What Walks Down The Stairs, Alone Or In Pairs and Makes a Slinkety Sound?

What walks down the stairs, alone or in pairs and makes a slinkety sound?
A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing,
Everyone knows it's slinky..
It's slinky, it's slinky, for fun it's a wonderful toy.
It's slinky, it's slinky, it's fun for a girl and boy.
I bet you can sing that tune! You had one, right? Every kid did.
A slinky is a coiled shaped spring invented in 1943 by Richard James. He was a navel engineer trying to develop a meter to monitor horsepower in navel battleships. The thing fell off the table and walked across the floor. A toy was born.
With a 500 dollar loan, he and his wife, Betty, made it into a toy. She named it slinky because in the dictionary, it means smooth and graceful.
In 1945, they set up a demonstration in Gimbles Department store and almost sold out in the first 90 minutes.
A factory was built and the James Spring and Wire Company was born.
Believe it or not, Richard James had an epiphany around 1960 and left his wife and 6 kids to join a Bolivian religious cult. Dude! What were you thinking?! So, Betty took over and became CEO and saved the company from debts left by her husband. You go girl!
She replaced the blue black steel with silver and colored metal and added other toys to their line. Do you remember the glasses with the fake dangling eyeballs? Too cool!
To all you boomers, did you know that during the Vietnam war, Slinkys were used for mobile radio antennas?
Betty was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall Of Fame in 2001.
Wow! What a toy! If life could be that sweet and simple!
Original Metal Slinky

Kosmic Trooths

The alternative press in the 1960's was a declaration of journalists who valued freedom of speech and critical thought in a democracy. The events of the sixties resulted in a rebellion against commercialized culture, war, corporate power and prejudice.
The antiwar and counterculture activists, being denied access to conventional media, took advantage of creating their own underground newspapers such as the Berkley Barb, Los Angeles Free Press and the Realist. These alternative papers soon found large audiences and by 1969 there were at least 400 different publications in every major city and college campus.
The readers were united by opposition to the Vietnam war, rejection of traditional American values, use of drugs and the rock and roll scene. Some of these underground papers covered feminism, gay liberation, and the environment. Also, communal living, mysticism, and Native American movements.
The most enduring publication was Rolling Stone magazine. Founder, 20 year old Jann Wenner, borrowed $7,500 in 1967 to start the publication. Within two years, the magazine had over 64,000 subscribers and was a major magazine of the rock generation.
The Whole Earth Catalog gave practical instruction for everything from do-it-yourself burials to building geodesic domes. Hippies could buy a huge array of products not found in your local store.
Acid-head cartoonist, R. Crumb published an underground comic book with graphically sexual and nothing was sacred images called Zap Comix. Crumb envisioned a world run by hippies. He wrote, "It's frightening!" To think about prison camps full of people not hip enough and prison guards with big peace symbols on their arm bands."

Hell,No, We Won't Go!

By 1969 more than 14,000 Americans had been killed in Vietnam and over 323,000 had been wounded. In Washington D.C. of that year, over 250,000 people protested the war.
The draft board was the main reason for the protests. My friends back then did all they could to get out of being drafted. Some went to Canada and others tried to act crazy or said they were drug addicts or gay when they had to show up at the draft board. Some even just evaded the draft and were on the run. Public protests included burning draft cards. Bottom line, I had friends that were killed in that war and friends that made it home with serious mental problems.
All males between the age of 18 and 35 were required to register with the Selective Service Administration. They then could be drafted at any time. The draft board gave deferments to college and graduate school students and that left the soldiers to be working class whites and minorities who could not afford college. Thousands of men were drafted every year to make up for the three million troops in all.
As the war continued to drag on, millions of Americans joined the anti-war movement.
There was turmoil on college campuses and a new group, Students For A Democratic Society (SDS) emerged.
This war was televised almost every evening so we could watch uncensored scenes of burning villages, dead soldiers and other horrible images. I must say, this tactic sure didn't win any votes for the war.
Drugs were an issue among the soldiers. They were running rampant here and also there. I had friends that were so stoned out of their minds, that they basically didn't know why they were there.
Lyndon Johnson made Vietnam his war. He personally selected bombing targets and got out of bed at 3 o'clock every morning to hear the latest reports form Saigon. One anti-war chant was, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"
He agonized over the growing casualty list and tried to ignore the protesters chanting outside his window. On March 31, 1968, Johnson realized he had lost the trust of a divided nation and announced he would not run again for office.
This is just one example that made the 60's some of the most turbulent years in American history.

Counterculture Power

The 60's was a time of rebellion and counterculture in which younger people were questioning everything including corporations, authority, and the government. Some of the issues during that time were the Vietnam war, nuclear arms, civil rights, drugs, sexual freedom, the enviroment, and non-conformity. The movement made a change in American culture. The lifestyle included peace, harmony, love, mysticism, music, and religions outside of Christianity. Psychedelic drugs were used as a pathway to expand consciousness. A williness to challenge authority, enviromental awareness, and changing attitudes about gender roles and child rearing were also part of the movement. Utopian lifestyles, or communes were popular. Shared goals, farming, raising children and running households in longing for a simpler life was achieved. Many members of this counterculture saw their lives as a way to express social and political beliefs. Song lyrics, art and personal appearance, were used to make politicl and personal statements. "We are here to make a better world. We didn't end racism, but we ended segregation. We ended the idea that you could send half-a million soldiers around the world to fight a war people did not support. We ended the idea that women were second class citizens. We made the enviroment and issue that couldn't be avoided. The big battles that we won cannot be reversed. We were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypercritical, brave, silly, head strong, and scared half to dealth. And we were right." Abby Hoffman