The way life really was back in 1968

I saw your article ("40 years ago, the whole world was watching," Aug. 20) and feel a need to comment. It was really great. I liked the way you got such interesting different viewpoints.

I want to say something about how we look at the past. To me, it seems the media leads the world to believe that the Boomers were all out protesting the war, marching in the streets, tearing apart their schools and communities and that we all cared so much.

But at that time, to me, the convention and all of the trouble that went with it, was more of the same.

Kennedy was assassinated when I was a freshman in high school and all of my friends, my school, took it very hard.

After that - the race riots, assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, more race riots, anti-war riots, the war in Vietnam - it all fed on itself, and was the background noise of my life. I thought this was the way life was.

I wasn't at the convention, so I can't comment on what happened there. I was 19, getting ready to head back to college.

My parents forbade me to go downtown, so we didn't go, and neither did the vast majority of young people who lived in and around Chicago. We stayed away. And maybe that's the comment.

Most of us going to high school and college were just trying to get by.

We had our hands full dealing with World War II tough-guy parents. We worried about whether we would get drafted or should we sign up? Would we be able to get good jobs? How would we handle the new drugs that were suddenly everywhere and what would we do about the sexual revolution?

We spent a lot of time talking about politics and how things ought to be, trying to figure out what we believed in. Growing up, as always, was a full-time job.

Jane Thomas

Arlington Heights