Showing posts with label 1960s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1960s. Show all posts

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: A Nation of Slobs. But then. . .The Thomas Crown Affair.

Eh? 

Allow me to explain.

I posted this yesterday:

Lex Anteinternet: A Nation of Slobs. But then. . .:   Cary Grant and Myrna Loy from  Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. O.W. Root @NecktieSalvage · 1h People think I am exaggerating when I ...

Last night, I tried to watch the Thomas Crown Affair.

I'm generally a fan of older movies, and often watch ones older than this.  But I couldn't make my way through it.  The appearance of the characters and the urban settings were just too much for me.  The thing is, I"m pretty sure it was accurate.

All the office workers and businessmen are dressed in contempoary suits, some of which were quite nice and still would be today.  The hats really stood out, with every man wearing a Trilby, something really identifiable with teh 1960s, but which when we look back on the 60s, is easy to forget.

The 1960s may have been the era of Haight Ashbury and hippies, but it was also the era of men still wearing suits and ties in the office.  It isn't really into the 1970s that this began to change.  The wide lapel  loud color suit came out of the 60s, but it didn't show up until the early 1970s, which is really, culturally, part of the 1960s.  Even so, men were wearing coat and tie in the office.

The other thing I encountered leading to this thread was a link from something on Pininterest, which lead to a set of photos that a high school teacher/photographer, took of high school students in his school in the 1970s.  I'm not going to linke them in, as some of the photos he took were, in my view, a bit lacking in modesty (not anything illegal, but just something I wouldn't really think a person should photograph), but maybe that was his point.

It wasn't that I didn't recogize the photographs.  I really did.  That's the thing.  All the boys and girls in tight fitting t-shirts.

I have my father's high school annual from 1947, and I've written on the appearance of the studends that appear in it before:

Standards of Dress. Attending school


This is a 9th Grade (Freshman) Class in high school, 1946.  Specifically, is the Freshman class at NCHS in 1946 (the Class of 1949).

Now, some will know NCHS who might read this, others will not. But in 1946 this class attended school in a city that had under 30,000 residents.  It was a city, but it was a city vastly surrounded by the country, as it still somewhat is. This class of boys (there were more in it than those just in this photograph) were from the town and the country.  None of them were big city kids. Some were ranch kids.  I recognize one of them who was.. Some came from families that were doing okay, some from families that were poor.

So how do we see them dressed?  One is wearing a striped t-shirt.  Exactly one.  Every other boy here is wearing a button up long sleeved shirt.  Of those, all but one are wearing ties.

One of the ones wearing a tie is one of my uncles.

Did they turn out with ties just for their photographs that day?  Probably they did.  I suspect so, but even at that, they all actually could come up with ties.  And somebody knew hot to tie them.  None of these boys appears to be enormously uncomfortable wearing a tie.

NCHS Juniors in 1946, this is therefore the Class of 1947.

Here's a few of the boys in the Junior class that year.  Here too, this is probably a bit different depiction of high school aged boys than we'd see today. For one thing, a lot of them are in uniform. As already mentioned in the thread on JrROTC, it was mandatory at the school.  Based upon the appearances of the boys at the time the photograph was taken, this probably reflects relatively common daily male dress at NC.  Most of the boys are in uniform.  Of those who are not, most are wearing button up shirts, but no ties.  A couple have t-shirts.  Nobody's appearance is outlandish in any fashion, and nobody is seeking to make a statement with their appearance.

NCHS girls, Class of 1947, as Juniors in 1946.

Here are the Junior girls that year.  As can be seen, NCHS had a uniform for girls at that time, which appears to have been some sort of wool skirt and a white button up shirt.  They appear to have worn their uniform everyday, as opposed to the boys who must not have.

Uniforms at schools are a popular thing to debate in some circles, and I'm not intending to do that.  Rather, this simply points out the huge evolution in the standards of youth dress over the years.  This is s cross section of students from a Western town.  The people depicted in it had fathers who were lawyers, doctors, packing house employees, ranchers and refinery workers.  They're all dress in a pretty similar fashion, and the dress is relatively plan really.  No t-shirts declaring anything, as t-shirts of that type weren't really around. And no effort to really make a personal statement through dress, or even to really stand out by appearance.


I don't know that things had changed enormously by the mid 1950s.

Kids still new how to dress fairly formally, by contemporary standards, and girls are always shown wearing relatively long skirts and blouses.  Boy nearly are always wearing button up shirts, not t-shirts.  For something more formal boys still appear quite often in jacket and tie, or suit and tie. Consider the school dance here from the 1950s:

Dance.

