Petaluma’s Past: The dawning of ‘The Age of Aquarius’ in Petaluma

Recently, interest has been renewed in the incredible feats of our 1969 Apollo Space Program. In case you missed it, those parachute cords, bringing the capsule back to earth, were made right here in Petaluma by Sunset Line and Twine. Sunset President Art Agnew said at the time, “It was tense. If those cords had failed, the astronauts and the space craft would have sunk to the bottom of the ocean.”

But that summer, 50 years ago, was full of other news, too.

The year 1969 was also “The Age Of Aquarius,” Woodstock’s crowd of 400,000, Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix plus Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem with Women’s Liberation.

As well as something called “The Birth Control Pill.”

The Vietnam War and Richard Nixon.

Hurricane Camille and Teddy Kennedy’s “Chappaquiddick” incident.

Plus two huge Santa Rosa earthquakes.

How to begin?

Well, John Lennon married Yoko Ono and the Beatles split in 1969.

I’m thinking that’s a start.

The “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius” permeated nearly everything, especially here in California. It was hippies and drugs, bell bottoms and tie-dye, communes and long hair.

As mentioned above, one positive result that did evolve from those times was the empowerment of women. President Nixon had noted that year, “Ceylon, Israel and India have women Prime Ministers. Certainly in the next 50 years, we shall see a woman President.” However, commentator Paul Harvey opined, “You’ve come a long way baby, but you still have a ways to go.”

Well, it’s been 50 years “Baby,” and now Germany and Britain have also had women leaders. We actually may be on the verge of that Nixon prediction.

Along those same lines, Air France, in a “Woman’s Lib” mode, announced in ’69 that it would allow “stewardesses” to fly until age the age of 50, instead of their previous forced retirement at 30. (That Argus article, announcing the change, was wryly headed “Coffee, Tea or Serutan?”). Then, a Don Oakley column entitled “Decline of the American Male” proclaimed that The Society For the Emancipation of the American Male was suggesting that, “All things wrong, are the fault of the American woman, who has sissified the male and taken both his pants and his purse strings.”

Wow! That was just 50 years ago, folks.

Some things change very slowly, I guess.

Here, in good old Petaluma, however, we were celebrating our first female mayor, Helen Putman, and the town was on an expansion spree. And ’69 was the year our Wrist Wrestling Tournament made TV’s “Wide World of Sports.” Allen Shainsky founded Petaluma Poultry that year, Mayor Putnam cut the ribbons on the new Washington Street Bridge, as well as for the “new” Lucky Store (the Boulevard one) and “Fast-Food” restaurants - Taco Bell, Denny’s, A&W and Wendy’s - all came to town in ’69.

Developer William McDevitt was building a multimillion dollar plastics plant here, and our Planning Commission approved 300 new residential building permits that year, leading us (in the early ’70s) into Helen Putnam’s revolutionary Growth Control Plan. The first in the country, it had to go all the way to the US Supreme Court, for final approval.

Good Ol’ Helen, I miss her.

Also, there was serious talk, then, about improving our river, with many new floating docks and a launching ramp, as some of the items under suggestion - along with dredging the shallow shoals! (Uh huh).

Two major Santa Rosa earthquakes occurred in 1969.

They were just 15 minutes apart and were then (and still) our biggest quakes since 1906. Many chimneys fell, sidewalks buckled and underground pipes broke. It was said that 101 buildings were damaged. Santa Rosa, with a population then of 49,000, became a model for seismic retrofitting, and Petaluma soon followed suit (this columnist being the first Petaluman to upgrade an unreinforced masonry building here - The Great Petaluma Mill, in 1975).

Oh yeah, another thing.

An Argus editorial in July noted that, “Mini-skirts could become a target of The National Safety Council, because of their distraction to motorists,” and our editor chided, “Some people think there ought to be a law for everything!”

Awwww, those Editors.

Plus, I know my readers love statistics, so here you go.

“Oliver!” won the Oscar, Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” was the best novel, “Oh Calcutta” won a Tony for best Broadway show, “Laugh-in” was the best TV show, the Mets won the World Series and Joe Namath and his Jets won the Super Bowl!

I’m sure peace, love and self-awakening had something to do with all of that too, ‘cause it was, as they said at the time, “Well … like a new age, man.”

(Skip Sommer is an honorary life member of Heritage Homes and the Petaluma Historical Museum. You can reach him at skipsommer@hotmail.com)