Anyone remember the first Earth Day?

[mak3cats]

I was in fourth grade, and I remember having class outside, sitting on the new spring grass. It was chilly but sunny.

Earth Day 1970

The first Earth Day celebrations took place in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States. More importantly, it "brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform."[8] It now is observed in 192 countries, and coordinated by the nonprofit Earth Day Network, chaired by the first Earth Day 1970 organizer Denis Hayes, according to whom Earth Day is now "the largest secular holiday in the world, celebrated by more than a billion people every year."[9] Environmental groups have sought to make Earth Day into a day of action to change human behavior and provoke policy changes.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day

[apcalc]

1. Yes, was in college

It felt like a new beginning, of course environmentalism , being the only way a reasonable person would think.

The anti-war movement and anti-racism, feminism taking hold too.

Then came the Republicans...and everything almost stopped dead in it's tracks...been a slow long crawl since.

[liberal N proud]

2. If I remember correctly, we planted a tree

That tree is probably gone now, because they put up a parking lot.

[malthaussen]

7. Don't it always seem to go...

... that we don't know what we've got 'till it's gone.
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

(Joni Mitchell)

-- Mal

[corkhead]

3. I was in 4th grade too. We planted a tree in the front yard of my school.

Ironically, I just took a look and the tree is gone and was replaced by asphalt:

[femmocrat]

4. Yes, I do.

I was living in my home town in western PA. Some "hippies" had a harmless demonstration in Central Park and the local news channel portrayed them as if they were going to overthrow the local government. They were shocked that such behavior had come to our little town!

A few weeks later, my brother applied for some summer job and the interviewer asked him, "Were you one of those hippies in Central Park?"

[bluedigger]

5. Our local college celebrated it, and had Aerosmith play on the tennis courts.

I was 10 years old, and they wouldn't release their first album until that Fall. They were still on the New England small college circuit.

[malthaussen]

6. Yep. I participated.

My junior high had a volunteer group of choristers go around the classrooms wearing white and singing a "fight pollution" song. I remember the words to this day (memory is silly that way).

Not that I cared much about the environment, but hey, it got me out of class for a couple of hours.

-- Mal

[randr]

8. Chautauqua Park, Boulder, Colorado

Several hundred hippies who, after all, were right about a lot of important issues.

[Maeve]

9. Freshman in high school--we went out and gathered trash

Country school, so we picked up trash along country roads (no gloves, unless you thought to bring them, big black trash bags to carry). Sunny and warm enough to get a sun burn. Someone found a cache of porn and drugs, IIRC, hidden in a ditch.

[dembotoz]

10. the first earth day a bunch from my high school skipped school and went to the teach in at uw-milw.

i must admit not quite that radical i did have my mothers permission.....

strongest memory? Sadly it was that my single speed bike was not up to a ride all the way to uwm and back....the ride back was awful.

much of the workshops were more university level (as in over my high school science understanding head.)

what i did understand was fascinating.

that day the environmental movement became real to me.
That day i discovered i was not alone.

It was a wonderful day

[Greybnk48]

11. I was 22 and VERY proud to be from Wisconsin!

"A month later a separate Earth Day was founded by [Wisconsin] United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. Nelson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in recognition of his work."

How things have changed in Wisconsin under Scott Walker and the Koch's.

[unc70]

12. Howard Dean's brother Charlie was organizer at UNC

I was a student at the University of North Carolina in 1970. As I remember, Howard Desn's brother, Charles, was a lead organizer of that first Earth Day at UNC. He was later captured and killed while traveling in Laos.

The joy and happiness associated with Earth Day and with Jubilee, the massive music event at UNC, were quickly replace by the horrors of Kent State and Jackson State.

[blm]

13. Not around me - I've seen old photos showing Kerry with the organizers.

There was a great Rolling Stone piece that fell by the wayside due to the primary battles here.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/john-kerry-on-climate-change-the-fight-of-our-time-20151201

[GeorgeGist]

14. 3 days before my wedding ...

that whole week is a whirling blur to me now.

[ScreamingMeemie]

15. Two months before my birth. nt

[llmart]

16. I sure do....

I was 20, married not quite a year and newly pregnant. It seemed to resonate with me more because of the child I was carrying -how we must all take a part in this movement for the next generation. Sadly, I look back over my lifetime and am hugely disappointed in how the movement sort of died out during the "greed is good" self-centeredness of the Reagan years. Jimmy Carter was my hero.

Every year I still do a trash pickup near wherever I live and I will this weekend too. Yes, I still get steamed at how people can throw their trash on the ground and wonder why I'm picking up after them, but I still do it, only now I do it for my grandbaby. I am optimistic that somewhere along the way, and probably long after I'm gone, we will make great strides towards less conspicuous consumption and more emphasis on caring about people instead. Hopefully I've set a decent example for my children and I will be here long enough to pass my passion for environmentalism along to my grandbaby.

What will some of you be doing for Earth Day this year? I'd like to know.

[LiberalElite]

17. Vaguely. I was working my first full-time job eom

[Kaleva]

18. I wasn't around on the first day of creation. Approx. 6k years ago.

[Major Hogwash]

19. Yes.

It was a great day that year.
My 9th grade Earth Science teacher told my class that we should all be proud of celebrating this day.

Then she gave us a test.

[UTUSN]

20. For me 1967-71 was a period of *blind spot* (as in driving, blind spot)

I was in the military, no computers/nothing. I have a total amnesia thing about just about whatever happened during that period - the moon landing, whatever.

The only exception was RFK's killing. My ship was in Guam in dry dock and all we did was drink in the base club. I tried every drink I had heard of (think, "martini, Manhattan, sloe gin fizz, screwdriver, get the picture?!1). So one evening in June when I got back to the empty barracks the radio was on the (public address) and came the breaking news about RFK. I threw up (pink) in the bushes outside.

[PasadenaTrudy]

21. I was in kindergarten

so no.

[Brother Buzz]

22. Yes, big event at UC Davis

And a big hat tip to Pete McCloskey

[cwydro]

23. I sure do. My Girl Scout troop planted trees at the new Highway Patrol Station near Monroe.

I pass that place almost every day.

Those trees are large and beautiful now.

[yourpicturehere]

24. My B'day

I was fifteen the first Earth Day, and remember there being a photo of a naked women (discreetly covered, of course) with a green striped ecology flag in Look or Life magazine.

I have always been glad they picked the day I was born.