Born in 1961

If you were born in 1961, you entered an America that felt charged with purpose, or at least with rhetoric about purpose. Kennedy's inaugural address—"Ask not what your country can do for you"—echoed from every television set, and for a moment the country believed it could do almost anything. The Peace Corps was founded, and idealistic young Americans headed to Africa and Latin America.

The Freedom Riders boarded buses into the Deep South and were met with violence that forced the federal government to act. In April, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba failed spectacularly, and Kennedy stood up and took the blame, which paradoxically made people like him more. Alan Shepard rode a rocket into space in May—fifteen minutes, just suborbital, but enough to feel the first rush of American space pride.

The Berlin Wall went up in August and the Cold War became a permanent architectural fixture. Ben-Hur's Oscar wins were still being talked about. "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" by the Shirelles and "Runaway" by Del Shannon were on the radio.

The new Ford Falcon and Chevrolet Corvair were competing for the compact car market. Teenagers were doing the Twist at every party. The drive-in was packed every summer weekend, and the country still felt like it was on the right side of history—complicated, unfinished, but fundamentally headed somewhere good.