How Rock Music Ruined this Country

Rock and Roll Music helped to turn me into a Lunatic,
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My dad always loved music, although he could not hold a note to save his skin. He had these old 78's, mostly Gospel music, which he loved dearly. This type of music had a great deal of emotional expression, or "soul".
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My dad would be working on some project in the garage, and he would have the radio on, tuned to some country and hillbillie station, playing music that I thought was dumb and abominable. Sometimes, they would play Johnny Cash, who was someone we both could agree on. I always liked Johnny Cash, and I loved my Dad. I still do, and he passed away some twenty years ago.
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One of my first albums was "Meet the Beatles". I think this came out in 1964. Even my parents knew who the Beatles were, as they had seen them on the Ed Sullivan show. The Beatles proved themselves to be very successful entertainers; later, we discovered that they were probably musical geniuses as well.
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I think that the sixties might have been the Golden Age of Television, which also went a long way to changing everything in this country. They had variety shows, like Ed Sullivan and Red Skelton, but also thee Smothers Brothers, and Laugh In, which were quite different in their natures.
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Growing up, I watched all these shows on television. We did not have much, but we always seemed to have a small black and white set that worked pretty good. Of course we did not have cable, or VCR's, or even color, so these shows had to be watched as they came on, or you would be penalized for missing a show and would then have  to wait six months for the summer re-runs. You sat there and watched these shows in the Moment.
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Television gave us the instant news on the Viiet Nam War. Every night there would be stories, and graphic accounts of the casualties, who were boys who came from small towns, like my town. People got sick of the news and .of all the pointless bloodshed. No one could come out and tell us we were winning this war. Television changed people's opinions in this country.
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Rock and Roll music was always in the background, changing the lives of young people everywhere. Young men and women were growing their hair long, smoked marijuana, and walked around nearly naked all summer, playing their stupid bongos and going to peace rallies.This all amounted to a lot of fun, and naturally the Government could not allow this. Names were written down, secret files were opened. We spied on our own people.
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My own story turned out pretty good. When I turned 18 they got rid of the draft, and in Michigan 18 was the legal drinking age.My friends were all growing their hair long, and so was I . Our adult lives stretched before us, full of wonder and promise. We were lucky enough to be born into this age of change, a maelstrom of it right in front of us. Life was going to be interesting.

Mr. Charming