Not ties in a quick review, but still pretty cleanly dressed for the boys and very well dressed for the girls.

By the 60s, things were evolving.

And by the 1970s, they had really changed.


And not really for the good.

In the 70s, men still wore coat and tie to the office, but the trend line is pretty obvious. 

If anything, youth dress hit rock bottom in the 1970s.  It's intersting that office dress has hit rock bottom, right now.

And, like Atticus Finch noted, dress does matter. 

Thursday, May 15, 1975. The Raid on Koh Tang.


A Marine Corps raid on Koh Tang island took back the Mayaguez, which they found deserted, while a Navy air raid destroyed the now Khmer Rouge run Cambodian navy.  

Eighteen Marines were killed in combat and an additional 23 in a helicopter crash in the raid.  Khmer forces were much larger than anticipated and resistance heavy.  The helicopter passengers were not fully accounted for when the withdrawal occurred and it was later determined that three of the Marines (Joseph N. Hargrove, Gary L. Hall, and Danny G. Marshall) a shall) and two Navy medics (Bernard Guase and Ronald Manning) may have been alive when they were left behind on the island.

Sailing under a white flag, a Cambodian vessel brought thirty Americans to the destroyer USS Wilson.

It is really this date, and not the one that was declared several days earlier, that should be regarded as the end of the Vietnam War Era, as this was really the last combat in the US's involvement in the Indochinese War, of which the Vietnam War was part.  It interesting came to an end somewhat in the way in which it had started in earnest, with Marines being deployed over a ship, as they would be because of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 14, 1975. Hmong evacuation.

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Musings Over a Barrel: Bourbon Independence Day: A Toast to America’s Nat...

Musings Over a Barrel: Bourbon Independence Day: A Toast to America’s Nat...: On May 4, 1964 , Senate Concurrent Resolution 19 (S. Con. Res. 19) was passed, declaring that bourbon “is a distinctive product of the Unite...

Saturday, April 26, 2025

Saturday, April 26, 1975. The attack on Saigon begins.

The NVA commenced its attack on Saigon with a bombardment of the Bien Hoa Air Base.

TV Guide had an article on Sex and Violence in television, which is interesting given the context of the times.


It also featured McCloud, which was a popular police drama in the era of police dramas.  The show featured Gunsmoke veteran Dennis Weaver as a New Mexico police detective somehow assigned to Brooklyn.  I recall my father used to watch it.  That entire plot line sounds a lot like the plot of 1968 film Coogan's Bluff, which featured Clint Eastwood as a sheriff's deputy from Arizona on assignment in New York.

TV Guide was a weekly magazine my father subscribed to.  I don't know if it exists anymore.  It ran all of the television schedules for the week.  I always thought it was an odd thing to subscribe to really, but it came to the house.

Last edition:

Monday, April 21, 2025

April 21, 1975. The end at Xuân Lộc.

The ARVN, which had fought hard at Xuân Lộc, finally abandoned the city and retreated toward Saigon.

Thiệu in 1968.

President Thiệu resigned, leaving the government in the hands of Vice President Trần Văn Hương.

He was a career army officer who interestingly started off in the Việt Minh, in which he rose to be a district chief.  He left them, however when it became obvious they were Communist and were committing atrocities.  He enrolled in the French controlled Vietnamese governments Merchant Marine Academy but rejected a position on a ship when he discovered that the French owners were going to pay him less than his French colleagues.  He thereafter  transferred to the National Military Academy in Đà Lạt, graduating in 1949.  He was part of the junta that overthrew Ngô Đình Diệm in 1963, after having prevented a coup a few years earlier.  He was elected President in 1967 after the US insisted on democratic elections.  He was reelected in 1971, as the only candidate running, as opponents believed the polls would be rigged.  His resignation speech was a whopping two hours long, but did include the memorable lines,"I resign, but I do not desert."

He was a convert to Catholicism.

He died on September 29, 2001, in Boston.  In Hawaii to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife Mai Anh, the September 11 attacks impacted him psychology and contributed to his death which occurred after his return to his home in Boston.

Kissinger bizarrely believed that his resignation would lead to a negotiation to save Saigon, which is something that apparently his successor, Dương Văn Minh, also believed would occur.

The last New Zealanders at their embassy in South Vietnam were evacuated from the country.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 19, 1975. The ARVN withdraws from Xuân Lộc.

