Sunday, June 12, 2016

Tulsa, 1966

My mom sent me some old photos in the mail last week. I'll add some commentary.



Early 1966. LBJ was President. "Bonanza" was the top show on TV, the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus," according to Lennon, and the US had 200,000 troops in Vietnam.

I was three. I was trying on my dad's shoes in the living room of my Tarpley grandparents' house in Tulsa.

My dad was finishing his senior year at the University of Tulsa, and I think he was working part-time at the telephone company. Were those his work shoes? Or did he wear dress shoes to his college classes? Was this perhaps a post-church Sunday afternoon?

Did my dad avoid the draft because he was in college? Because he had kids? Was he worried about being drafted? I don't know these things and never even thought much about them. It takes an old photo to raise such questions.

There's a mid-century mohair sectional sofa on the right, which looks kind of hip right about now, doesn't it? Behind it is a dining chair--just looked it up on eBay and they're called "lyre back chairs." I remember them well. Judging from the going price on eBay, not a collector's item. 



And that's an old stereo console on the back wall...can't figure out the brand. Zenith? Give my grandparents credit for being cooler than I remember--the room is much more "Jetsons" than "Ozzie and Harriet."

My grandparents upgraded a couple of years later--that one had a color TV. We took the old one with us to St. Louis. Here's the smoking-gun photo, from 1969:



Note that our carpet was groovier than my grandparents'. And those two orange birds successfully brought the old console into the age of Aquarius. There's probably some lime-green macrame plant holders just off-camera.

What a cool family I come from. I say that with 5% irony but 95% sincerity.

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