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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