I was 15 in 1964, turned 16 in mid-December. Kissed my first girl that year.
Junior in high school, being bulled on a regular basis until I finally had enough and punched one of the assholes out in study hall. I hated the school I was going to so badly that I devoted that year to trying to get myself thrown out so I wouldn’t have to go back to it. I succeeded and wound up graduating from the school next door the following year.
My interests were bowling and baseball. Politics was secondary, but I remember the 64 election and thinking when LBJ got elected that we were all gonna be fucked. I was right.
I was a kid; started school but still pretty young. It didn’t make that great of an impression on me at the time and a lot of what I think I felt may just be wishes on my part. Every year back then seemed like a totally new adventure.
For most of 1964 I was 16, turning 17 in the Fall at the start of my Senior year. I lived in a suburb of San Jose, California, with the beach 20 miles over the mountains.
Our town had the Village Creamery, which acted as a malt shop. But a block up the road there was also The Brass Knocker, a Beat coffee house that had espresso and poetry, and jazz and folk, and where the more hip high schoolers could go. However, “going for a Coke” from the soda fountain was still a thing.
With Santa Cruz just over the hill, beach culture was very much in evidence. The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, the Everly Brothers, The Ventures were all listened to on our tinny transistor radios when we flopped down on the sand. Doo-Wop had been dead for years at this point.
Surfing wasn’t great at the best lying-around beaches, but go a little north and folks could catch some waves at Steamer Lane and Pleasure Point. Some cars in the high school parking lot would have boards on racks all year round. (Some pickups would also have a lever-action rifle in a rack in the rear window.)
Not a passing fad; definitely the new thing, but it wasn’t binary: the British Invasion did not push out the home-grown music; they co-existed in different environments.
Not in our part of California. Roller skating was still an acceptable dating choice, so roller rinks were visited. Roller skating carhops had disappeared, but one could still go to a drive-in hamburger joint and have a carhop attach a tray to your partially rolled-down window.
I’d agree with 1964 being transitional, in company with 1965 and 66. In 1965 I went down to UC Santa Barbara, where green beanies were still available for freshmen to wear, and where the Dean of Students taught the freshmen the Cal drinking song at assembly. The Student Union eating area was informally divided into “Greek” and “Artsy-Craftsy” sides (Hippie not having appeared as a label yet). By 1966, however, the tremendous changes that we characterize as “the 60s” were in full bloom.
Some other observations:
At the public high school I went to, the dress code was still pretty conservative in 1964. Boys’ hair could not touch the collar of your shirt, else you would visit the Dean of Boys. As a girl, you had to have the hem of your skirt touch the floor if you kneeled in front of the Dean of Girls, and you would be sent home if you wore red and black (“it excites the boys too much.”)
Boys wore long pants and girls wore skirts. A big deal was Senior Bermuda Shorts Day, when both sexes could wear Bermuda shorts (with the appropriate socks!) that one day. There was even part of a school assembly where the correct ensemble was modeled, with commentary, for the class.
1964 was the year I married my wife. I was 21, and we are still together!
It was a far more innocent world, but I did know that my wife wasn’t going to wear heels and pearls and stay at home, even if that was the idealized view of most folks.
We were busy with earning money to support ourselves, and I was going back to college in the fall for my senior year. We were concerned about Viet Nam. And the Beach Boys were our favorite group - I was working as a lifeguard in SoCal.
Fortunately life has worked out…yes, most things are different, but humans are still of the same nature, and life presents the same problems disguised in new clothes…and the same joys too!
It was certainly a year of transition for me. I got married, spent two months in Europe, moved to central IL (ugh) and campaigned against Goldwater. We often had lunch at the $1.29 steak house (sales tax started at $1.30) and you could get a hamburger for a quarter. The war was just something in the back of our minds, definitely not the issue it would become. As for music, I was fully into folk and wasn’t even aware of the Beatles. Mostly, I did my own thing and didn’t pay much attention to the world around me.
I was a bit young to know what was going on. Second and 3rd grade, for me. I remember hearing about Bob Dylan and hearing “Blowin in the Wind” on the radio. We knew rock music was frowned upon but the parents. My father had actually been in Vietnam the year before, so I knew what it was. But I agree that the real transition year was 1966. Then you had Summer of Love in 1967 and it was all over baby!! By then I was just old enough to catch the tail end of hippie culture. Such good memories; such good memories. There was no time like that time!!
My first memories are from 1965 but my conservative Mormon parents hated what the world was becoming in the 60s. Everything mentioned in this thread were signs that the Devil was running things and was proof the The End was coming soon.
I was born in 1961, so my memories of 1964 are both hazy and few.
I remember my parents letting me stay up “late” to see the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I remember thinking they were terrible, and since I’d already seen Topo Gigio, I went to bed.
I have very vague memories of going to the theme park Freedom Land (since torn down and replaced by Co-Op City) with my parents.
Otherwise, I have very few memories of 1964 that I’m 100% sure are accurate.