Ensconced in a room on the top floor, I soon discovered great nighttime AM radio reception.
I could hear all the latest songs on 100-thousand watt X-E-R-S from Acuna Coahuila, Mexico (Wolfman Jack) or “Yours Truly K-O-M-A,” 50 thousand watts of clear channel rock and roll from Oklahoma City.
Soon, I became fully enamored of a new girl-group, “The Shirelles” and their huge violin-embellished hit single, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”
I actually listened to and pondered the lyrics at the time. Perhaps the full meaning eluded me in the testosterone-saturated stupor in which I found myself. But these days, in hindsight, those words seem eerily prophetic. Here they are:
“Tonight you’re mine completely/You give your love so sweetly/Tonight the light of love is in your eyes/But will you love me tomorrow?”
Remember, it was 1960. The Love Generation had just been relieved of the responsibility of “unwanted pregnancy” by “The Pill” and various alternative birth control methods.
Responsibility for pregnancy had just been mysteriously shifted from the male to the female.
The Shirelles sang,
“Is this a lasting treasure/Or just a moment’s pleasure?/Can I believe the magic of your sighs?/Will you still love me tomorrow?”
It was a poignant, timely question for the young ladies to be asking. The natural order of things had just been turned upside-down. It was a reasonable thing to ask: Hey boy. Is it love or lust?
“Tonight with words unspoken/You say that I’m the only one/But will my heart be broken/When the night meets the morning sun?”
Until about 1960, premarital sex was wrong. Not that it didn’t happen – it certainly did. But it was widely accepted that it was wrong, immoral. You’d hear, “They had to get married,” or “They should have known better.”
Suddenly, things changed. Abortion began to be strongly and frequently suggested by the medical community. Should a young woman get pregnant, the sperm donor would hand her some money and say “Take care of it.”
Almost overnight, that time-honored morality was overturned. Suddenly, intimacy outside of wedlock was acceptable, even encouraged. It became the norm. Suddenly, having multiple intimate partners was openly practiced in some sub-cultures.
“I’d like to know that your love/Is love I can be sure of/So tell me now, and I won’t ask again/Will you still love me tomorrow?”
So plaintive. Such pleading, urgent tones. The ladies were virtually begging for men to return to their natural, God-given position of leadership in relationships.
The ladies may not have known it at the time, but they longed to be subordinate to their men. They wanted their men to love them as Jesus loved the Church.
But that maleness, that masculinity, that God-given role had been destroyed, perhaps forever.
Women – all women – became objects, targets, scores in a little black book. Little did men known that when they dehumanized women, they dehumanized themselves.
Something important was gone.
One by one, the Protestant “denominations” caved in to the social pressure. Eventually, they all approved of “the pill” for one reason or another.
Only the stuffy old Catholic Church stuck to the ancient morality, silly beliefs as in the Ten Commandments. Only the Church stood against The Pill, against Abortion, against intimacy outside of marriage, intimacy away from the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
But the popular culture kept careening, tumbling forward. If it feels good do it. Free Love. Tonight’s The Night. If you’re going to San Francisco, wear some flowers in your hair. Will you love me tomorrow? Who cares.
We’re going to a Love-In (orgy). At last, free of stodgy old rules, we will have the sexual gratification and pleasure we deserve. Love the one you’re with.
The casual sex of the time required no investment. Why buy a cow when milk’s so cheap?
Who held out against this evil tide? The Catholics. Oh to be sure lots of fisheaters fell into the ways of the world. But not all.
I kept company with one beautiful young Catholic woman for a while. Sooner or later, I pressed for further intimacy. (Hey it was my job, at the time.)
She said, “No. We’re not married.” In desperation, I tried the rather boorish old line, “We’ll be married in God’s eyes.”
She looked at me a long time and said, “Tom. God will be the first to know we’re not married.” Case closed. Trick is, it was MY responsibility, not hers, to say no. But I had not a clue.
Will you love me tomorrow? Morality had been placed in a vacuum – but the culture conveniently “forgot” that nature abhors a vacuum.
We lost something there, something important. We lost our scruples, our sense of fair play, our respect for each other.
We thought we’d gained freedom. Ha.
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Word of the Week: Hibernation. It comes from the Latin, “hibernare,” to pass the winter. We usually associate the word with bears, who spend the winter in a dormant state. Or, it could apply to operators of a Greeley leather goods store . . .
Next week’s word: Sanatorium.
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