympics, but it does seem a bit strange.); MLK received the Nobel Peace Prize; Khrushchev was dumped in favor of Brezhnev. None of this would have effected my family's world. But, the Yankees were losing the World Series to the Cardinals: that would be the hospital waiting room chatter while my mother was busy in labor.
So, I will have to dig deeper, spend time reconstructing and reimagining. There are a great many influences to the person I will become, many of them living, loving, creating and destroying in 1964. I'll put on a pot of coffee and start the expedition.
