In 1969, I turned 18; it was a tumultuous time. The recollections that come shouting into my diminishing memory from that year are, for the most part, connected to events that changed the world. At the very least, they were individually formative. In 1969, we landed on the moon and Ted Kennedy drove off a pier. In the years just prior to 1969, it seemed that the world was disintegrating. People that were widely admired were being murdered, one after another. By the time that Robert Kennedy was murdered, people my age were beyond being surprised or disappointed. Numb, perhaps.

The big event of 1969 was that I turned 18. To young men today, turning 18 may have little consequence. You gain no freedom or responsibility from it. But in 1969, turning 18 was colossal. It meant that you registered for the draft. After that, you probably went to Vietnam to die. It was, for many, our fork on the road. For all of us, you were forced to make a decision about something over which the federal government gave you very little room to wiggle. Being against the war meant nothing officially. It mostly meant that you might have to fight in a war that you were opposed to, or just afraid of. Sure, you could go to college, but that only delayed the inevitable. The only potential for salvation was having a good lottery number. If you ask anyone from those years the simple question, without any additional reference “What was your number?” they can immediately tell you their draft lottery number.

Vietnam and the draft formed the boys who turned 18 in those years. My particular response, like many others, was to oppose the war. Both my opposition to the war, as well as having the ability to do so, changed me. Young people could riot, demonstrate, and refuse. You could get a bunch of your peers together to levitate the Pentagon. Somehow, this belief that we could (and in my mind, did) change the world formed us as much as the war did. Young people began to believe that no one over 30 could be trusted, and as evidence, we had not only the war, but also the evidence that they had ruined our water and our air. Politicians were corrupt guys in bad suits with short hair. So, we endeavored to be as pure as possible and fix the mess that they made. We believed we could; and we did.

We changed everything. Our clothes, our manner of speaking, our hair, our underwear (not to be undervalued is that the hippie age was the end of girdles, for which I remain personally grateful) our sexual mores and our willingness to accept the wisdom of previous generations. And we changed the wiring of our minds. It is in that one area that we really messed up; it washes out any other accomplishments of our time. It was my people that did it. I am responsible and I want to apologize. The truth is that we had no idea that drugs were a far bigger enemy than Vietnam.

I am proud of the fact that we really tried to pass along responsible government and a clean ecology to those who would come after us. I am proud of being from the time that offered so many beautifully diverse contributions to music. The songs of the time were either about love or they spoke to protest all that was wrong with the “establishment.” We can take pride in out part to develop a belief system that called authority into question and that subsequently worked to reveal and undo a presidential administration that got out of hand. The “movement” ended a war that seemingly had no end.

To our perpetual disgrace, we foolishly “expanded” our minds with drugs. And we passed it along.

It is noteworthy that we didn’t know where it would take the world; not that I am trying to get off the hook. Drugs were different then. Pot was cheap and far less powerful than the engineered products of today. LSD was about seeing pretty colors and gathering clarity in a muddled world. Those were pretty much the choices. Pot was shared, not sold. Acid trips were a group activity.

Some blame the Beatles or Bob Dylan. I don’t. They had the same choice that everybody did. The fact that my introduction to pot and Sgt. Pepper happened coincidentally means nothing more than the fact that I was introduced to the word “groovy” at the same time. And I learned them from a recently returned Vietnam graduate. They were things of a common time. When the chant went out to “Tune in, turn on and drop out” they were seen as three positives.

We actually believed that pot and acid made us better thinking people.

As I survey the landscape of today’s 18 year olds, it remains an uncertain world. The air and the rivers are cleaner and the war does not include a draft.

But there are so many drugs and so many dead and damaged kids. This includes people from my time as well as ever so many more kids today. Without the ‘60’s, there would never have been the meth and the cocaine and the crack and the widespread abuse of amazingly powerful prescriptions. It doesn’t matter one whit if these kids are taking them for recreation instead of clarity. They wouldn’t be societally available and acceptable if it wasn’t for us.

I have always accepted the responsibility, as far as it goes, to try to educate my kids about drugs. But I did that knowing full well that the choices and the acceptance is so widespread that at least trying them is practically inevitable.

Now, we now seek to save our kids from our creation.

In 1969, I went to Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia and stuck flowers down the gun barrels of young soldiers, in protest of the war.

Today, I realize that I was protesting the wrong thing.