Rick Robinson is a local author who is writing a book based on life in Northern Kentucky in 1968 and what we can learn now. LINK will publish excerpts from the book regularly in the LINK Reader, as well as on linknky.com. This is chapter 12. Click here to read chapter 11, Rick Robinson’s 1968: November
On the evening of Dec. 3, 1968, a 14-year-old ninth-grader from Ockerman Junior High School, Pamela Robinson Porter, sat impatiently in front of a large wood cabinet encasing a small Motorola color television set. The anticipation was agonizing. A Christmas special was about to start. This, however, was no ordinary television show. “Singer Presents . . . Elvis” was about to air.
Elvis Presley had not performed in public for seven years. His musical abilities had become secondary to his appearances in over two dozen low-budget movies. Elvis had charted only one Top 10 hit over the previous five years.
Originally, Elvis balked at the idea of singing Christmas carols in front of a national audience. He initially considered the concept to be yet another corny profiteering scheme devised by his manager, Col. Tom Parker. Elvis changed his mind when producer Bob Finkle and director Steve Bender decided to focus on the music and make wholesale changes to the show’s format. For instance, Parker wanted to hand-pick the people in the audience. Finkel and Bender went to a nearby diner and put them around Elvis.
“In today’s world, no celebrity would fail to make a public appearance or appear in the media for six or seven years,” said Northern Kentucky lawyer, author and filmmaker John Lucas. A 17-year-old at Holmes High School at the time, Lucas was compelled to tune in. “He had only been in movies. So, like many fans, I was curious.”
Dressed in all black leather and surrounded by a casual audience, Elvis Presley delivered. “Singer Presents . . . Elvis” drew a whopping 42% in the ratings. The soundtrack of the special went gold. And the first release from the soundtrack, “If I Can Dream,” went to No. 8 on the charts.
Porter was thrilled.
“I couldn’t WAIT to return to school to chatter with my girlfriends about our fave songs,” she said.
She also noted that it probably took her a decade to realize how legendary the night had been. Later in life, her multiple trips to Graceland in Memphis were “almost a reverent, spiritual experience, a confirmation of the peace Elvis sought and found there.”
In a 2001 column, she wrote, “I think it’s fair to say that the course of American and world/musical popular culture would have been radically altered without Elvis. The legend may have permanently ‘left the building,’ but his contributions to music and his legacy have ensured he will remain an international icon for the ages.”
Not everyone shared the enthusiasm. Some critics panned the performance. Locally, people like John Domaschko, bass player for The Dingos, had moved on to other types of music.
“By 1968, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, the Yardbirds, the Who and many others had hit the scene, making Elvis seem like a musical dinosaur,” said Domaschko.
With those emerging sounds as a backdrop, “Elvis became the equivalent of Lawrence Welk for many people our age.”
Despite criticism, the impact of the television show that eventually became known as simply “The Comeback Special” cannot be overlooked.
The song “If I Can Dream” is a story in and of itself — an exclamation point on the turmoil of 1968. Although it was airing in December, the special was filmed months earlier in June. Vietnam and the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were at the forefront of Elvis’ mind. He was supposed to close the show by covering “I’ll be Home for Christmas.” Instead, a song was hastily written to reflect Elvis’ view on all the turmoil facing America. In a white three-piece suit, backed by giant red letters spelling his name, and with no audience, Elvis sang into a white hand-held microphone:
“If I can dream of a better land,
Where all my brothers walk hand in hand,
Tell me why, oh why,
Oh, why can’t my dream come true.”
The words hit home in a region where headlines were still featuring stories about the deaths in Vietnam.
His tour of Vietnam having ended in November, Covington’s Carl Fryman was back in the states for Christmas. Of his time in-country, he said, “You see things no person should ever see,” he said recently.
Unlike others he knew who had to clean up the bodies on the battlefield where he was wounded, Fryman never experienced any post-traumatic stress.
“Being a Christian, I just called on the Lord. He’s never failed me,” he said.
The Niewahner family of Villa Hills had three sons stationed in Southeast Asia — Louis, Mike and Ronald. Early in December, the youngest of the trio, Army Sgt. Ronald Niewahner, was killed about 25 miles outside of Saigon. The family’s last letter from their son had come a week or so earlier: “He told us he was going to church and serving Mass the Sunday before — said it made him feel good.”
On Christmas Day, Army Sgt. Ken Bryant of Cold Spring became the final Northern Kentuckian to be killed in combat in 1968. A Bronze Star recipient, Bryant had been injured twice previously. He had 92 days left in Vietnam when he was killed on patrol near Saigon. Shortly thereafter, he was supposed to be getting married.
