November, 1963: My nine-year-old self was jarred awake by a shrilling telephone in the wee hours between midnight and dawn. The first words I heard were my dad saying, "What, what? National warning?? National warning?" And the next thing I remember is hitting the floor ready to bolt out the back door and the safety of the bomd shelter, because that phone rang in southern Taiwan, right across the straits from what we then called "Communist China." My dad, USMC Colonel B. W. McLean, was then a senior adviser to the Taiwanese military and thus one of the highest-ranking US military men in the country. We lived in actual daily expectation of attack from China, so a midnight "Warning!" truly frightened us. Within a few moments, however, my dad realized that the message was about "national mourning," and he broke the news to us of President Kennedy's death. Since we had no TV in our part of Taiwan, we did not share in the extraordinary experience of watching the aftermath live on TV. I remember clearly, however, the impact of the coverage in the military newspaper The Stars and Stripes, the dramatic photo spreads in Life and Look and the newsreels at the base movie theatre. This was a strange and somber time, with flags at half-staff, military personnel in black armbands and even the slot machines in the Officers' Club shrouded for the full 30 days.

I was the youngest chapter president in the Official Beatles Fan (operated by Brian Epstein's company NEMS, and later by Apple). It was a LOT of work, too! By the summer of 1972 (just past my 18th birthday), I was answering phones in the basement at Apple Records; the next year, being trailed by the FBI for soliciting signatures for The Justice for John & Yoko Committee (not the 60s, but close!). Didn't live in NC at the time, but my parents/family are NC born and bred! Joan Alford, Wake Forest NC

In 1969 I was 16 and lived in Wilmington, NC. It was a very uncertain time in NC and in our Nation. I could not go riding around at night alone because of the McDonald murders in Fayetteville and all of the Service guys that were in town for their last leave before they went to Vietnam. But, we did hang out at Carol's drive-in, the Chick Chick, Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach. There were Marines everywhere, it seemed. Many of the girls I knew went out with them and got married really quick so went they shipped out they could get a check. Most of them became widows and some are still married to this day. There was Eli\'s at Carolina Beach and the OP where all the Beach Music bands went to play. It took forever to get to Carolina Beach and you did not see a house on Carolina Beach road for miles and miles. It was easy to get a place on the beach to lie out and to find a summer job. My cousin had what I thought at the time was really strange posters and burned some really strange smelling stuff that he got from CA.

Seemed that all the really cool kids hung out at Wrightsville beach and that summer we went to see Woodstock at the movies that was beside Roberts Grocery. Once you got over the bridge at Wrightsville Beach all you could see was pure white sand and you had to drive down to the beach before you could see a house. You could only dive to about where the Holiday Inn is now and that is where everyone went to park and make out.

We dove a lot because they had a gas war on Carolina Beach Road between two gas stations. It went from $.35 to $.10 per gallon of gas in a week. Hard to believe. We went to the drive-in on Carolina Beach road to see Easy Rider. No one wanted to ride on a motorcycle after that.

Downtown Wilmington had the Coast Guard Ships that came into port and it seemed like magic at night with all the lights. Belks, Salleys, & County Vogue were downtown and it seemed that they had the greatest clothes in the world. Downtown Wilmington at Christmas was a wonderland with all the stores decorated and the lights in the windows. New Hanover High School got a lot of bomb threats that year and someone painted Black Power on the side of the Gym and the school painted over it gray.

MORE STORIES >>