“They say that these are not the best of times, there the only times I’ve ever known.”
I have been re-reading a Billy Joel biography, and hearing about where some of his songs came from, and it made me check out his first 3 albums (prior to The Stranger). They have always been my favorite albums, for the raw Billy Joel vibe they have. Most of the songs no longer get played, though this one does. Summer Highland Falls.
Highland Falls is located in Upstate NY, just below West Point (in case you care). As a matter of fact, we passed it twice on our recent journey along the Hudson. Too bad I did not know where it was.
The first line of the song brings back memories of those early 70’s days. I was a few years behind him in age (6 to be exact), but I know much of what he was talking about. The Vietnam War was going on, and we children felt like we were being raised to go off and be fodder for a war that made no sense. At least the men did. As it ended up, my grade had to sign up, but amazingly, the war was ended in 1973, so most of them did not go. Unfortunately for my Husband, that was not the case 12 years earlier. After college, he had to sign-up and eventually serve, in 1967. If he had not signed, he would have been drafted (he did get a notice about 2 months after he chose to serve). What that means is he got to choose what branch he wanted, and what he wanted to do in the service. Many others did not, and became, as they say, cannon fodder.
The last generations have had a volunteer service, and so they do not have that over their heads. It makes a big difference, though we did not have school shootings happening, in our day, so I give them that.
As to day to day living, it has never been easy. When I moved out west, my salary had a total of $10 extra each month, which I could use to buy things like a tool from Sears. I still have my needle nose plyers from those days. My rent was half my monthly salary, my food was $10 a week and if I totaled it up and it was too much, I started putting food back onto the shelves. I owned a car that I bought from the friend who I drove across the country with, but many times I did not have money for gas, so I took 2 or 3 busses to work. My boyfriend watched me survive for almost a year, before he proposed to me. A smart man. I am very good at finances, so I did make through that important first year. I did not have health care, but when I got my PBS job, a month after we married, I had healthcare, moving forward. Children who reached 18 no longer had insurance on their parent’s policies, in my day. Thank goodness I was basically healthy that first year.
As to housing, we married and moved into a mobile home, for the first 5 years. No one told us that the rent went up each September, so two months after we moved in, we had our first rent raise for the park space. Thankfully, we got out after 5 years, and bought our house. It is not the best, but it has served us well, these past 40 years.
These were my mid 20's to mid 30's.
My Son was born, in 1990, and we survived raising him successfully.
It could have been worse.
