My Journey Back to 1969
When I first started writing my book, my fictional main character was in her sixties. She was wise and settled; financially strong and centered in all the right ways. Furthermore, she lived only forty minutes by car from me in the Highlands of Denver. Under the insistence of my coach, I tried a new approach and began to interview her. Something like, you ask a question and sit quietly as she answers either silently or out loud. Sounds out right crazy yet it works. The key is to write down what she says no matter how much it may disturb you. Unlucky for me, she was like most people; she wanted to start at the beginning. We were throwing away years of part time writing on weekends and nights and starting over.
Instead of being sixty, she wanted to focus on when she turned sixteen in the summer of 1969.
At first I revolted. I argued. I cajoled. All the protest in the world was for naught. Rose Sophia Toffoli would have nothing of it. With a strong personality, she was bound to win. Every story has a beginning, she said and she began to tell me about her life. Although we only covered six months of her junior year of high school, we circled back to the most significant life events that shaped her choices.
What I discovered while researching the era was that the country was in the midst of great turmoil entering its fifth year of the Viet Nam war. By April the levels of combat troops exceeded half a million young men and fathers. More men have come home in coffins in numbers greater than than the entire Korean War. ( www.historyplace.com) The President promised to get us out yet didn’t. it would take another six years. Keep in mind that Nixon was the fifth President to address the War which had already seen a death toll at over thirty-three thousand. According to www.shmoop.com, over 50% of Americans thought our leaders had made a grave mistake sending us there. Most everyone wanted us out. The war and its ramifications were very close to my own life since my father was career Army and completed two tours.
Ask anyone who was graduating high school or in college in 1969 and they will tell you the draft lottery on December first was the single most important event of that year. They probably still remember their number. If you are talking to a hippie or a protester, it might have been Woodstock in August that year was the most memorable. Others might claim the landing of Apollo on the moon on July 20th of 1969. Check it out for yourself. If you go to the www.NASA.gov website you can see actual footage of the event. It was a huge accomplishment for our country.
The research on the book opened my paradigm. What most resonated with me was the Viet Nam war as my own father spent two tours there. Once in 1965 and again in 1972. My perspective was of a little girl, living with eight other siblings while being parented by a mother who disliked her job. My writing taught me that there was so much more going on in our country. Rose taught me a lot about myself and what we all were dealing with as a nation. It was a trying time for us all.