A week later, we found our way to Wisconsin where a church was kindly sponsoring our family. We reunited with my Uncle and his family up there.
All of us learned a lot about the US that year:
The Beatles and lots of other rock groups, were on The Ed Sullivan Show. It seem like every Sunday there was a new band, from The Beatles to The Dave Clark Five to the Animals and more. Like most kids back then, my brother and I got our music from AM radio and then saw the groups on that memorable show;
The Ford Mustang was introduced. I remember going with my father to a Ford dealer and admiring this wonderful new car;
We watched our first World Series on TV. The Cardinals beat the Yankees in what would be Mickey Mantle’s last post-season game. He won game 3 with a HR and then hit his last (# 18) World Series HR in game 7.
and perphaps the biggest event of 1964: The New York World’s Fair.
It was a showcase for companies and future technology, such as a touch tone phone!
One big change is that we were a manufacturing nation in 1964. We made cars, telephones, TV’s and lots of other things. It would have been inconceivable back then to go to the store and find nothing made in the USA. No one would have believed that it’d be the exact opposite 50 something years later.
We don’t do that anymore and that is something to think about, specially after this pandemic that came from China.
