anyone here old enough to remember past wave elections?

The 1964 and 1974 elections in particular? I wasn't born yet in 1964 and wasn't near old enough to remember 1974, but can you explain to me the general consensus of each election?

I remember hearing that the Democratic Freshman in the Class of 1964 were very pie-in-the-sky and had the whole "we can create a utopian world where nothing will ever go wrong again". I might be wrong but I thought the 1964 freshman class had the worst two year retention rate of any class.

Ten years later, the Watergate freshman class were a lot more cynical/pragmatic/realist and were much more effective legislators. For being in a wave year, they had a fairly high survival rate as most of the seats lost in 1978 and 1980 were by old timers like John Brademas or Lionel Van Deerlin and a lot of the 1974 freshman like Harkin Bedell Fithian Hightower etc survived.

Michigan Five Fluke Freshmen

"The unpopularity of President Johnson's Great Society, rising crime, radical campus protests, and racial riots coupled with the coattail effect of popular Governor George W. Romney at the top of the state ticket all led to a downturn for the Democratic Party. The Republicans succeeded in recapturing the five districts they lost in 1964 and returned the delegation to a 12 to 7 Republican majority. Nationally the Republicans gained 47 seats from the Democrats in the House."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Five_Fluke_Freshmen

Iowa I believe had 7 districts in the 1960s. In 1964, five of them were freshman. John Culver, whose district was in the northeast corner of the state, was the only one to be re-elected in 1966.