Bobby,
I don't think that ratting hair actually went out until the end of the 60s. I know I was still ratting my hair until 69.
The democratic party was alive and well in Mtn. Home in the 60s and remember back then people didn't equate democrats with being liberal, commies. They were just another party. Idaho being a state who would have gone with the South if they had been around during the Civil War was quite into the democratic party, which at that time was also the prefered party of the south. It wasn't until the democrats started wanting equal rights for all that the South then turned to the Republicans.