I was a teenager during the “Swinging Sixties.” This was the decade of Jackie Kennedy’s pillbox hat and Mary Quant’s mini-skirt. “Going braless” was in. We screeched and swooned when Ed Sullivan announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, THE BEATLES!” We played with Barbies and sobbed uncontrollably when JFK, our young president, was assassinated in Dallas. Dr. Martin Luther King “had a dream.”

Timothy Leary suggested we could expand our minds with LSD. Flower children lived in communes and reveled in free love. Thousands streaked naked through the mud at Woodstock. The Eagle landed on the moon. The Internet was introduced. Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, and “women’s lib” was born. And, most importantly, we fought and lost an unpopular war in the dense jungles of Vietnam, 8,000 miles away.

Decade aside, you transformed from a child to an adult during your teen years. Perhaps as Charles Dickens once wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” One thing we know for certain: You created countless. [powerful stories. Use the following prompts to tell them:

Tell a story about your thirteenth birthday—the day you became an official teenager.

Describe your looks—did you go through an “ugly duckling” stage?

Describe how you dressed. What clothing styles were “in”?

Describe how you wore your hair.

Describe your slang expressions—in my day, things were “cool.”

Tell a story about your best friend(s).

Describe your “crowd.” Tell a story about being part of the “in crowd” or “out crowd.”

Tell a story about a crazy adventure—an adventure you are lucky you lived through.

Tell a story about dancing. Did you dance? What were the latest dances? Where did you go to dance? What did you wear? Tell a story about the first time you asked a girl to dance or a boy asked you to dance.

Tell a story about dating. What do you remember about your first date? What do you remember about your first kiss? Did you have a steady boyfriend/girlfriend? What did it mean to “go steady”?

Tell a story about a job you held when you were a teenager. How much did you get paid?

Tell a story about reaching puberty.

Tell a story about hearing “the sex talk” for the first time.

Tell a story about rebelling against your parents.

Tell a story about special occasions—your sixteenth birthday, family vacations, a class trip.

Tell a story about drinking, smoking, drugs.

Tell a story about getting your driver’s license.

Tell a story about your first car.

Tell a story about world events that occurred during your teenage years.

In what ways were your teen years “the best of times”? In what ways were they the “worst of times”?