1968 vs. 2023: Book project to explore historic year and today’s turmoil

Book Project To Explore Northern Kentucky In 1968

RICK ROBINSON | LINK nky GUEST AUTHOR

Rick Robinson is a local author who is writing a book based on life in Northern Kentucky in 1968 and what we can learn now. LINK will publish excerpts from the book regularly in the LINK Reader, as well as on linknky.com.

I’ve always been obsessed with 1968.

I have read more books detailing, watched more documentaries about and listened to more music made in 1968 than any other year of my existence here on earth.

It was truly a defining year for America. Nightly body counts from half a world away filled the news and evening dinner discussions. Thanks to the Tet Offensive and the May Offensive, 1968 was Vietnam’s deadliest year. Robert Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King were shot down for their beliefs. Racial strife poured into the streets. The Beatles owned the airwaves. Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon made big comebacks. Kentucky Derby winner Dancer’s Image had a drug problem and O.J Simpson won the Heisman Trophy.

Locally, the now demolished Internal Revenue Service Center was new. There were just over 1.2 million passengers flying out of Greater Cincinnati Airport (compared to over 7 million in 2022). Clay Wade Bailey was a reporter, not a bridge.

Best of times? Worst of times? A little of both?

Today America faces political and civil unrest not seen since 1968. Factions on the left and right all believe the country is going to Hell in a handbasket. When voices from either side have approached me with their doomsday democracy scenarios, I have found myself cautioning: “Well, it ain’t 1968.”

Recently I began to question my bold declaration.

In 1968, I was 10 years old. While my memories of certain events that year are quite vivid, they are few in number.

I remember walking home from Vacation Bible School at Bromley Christian Church with my cousin Cindy to watch Robert Kennedy’s funeral procession on Grandma Luella’s black and white Zenith console.

I clearly recall my dad, Bucky Robinson, explaining to me why he could not take me to see a Disney movie one weekend for fear of unrest resulting from the death of Dr. King.

Past those events, everything else is a bit fuzzy. Truthfully, my obsession with 1968 revolves around images others have embedded in my brain. At 10 years old, I wasn’t paying attention to the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Vietnam was a place where my older sisters’ friends were afraid of being sent.

This year, my intellectual curiosity got the best of me. Was 1968 so bad to deserve comparison to today’s turmoil?

I grew up in Ludlow and Bromley. What really happened in 1968 in the confines of my small world and beyond the floodwall guarding it? Did Northern Kentucky mirror the nation? Or did we as a community ignore it? I decided to read a year’s worth of newspapers to find out.

The newspaper research was especially eye-opening. “Woke” and “politically correct” are not modern terms one would use to describe print journalism in 1968. Headlines referred to Guys and Gals. There was a section in the newspaper for women providing recipes and other sage marriage advice. The enemy in Vietnam were “Reds,” “Commies,” and “Charley.”

Also of interest at the time was the frequency of one-paragraph news stories explaining things like how a chimney was damaged in a local fire or how one man calling another man a bad name at a bar resulted in a $25.00 fine. I even read the ads. Did you know in 1968 a new Ford pickup truck cost $1899.00?

After reading one month’s work of stories, I backtracked and started to chronicle my effort. The result will be a book about life in Northern Kentucky in 1968. You’ll be able to read excerpts of that book here, in the pages of LINK.

For the final book, the newspaper review will be supplemented by interviews, oral histories, and information from other sources. If you are interested in sharing a particular remembrance of 1968, email me at neverleavefish@gmail.com.

To read the first excerpt of Robinson’s 1968 book, scan this QR code