Country Connections by James and Ellen Perry

Sitting here at my desk and remembering our five-inch snow. Then our deep freeze that happened on January 10 with the deep freeze lasting for the following week. It was a beautiful and very frigid February of 2025. It started with a bang as the temps for the second week of February was more like early April. Mother nature can be harsh or very pleasant. Depends on her mood.

I’m thinking of a country that once was the best in the history of mankind. The country of old was called America. America started its descent into oblivion in the 1950s as it started losing its character and started to accept new cultural ideas, new laws and legislation processed by America’s elected officials. America’s Constitution and Bill of Rights written by our founding fathers were shredded and trampled on by ideologist, sponsored by non-American benefactors who hoped to cripple America so they could gobble up the remains and increase their wealth, power and their self-importance.

The 1960s saw America gradually entering in a new war in a southeast Asian country called Vietnam. A very popular president was murdered in full view of Dallas, Texas, citizens during a parade while being filmed and it was shown over and over for decades.
President John Kennedy died with rumors that he planned on pulling our military out of Vietnam. The Vietnam War which ensued became a very unpopular war in America. We Americans saw universities and college faculty supporting antiwar campaigns on campus and organizing protests throughout America. Large cities from Boston to the Watts section in Los Angeles were hit by young people supposedly protesting but really engaging in destruction.

The hippie movement started around 1963 in America with kids as young as 13 years old and up into the 20-year-olds. Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco was the desired location. Hippies young and older tried to make a pilgrimage to this supposed junction of love and tranquility during their life. Like the song of the time “If you’re Going to San Francisco be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair.” This song was by Scott McKenzie and released in 1967. The song lyrics had a hidden meaning and it was the national anthem for the hippies.

Then in August of 1969 as Ed Sullivan called his show “The Big Show,” in a little town of Bethel, New York, on a farm there arrived 400,000-500,000 estimated hippies from across North America with three things on their minds – drugs, music and immorality.

Operation Ranch Hand started in Vietnam in 1961 and lasted ‘til 1971. This operation by the USA was known to use Agent Orange in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to defoliate the jungle areas used by the Viet Cong. The US Army procured 20 million gallons of Agent Orange for defoliation in these three countries. I have known and been friends of Army personnel near or flying through areas sprayed with Agent Orange. Most died before reaching 30 years of age.

To implement their plans for changing the American system during the 1960s, they had to change the culture of America. Robert Reich, who later became Secretary of Labor from 1993-1997 said in an interview that we killed the music listened to by the young Americans and changed it to promote our political ideology.

The first big change happened when the Beatles were brought to America with an entirely different music, being promoted by first appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show. The Beatles music opened the door for bands and singers who flooded the music industry for the next five decades with anti-America, anti-society norms. Anti-family, anti-creator, and anti-moral lyrics which has deteriorated the backbone of America.

Rap music has replaced the great singers and groups such as Nat King Cole, Charlie Pride, Tommy Edwards, The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers, Tony Williams and the Platters, Ed Townsend, The Drifters, and the great Smokey Robinson to name a few. America’s music produced through 1963 had been greatly changed.

There are no normal musical variety television shows today such as the Ed Sullivan Show, Hee-Haw, Soul Train, The Frankie Lane Show, The Eddy Fisher Show, The Ozark Jubilee, The Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and many others where singers and bands could showcase and promote their music. The Grand Ole Opry was bought and changed by outsiders and today doesn’t resemble country music as it was during its name change from Hillbilly Music to Country Music. The Grand Ole Opry today resembles Las Vegas more than the South.

The movies since the 1960s have changed. The drive-in movies are gone as have many theaters been closed with some being rebuilt and today serve mostly B grade entertainers and comedians.

Many low-wattage local AM/FM radio stations have gone off the air in the last four years because of low advertising support locally with most turning in their license. Here in our area the one radio station ceased broadcasting, turned in their FCC license and left small independent businesses in four counties with no radio advertising.

Going back to the early 1960s most rural agricultural areas of the USA had no drug problems. At the time the only reference to drugs was on the police and detective shows on the three national TV networks which happened to be ABC, CBS and NBC. But this changed as the Vietnam War and the hippie movement, along with the major university and college protest grew as the US military through the Johnson administration sent more troops to Vietnam. With the increased involvement in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, there was a vast increase during the 1960s of drugs entering America. The illegal drug infestation along with immorality turned America onto its downward decline.

See you next month with the conclusion of this article.
Here’s some beautiful music suggestions on YouTube. Hank Williams’s songs:
1. I’m Sorry for You My Friend by Joni James
2. Half As Much by Rosemary Clooney
3. Cold, Cold Heart by MariJohn Wilkin & The Jacks