Wyoming Area Catholic news

Resident urges taxpayer to attend L-L Board meetings

First Posted: 11/18/2013 One of America&#8217;s most beloved presidents was assassinated, an event surrounded by circumstances that are still questioned today.
Another prominent figure in America was fueling the fires of the Civil Rights Movement, and the U.S. was involved in a Space Race with the Soviet Union.
And the awesomeness we&#8217;ve come to know as Tyler Durden and Captain Jack Sparrow was brought into this world.
To say that 1963 was a hell of a year for our country is an understatement.
The Public History class at Marywood University, taught by Everhart Museum Executive Director Cara Sutherland, has put together an exhibit that highlights the many ups and downs of one of the most pivotal years in history in &#8220;1963: A Blast From the Past,&#8221; which opens this weekend.
The Public History course serves to introduce students to the world of museums, archives, and other places historians would work that are not academic environments. The class was responsible for not only researching and organizing the materials included in the exhibit, but also less thought of details, such as the color of the exhibit, and the type of fonts and graphics they would use in it.
The exhibit was narrowed down to five major areas that concern the infamous year: Civil Rights, the Cold War, the Space Race, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and Vietnam. It also takes a look at the daily life of someone living in 1963.
The contents of the exhibit were born of extensive research done by students who have varying experiences with the year: some, like Marywood senior Gia Reivello, weren&#8217;t even a twinkle in their parent&#8217;s eyes yet, while others, like Eileen Comninos, were in the prime of their lives when everything was going down.
&#8220;It was like reliving history,&#8221; the non-traditional college student who hails from Endwell, N.Y., said of her experience doing the project. &#8220;It brought back so many memories.&#8221;
Like many who were alive during the year, Comninos points to the assassination of JFK as the most memorable moment of the time.
&#8220;We were in a period of mourning, and disbelief. How could this happen in the United States? Our whole world changed.
&#8220;And of course we always questioned it, as we do now. Is it real, or is there something we still don&#8217;t know? I&#8217;m still wondering if there are facts that we don&#8217;t know that maybe researchers in the future will find out.&#8221;
Sutherland was three years old then, and though she has scarcely any memory of it, there is something that sticks out in her mind.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t know if it was the funeral or what I was watching on TV, but my mother was ironing in the living room and I was sitting in the laundry basket, and whatever was on TV was on the topic of JFK&#8217;s children, Caroline and John-John Kennedy, and I asked my mother what they were going to do because they couldn&#8217;t have a birthday party because their daddy died,&#8221; she said.
It was the foremost thought on a young Sutherland&#8217;s mind because her birthday is Nov. 27, the same as Caroline&#8217;s. She knew she was turning four, and Caroline would be turning six, but she couldn&#8217;t quite grasp how such a happy occasion could pass for the little girl with her father now gone.
Even students who didn&#8217;t experience 1963 came to see the value and feel the general atmosphere of the year through the project.
&#8220;Something like this makes you understand why history is so important, studying it,&#8221; Reivello said. &#8220;You get to see what things mattered to people back then and how it affects us today.&#8221;
Though much is known about 1963, there was still much to be learned by the students, who were surprised by some of what they found through research.
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t realize how involved we were in Vietnam at that point,&#8221; Comninos said. &#8220;It was something that was in the background, but not really something we worried about.&#8221;
&#8220;I never realized the importance of Jackie Kennedy at the time, the way she handled herself that day and the days after her husband was killed,&#8221; Sutherland said. &#8220;She couldn&#8217;t hide. How she behaved set a tone for the rest of the country, a good one. I don&#8217;t think people have ever given her enough credit. She&#8217;s 32, 33, with two small children, planning her husband&#8217;s funeral but knowing that the eyes of the world are upon her, watching even her smallest actions.&#8221;
It&#8217;s not all completely serious topics that are covered in the exhibit, however, as those who attend it will have a chance to take a lighthearted look at the way of living from those days. There are lava lamps and kitchen appliances that could be found in any home on display, and a wall of facts that pertain to the price of things.
&#8220;You always know that things were different back then, of course, but to know what the prices were &#8211; it was shocking,&#8221; Reivello said. &#8220;The price of a home. Someone found a piece of evidence that the average person made $1,200 a year, and that&#8217;s something you can barely survive on in a month now.&#8221;
&#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m sure we complained about those prices back then, like we do now,&#8221; Comninos said with a laugh.
While JFK and Martin Luther King are noted figures, there were others in the world that year that had yet to show the talents they would bring to our society.
&#8220;Did you know Brad Pitt was born then? How about Johnny Depp?&#8221; Comninos said.
Such fun facts will be celebrated during the preview event for the exhibit on Nov. 21, &#8220;Shaken, Not Stirred,&#8221; a cocktail and hours d&#8217;oeuvres party featuring Dave and Rosemary Falchek, who will talk of the alcoholic concoctions of the year, and Chef Gene Philbin of Peculiar Culinary Co., who has conjured up a menu of items that pertain to that time period. Garb from the &#8216;60s is encouraged for those attending.
There were ups, and there were downs, and overall, 1963 was a singular set of 365 days that provided some of the biggest changes to our country.
&#8220;It was then that there was a moment where America seemed to really be breaking away from the &#8216;50s,&#8221; Sutherland said. &#8220;A lot of times, people will point to the end of the &#8216;60s as the real mark of that, but I think it&#8217;s really 1963. In that year, America&#8217;s eyes were essentially open to the reality of what was going on in the South, with much thanks to the media broadcasting it. You have TV cameras capturing what was happening in Birmingham or still photographs of what was going on in Vietnam&#8230; It was the year America was really losing its innocence.&#8221;

1963: A year of change, a loss of innocence