Years ago on a few occasions Mom handed me an alumni newspaper from my Catholic high school. Amidst all the lucrative careers and world travels were a few essays. One was titled as if it would tell about life during the year of 1965. I recall as a Catholic student one had to document, write it all out, repeat. For this short piece, and from a girl who was there---I don't know.

Basically it said kids cruised Van Nuys Boulevard. They listened to the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Doors. Fine dining was to be had at a burger joint called Yummy's down the road of the school's address which had the two moribund alligators---maybe crocs---behind a fence in front. And two teacher-coaches who had reputations as hard drivers were, well, really loveable.

The description of the school personnel is plenty of an issue here but as my regular readership knows I'll focus on the music.

The Doors did not come along with their 4-track friendly ditties for another two years. The Rolling Stones had a few songs on "Drake Radio" but were not as big in this market as The Mama's & Papa's and Simon And Garfunkle.

But Drake Radio was not the biggest thing at this time. Less than a month ago pop instrumental artist Roger Williams died. Back in the mid 1960's there were plenty of high schoolers, dreamy or in whatever frame of mind, who listened to Mr. Williams (no relation to Andy, unless my own historical bent isn't straight), the Mystic Moods Orchestra, 1001 Strings . . . Now, I was going to mention Paul Mariat and "Love Is Blue". That didn't come along until two years later. Ha! "Can't catch me." Which reminds me, I'm typing this on Chuck Berry's birthday. But folks, FM radio meant something radically different in this period, if not actually radical.

Not a lot is simple. So many factors are involved in my post: Having this alumni paper pushed at me, my desire to set records straight while demonstrating my own memory and all to the background radiation of not caring for certain mainstream culture.

And, fickle be memory, maybe the essay was about 1967.