I Have Never Lost Sight of Who I Am
Child of the 1960s: A Day in the Life follows a 12-year-old boy’s transformative journey through San Francisco’s Mission district, unveiling the societal shifts, multi-generational tales, and vibrant culture of a tumultuous era. Why was this an important story for you to tell?
The primary reason I wrote this book was to show my two grandchildren what the world was like before it was almost completely taken over by our developing technocracy. My maternal grandfather, born in the late-1800s, gave me a good idea what the world was like in the horse and buggy era so I felt like I could do no less for this upcoming generation which carries cell phones and other electronic gizmos as appendages. I grew up without all of that. Secondarily, it was a wonderful trip down memory lane and I relived many amazing experiences in the course of writing it and have been able to share this with quite a few people beyond my immediate family. It is hugely enjoyable and well worth the effort.
How much of the memoir is drawn from personal experience versus historical research, especially when touching on significant events like the Kennedy assassination and the influence of the Mission district’s diverse culture?
The majority of the memoir is based on personal experience, augmented by research done online and from San Francisco Examiner newspaper archives. I would say in about a 70% to 30% ratio. I researched the newspaper for the events of the “Hippie Death of Money March” and for the details surrounding the shooting of my uncle who was a San Francisco cop and game details of the contest between the 49ers and the Colts. I also had access to a ship’s log and a sailor’s journal detailing the events of my dad’s service in World War II.
The Mission district of San Francisco becomes almost a character of its own in your memoir. Can you speak to your connection with this neighborhood and how it influenced your portrayal of its essence and history?
At least in the 1960s, people in San Francisco very much identified with the neighborhood they were raised in. Much of that has been lost because of such a turnover in population, but whenever I get together with people from my high school years that strong identification with neighborhood continues to this day, though most of them have moved away from San Francisco. Beyond that, the Mission District was, excluding the Presidio Military Fort, the first neighborhood developed by the Spanish in San Francisco (nee Yerba Buena) in the 1700s, centering around the Mission Dolores Church and compound developed to convert the indigenous population. So, we had history and tradition. You could call it the beating heart of San Francisco. And in my era, before it was overrun with drugs and a changing economy, we took great pride in a Blue-Collar working-class identity and a no bullshit attitude in a multicultural environment. Though I moved on and went to college and had many experiences overseas, I have never lost sight of who I am and where I came from. This has served me well wherever else I have lived or travelled to on this planet.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
That’s a great question. I wish I could answer it. All I can say is this: I went to the second “Burning Man” at Baker’s Beach in San Francisco back in the late-1980s and I worked for a short time with Larry Harvey, the main founder of Burning Man, and was privy to his original thoughts and plans for this now monstrous event. It certainly wasn’t very big at that time. But anyway, I’m thinking of putting something together along those lines in collaboration with another writer. Our plans are still nebulous but stay tuned.
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It is also features a good look at the local professional sport teams of the day. With looks at the San Francisco Giants, the then San Francisco Warriors and an especially close look at the San Francisco 49ers and their influence and impact on the youth of the community.
The narrative is constructed upon a single momentous day, Sunday, December 18, 1966, and orbits around the young boy (almost 12) and his father going to an extremely rowdy NFL football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Colts at historic Kezar Stadium located on the edge of the Haight-Ashbury and the foot of Golden Gate Park.
(The game ended in a riot as the fans invaded the field and forced the officials to call the game a few seconds before the final gun.)
The boy’s dad is a World War II veteran of the Battle of Leyte Gulf (The largest naval battle in history.) who came of age during the Great Depression in poverty-stricken circumstances and sees the Sixties through this prism while the boy is feeling his way along and trying to come to grips with an ever-accelerating rate of ethnic and economic change in his Mission District micro-world and the great city beyond.
In the course of this one-day journey, the story of his immediate family of seven, a mother who suffers a nervous breakdown while giving birth, a father, two brothers and two sisters of various ages, is told through flashbacks and leaps into the future. The background of his four immigrant grandparents, Italian and French, is also sketched into the picture.
With special emphasis on the grandfather who survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire that leveled San Francisco.
The narrative is written in an easygoing vernacular style which reflects the racial and ethnic diversity of the neighborhood with a strong Latin American flavor. As noted in the story, it was a “Rainbow Coalition Neighborhood” long before Jesse Jackson came up with the term.
In the postscript, the author recaps his life of travel and adventure and how his Mission District neighborhood influenced him to make some of the choices he selected.
Posted on September 28, 2023, in Interviews and tagged author, biography, book, book recommendations, book review, book reviews, book shelf, bookblogger, books, books to read, Child of the 1960s: A Day in the Life, Craig J Carrozzi, ebook, goodreads, history, indie author, kindle, kobo, literature, memoir, nonfiction, nook, novel, read, reader, reading, story, writer, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
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