Lloyd High School made headlines in December 1968 by banning “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger, from the school’s required reading list. Forty-nine parents had presented a petition to Lloyd officials demanding they ban the 1951 best-selling novel about a boy running away from home to New York City. One parent called the book “dangerous.” Another objected to the vulgar language, saying, “Novels are supposed to be enjoyable, but this book is not enjoyable.” An open meeting of the Erlanger-Elsmere School Board brought out supporters and detractors. “It’s about academic freedom,” said one parent.
The board appointed a secret panel to review the book; it eventually compromised and allowed “The Catcher in the Rye” to remain on the required reading list unless parents objected. In such a case, an alternate novel would be assigned to the student. The secret committee acknowledged parents’ concerns over what their children are reading in school.
“On the other hand, the literature teacher should not try to escape the possibility of controversy by presenting only safe but barren works,” the committee members said.
Planning for 1969 (and beyond) seemed to grab a lot of December headlines in The Kentucky Post and Times-Star. Among other stories of the time:
- Gov. Louie Nunn planned for a 1970 start date for Northern Kentucky State College, and everyone waited to see where the new campus would be located. The newly formed Board of Regents began planning to hire top-level college executives.
- Frontier World planned for a 1970 opening that never happened.
- A modernization plan for Covington’s Riverside Drive was met with citizen opposition.
- A multilevel “living bridge” between Cincinnati and Newport was planned to include apartments and a helicopter pad. Decades later, a similar plan was proposed for the Purple People Bridge.
- The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana (OKI) Regional Council of Governments’ transportation study issued a 21-year bridge plan, including a new span to replace the Brent Spence. The Kentucky Post and Times-Star explained it simply: “We can’t wait until 1990 for a better river crossing.” It’s 2023, and we are still waiting.
- The Northern Kentucky Riverport Authority started a long-range feasibility study for public port facilities. A port was never constructed, but the port authority still exists.
And a long-term plan of President John F. Kennedy inched one step closer to fruition. In the ’60s, Southeast Asia was not the only place where America was fighting the Cold War. It was also being fought in the most faraway place imaginable – the moon.
The “space race” began when Kennedy challenged America to reach the lunar surface by the end of the decade. In a speech at Rice University, he said:
“We chose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure that man has ever gone.”
Underlying the Kennedy challenge was beating the Soviet Union in the quest. Having an American astronaut walk on the moon before a Russian cosmonaut was a Cold War challenge more easily accepted by most Americans than war in Vietnam.
To close out 1968, Northern Kentuckians sat transfixed to their television sets as Apollo 8 took America one step closer by orbiting the moon 10 times before safely returning to Earth. Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders became the first to witness an “earthrise” from the dark side of the moon.
Normally, The Kentucky Post and Times-Star would leave such national news stories to its Cincinnati sister edition. However, above-the-masthead headlines of Apollo 8 and stories of the astronauts on board were present in the newspaper every day of its historic voyage, including the edition on Christmas Day. The comments from Northern Kentuckians reflected the enthusiasm being felt around the country.
Bernard Brinkman of Ludlow said, “I don’t know how to say it, but I guess it’s the most marvelous thing that ever happened.” Nancy Abercrombie, a waitress at the Copper Kettle, said it was “grand.” Thomas More student Tom Aylor said from his job at Bodkin Liquor that he was “glad we’re the first up there.”
On Christmas Eve 1968, before a worldwide television audience, the three astronauts read the first 10 verses of Genesis from the King James version of the Bible.
apollo8: Frank Borman, commander of the three-man Apollo 8 crew, along with William Anders and James Lovell Jr. orbited the moon 10 times in December 1968 before returning safely to earth. File photo | Associated Press
Bill Anders
We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Jim Lovell
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Frank Borman
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.
And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.
Less than a year later, although separated by distance, Neil Armstrong would unite us in a bond, fulfilling Kennedy’s challenge by stepping on the lunar surface.
As for 1968, it ended the way it began … with the war in Vietnam still raging, civil rights still at a flash point, women’s rights still emerging, the culture still evolving and “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” still No. 1 on the charts.
Rick Robinson’s award-winning books can be found at area bookstores and are available on Amazon. In a new book to be released later this year, he will be viewing Northern Kentucky through the lens of 1968. If you wish to contact Robinson with a story or thoughts about 1968, you may do so at neverleavefish@gmail.com. Photo credits compliments of Kenton County Library Faces and Places. Unless otherwise noted, all stories and quotes from 1968 are from articles that appeared in The Kentucky Post and Times-Star.