Hey dude, here's my past: First grade, 1961-1962: We had to learn "duck and cover", in case of surprise nuclear attack by the Soviets. For field trips, we to

Hey dude, here's my past: First grade, 1961-1962: We had to learn "duck and cover", in case of surprise nuclear attack by the Soviets. For field trips, we toured our neighbors' underground bomb shelters, which were about as common as home theaters are now. We had to say the Lord's Prayer, whether we wanted to or not. Some of my classmates wore braces, because the polio vaccine didn't quite make it in time for them. We played with the African American kids in our neighborhood, but they wen't to a different school. Even though Brown vs. Board of Education had been decided by the Supreme Court in 1954, integration was still years away. We didn't realize it at the time (no one did), but the Cuban Missile Crisis brought us perilously close to WWIII. We only saw my dad on weekends because he got home from work after our bedtime. No one I knew had ever flown on an airplane; it would be 20 years before I would. I had never been to a restaurant or a movie. We had no computers, internet, cell phones, cable TV, or air conditioning. Our hopes and dreams were simple: to be happy (we were), go to college (we did), get jobs as good as our father's (we didn't), and to have wonderful families of our own (some of us did, some of us didn't). We made a lot of progress since then but not nearly enough. We never imagined the opportunites we now have, not the threats. OP is sure right about one thing; our work is never done.