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Tuesday, April 8, 1975. "Over in a month".

U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater claimed that the Vietnam War "would have been over in a month" had he been elected President in 1964.

1964 Goldwater bumper sticker.

Seems doubtful.

Goldwater was the most right wing truly conservative Republican candidate to have ever been nominated, far more conservative than Ronald Reagan, and a true conservative, unlike the current occupant of the Oval Office.

A South Vietnamese pilot, Nguyễn Thành Trung, dropped bombs on the Presidential Place and then defected.  

This is an event that I can recall occuring.

He want on to serve in the North Vietnamese air force and then worked as a commercial pilot for Vietnam Airlines.

South Vietnamese Major General Nguyễn Văn Hiếu was found shot dead in his command post.at the  Biên Hòa airbase, 

The Godfather Part II won an Academy Award for best picture, the first sequel to do so.

Frank Robinson became the first black manager in Major League.  More on Robinson:

April 8, 1975: Frank Robinson Becomes Baseball's 1st Black Manager

Last edition:

Monday, April 7, 1975. A meeting in Thailand.

Saturday, March 29, 2025

M76 Otter. National Museum of Military Vehicles.


This is a M76 Otter, an amphibious cargo carrier used by the USMC in the 1950s and into the 1960s.  This one, apparently, was used by the Army.

The vehicle did see use in the Vietnam War.

Last edition:

Miscellaneous wheeled transport of World War Two. National Museum of Military Vehicles.


Saturday, March 29, 1975. NVA takes Da Nang.

World Airlines made its fourth and last refugee evacuation flight from Da Nang.  The flight was designed to take out refugees, but 400 ARVN soldiers forced their way onto the plane.   At the same time, the NVA entered the city center.

Of the ARVN in I Corps, 16,000 of the 160,000 in the area managed to escape.  And of course, while they could not know it, for the most part all of the people escaping would soon simply be further south in the country when the Communist prevailed.

Da Nang had been the site of the first U.S. Marine Corps landings in Vietnam on March 8, 1965.

Last edition:

Friday, March 28, 1975. Managing the defeat.

    Wednesday, March 26, 2025

    M38 A1s, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

    M38A1 with a recoilless rifle.

    The first automobile I ever owned was a M38A1.


    The prototype for the modern Jeep, basically, it entered civilian use as the CJ5, after entering military use in 1952.  Doubtless examples are still in use, and civilians varians are still produced by Roxor in India.

     Last edition:

    M151 Jeeps. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

    Friday. March 26, 1875. Violence in Texas.


    Syngman Rhee or Lee Seungman (이승만) was born in Whanghai Province to Rhee Kyong-sun, a member of the aristocratic Yangban family.


    Elected by the South Korean parliament in 1948, he'd assume dictatorial powers and govern the country until forced out of the country following student unrest in 1960.  He lived in Hawaii thereafter until his death in 1965.

    In certain ways, Rhee symbolized a strategy that both Democratic and Republican administrations employed during the Cold War of supporting right wing autocrats in the belief that their countries would evolve into democracies.  In the case of South Korea, they were right.

    Last edition:


    Tuesday, March 25, 2025

    M151 Jeeps. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

    The M151 "Mutt" entered service in 1959 and carried on into the 1990s.  It had fantastic off road capabilities, and was also fantastically dangerous, given its independent wheel suspension system.


    The last Jeep to see general use in the U.S. military, it was replaced by HumVeh's, although speciality vehicles, and even modern commercial Jeeps, continue to see some use.  In these examples, the radio mount for a period radio is displayed.


    I personally have a lot of experience from the 1980s, with both the M151, and this model of military radio.


    Last edition:

    M32 Tank Retriever, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

    M32 Tank Retriever, National Museum of Military Vehicles.


    This is a M32 tank retriever, which is obviously based on the M4 Sherman chassis. These were used by the U.S. Army starting in World War Two, although a tank retriever based on the Lee/Grant chassis was also used.

    These remained in use during the Korean War and into the 1960s when it was replaced by the M88.

    Last edition:

    M24 Chaffee, National Museum of Military Vehicles.Labels: 


    Monday, March 24, 2025

    M24 Chaffee, National Museum of Military Vehicles.


    Like the M26 Pershing, the M24 Chaffee shows the speed of armor evolution during World War Two.  A much more modern light tank than the M3, it remained in service until 1953 with the U.S. Army, and various other armies long after that.  The tank was heavily, if not terribly successfully, used by the ARVN during the Vietnam War.