It was a year that has forever stuck in my mind. It was the year I became a teenager. Was I supposed to become a young man or was I supposed to still be able to "goof off?" Was I supposed to be the big brother, Wally Cleaver, or the younger brother, Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver? For those of you too young to remember, check out "Leave It To Beaver" on You Tube.

It was a simpler time ... and also a tumultuous time.

Let's start with the simple. As the exciting summer of '69 ended — the moon landing, Woodstock, the Amazin' Mets, etc. — and school began, it ended our days of playing ball behind the grammar school on School Street, riding bikes all around town, getting rides on our friends' Briggs and Stratton mini bikes around the woods at Pat's Pond, having friends over to listen to the radio and the new tunes by the burgeoning group, Creedence Clearwater Revival, or by the group which held our attention for most of the decade, The Beatles. (Note: The Beatles' "Abbey Road" was released 50 years ago today, Sept. 26, 1969. It was the final album Paul, George, John and Ringo recorded together.)

Me and my buddies would look forward to reading the next edition of MAD magazine or comic books, buying and listening to music on cassette tapes, buying and seeing "who we got" in the pack of baseball cards sold at Wheeler's Drug Store (oh how I wished I saved my Mickey Mantle cards!) or swimming in West Harbor Pond.

At night, the family would settle in the living room to watch "color" TV – "Rowan and Martin's Laugh In," "Bonanza" and "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" were some of the prime time favorites (on our four channels–ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS). Once in a while, after Mom and Dad went to bed, we'd stay up and watch "Marcus Welby M.D." or "Hawaii Five-O."

On to the tumultuous.

War raged on in Vietnam – Walter Cronkite brought it to us every weeknight; boxing hero Muhammad Ali is stripped of his title for avoiding the draft; Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick; the Charles Manson murders in August – pretty scary event after a "fun" summer; British troops sent to Northern Ireland; Hurricane Camille, a category 5, killed more than 250 people in Mississippi and Louisiana; and the "Zodiac Killer" was still on the loose in California.

It's hard to forget 1969.