The Other 1967

Besides all of the great comic books and songs I love, what else is from the Summer of Love, 1967? Internationally, there was the 6-Day Arab-Israeli War. Domestically, there were race riots.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/riot-report/#part01

I’ve watched the documentary, and I’m thinking about a black girl I was friendly with in the 7th grade, ’67-’68. I’m trying to remember her name, without success. We had a couple of classes together, sitting next to each other in one of them, and I genuinely liked her.

The date of the Riot Report’s release, March, ’68, strikes me as being near the time when the girl stopped being being friendly. One day at the start of music class, out of nowhere she dismissively said to me, “you’re a white tuna.” I’ve always remembered her calling me “tuna.” It was such an unexpected word, and it hurt when she turned on me that way. That was the last time she ever spoke to me. There was no explanation for the sudden change in her attitude.

That same year, I connected with a black kid who was into comic books. I don’t remember his real name, but he called himself “Lucky.” As comic book fans, the contrast between myself and Lucky was black and white, and it had nothing to do with race. My focus was on the artists. “Look at how good Jack Kirby’s art is when it’s inked by Joe Sinnott!” Lucky was in the fan camp of, “Do you think the Thing can beat the Hulk in a fight?”

The summer of ’68, I spent an afternoon with Lucky at the apartment where he lived with his family in South Norwalk. It was a rough neighborhood, and I was scared to see Lucky was carrying a knife for protection. We traded some comics, and he gave me a copy of the 1966 Spider-Man Annual. He had written his name inside the front cover, as I was also doing at the time. I still have that comic book in one of my boxes. I’ll try to find it and take a picture of Lucky’s name.