The Leedom Road blog is about life in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I grew up just outside the city of brother love and the road we lived on was named Leedom. It was within walking distance of a shopping center, movie theater, car dealer, barber shop, churches, grocery store and other necessities of life in suburbia America.  I lived in the same house on that road for 17 years of my life. This blog and the ones that follow describe the 17 years I lived there from 1960’s and most of the 1970’s.

First though, a short discussion on this turbulent time in the history of the USA. There was the Cuban missile crises. President Kennedy was shot and killed. His assassination was my first memory of watching television. Martin Luther King the leader of the civil rights movement was also assassinated. Jack Kennedy's brother Bobby made a run for the presidency and he was assassinated. The Vietnam war cranked up and a lot of young men and some women on both sides were killed. There was a cold war between the US and the Soviet Union which produced real fear of a nuclear devastation. Watergate caught a president lying about a break-in to the opposing political party’s headquarters and a cover up. That president was impeached.

We landed men on the moon in the late sixties. Rock and roll came into vogue … full tilt. There were the cool cars like the Corvette stingray, the 1965 Ford mustang, the camaro, Dodge charger and the Pontiac GTO. There were easy to watch family friendly shows on TV like Lassie, Flicker and Leave it to Beaver. There were westerns with cowboys, the lone ranger, gun smoke and Bonanza. Walt Disney had a show most every Sunday night. For those interested in mystery, Arthur Hitchcock and the Twilight Zone played after the late news on weekdays. The original Star Trek made its debut and the Smother’s brothers provided great entertainment with a witty political background.

Later in the 70’s we left the Vietnam war. The cars got more economical and the TV shows got more complicated but a lot funnier. Saturday Night took no hostages in their controversial late night humor.  Watergate made a lot of folks cynical of the government. Gas prices increased yet people began moving further and further away from home. Divorce skyrocketed and couples started living together before marriage (yes that was once taboo). One could say that the 60’s was the time when the collective masses got drunk on unfettered freedom and the 70’s was the sobering morning after trying to grasp the reality of our choices. I guess the turning on, tuning in and dropping out gave way to the downturn where folks sang a different tune and tried not to drop the ball. These are things have imprinted on my life like a penny from the Franklin Mint. Of course there was much more to this sliver in time but that will have to wait for another blog.