I was born in December '66, so I never had to actually make a living or pay serious bills in the '70s, but I agree that it was a great time to be a kid. Things I get nostalgic for, in no particular order:
[ul]
[li]The Bicentennial (hard to impart just how big a deal the Bicentennial was to those who weren’t there- every TV show had a Bicentennial episode, every dimestore sold tricorn hats and toy muskets, every two bit town was decorated for it [e.g. fire hydrants painted to look like Minute Men or George Washington], and the nightly Bicentennial Minute- and I also remembered it all ended instantly on July 5, like Ash Wednesday at Mardi Gras today.[/li][li]The Golden Age of Saturday morning TV (S&M Krofft shows, Filmation, etc.)[/li][li]The advent of the digital watch[/li][li]Pong (which absolutely seemed Star Trek-kish at the time)[/li][li]The original Star Wars fever (hard to believe they were so unsure as to the success of the movie that there wasn’t a single action figure on the market when it premiered) [/li][li]Jimmy Carter jokes[/li][li]Disco (which was fun and the first [and about the last] music I danced to)[/li][/ul]
I didn’t get into '70s music until long after the '70s were over (early '90s probably), but even at the time I loved the TV shows (All in the Family, Sanford and Son, the first cast of SNL (I didn’t get all the jokes but still loved watching them), and some others still rank among my all time favorites).
There are pics of me in leisure suits and with the “butt cut” and lots of shag carpeting in the houses but I didn’t really have an opinion one way or the other on fashion: it was what we wore and how we decorated.
Nope. For me it was a horrible decade. Both my parents died, three grandparents died, an uncle died, and I was diagnosed with cancer. In a lighter vein, ugly colors, ugly clothes, and bad music also dominated the seventies. I try to avoid even thinking about it.
Watch Taxi Driver to see New York at the time.
No, no no, I don’t miss the 70’s. I was born in 1964, so that was my childhood. Except for the Apollo moon program, everything sucked. Nixon disgraced the office of the President so badly that we elected Carter, a man who oozed humility. The economy was permanently messed up with out of control inflation. Vietnam was ending and everybody’s uncle, brother or dad was coming home with undiagnosed PTSD, which they treated with beer, pot and coke.
Look at TV shows from the 70s. Those terrible hairstyles and clothes. I think the reason that everything was brown, green or orange was to hide the dirt. casual racism was funny.
And don’t get me started on the music. It never really went away until 2010 or so. I hate the fucking eagles, man.
Born in '73, too young to remember the zeitgeist. However, being in a small town, we still had some of the aesthetics and culture of the 70s that lasted well into the 80s (there were new discos opening in the town next to us in 1981!)
So, I am nostalgic for the turn of the decade, which to us was basically the late 70s except with more early video games. We didn’t hear New Wave music until almost 1983. When I heard I Will Survive in 1981 I thought it was new.
Yep. Some of my favorite music was being made in the 70s. Led Zeppelin, the first Pretenders album, Gang of Four’s Entertainment!, the first three Wire albums, Television’s Marquee Moon, Neu!, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno’s solo albums, etc. It was a fantastic decade for music.
I never see it in our neighborhood. Sports are all organized by the school and I never see pickup games of baseball. I do see our local Indian/Pakistani kids and young adults playing pickup games of cricket.
I have to say, pick-up baseball is not that common around here, either, so far as I can tell. I was born in '75, and we played pick-up ball through the early 90s. We had our own variations on the game, depending where we were playing. There was a tennis ball version, a rubber ball version, and a league ball version. Oh, and of couse, 16-inch Chicago style softball. Our main fields were the field behind the cardboard paper factory, the asphalt school parking lot, and an actual high school baseball field. Christ, I feel old just talking about it. But, no, I don’t really see pick-up games like that much, either, these days. Occasionally, maybe a softball game. THAT SAID, I do see kids playing soccer in fenced courts that used to be tennis courts or basketball courts when I was a kid, so there is still plenty of unorganized sports going on, although it seems to be less frequent to me.
Basketball you do see. I haven’t seen pickup baseball in years. We used to have rule modifications based on how many players we could get. If you had so few batters that your turn to bat came while you’re on base, a “ghost runner” could take your place who would advance as many bases as the batter (that really came into play with 2 on 2 ball). Of if you had too few outfielders, the batter could designate which field, left or right, would be foul territory, with the exception that over the fence was a valid homer in any field. Or if no first baseman, “pitcher’s hands” was the rule so if the ball got back to the pitcher before the runner touched first, he was out.
One thing I miss about the 70s in these parts (north Georgia) is the physical landscape. A lot of beautiful countryside has been eaten up by ugly development since then.
I was a kid on a farm in the 70s, and one thing I remember is the back-to-the-country movement of the early to mid 70s. A lot of kids who had lived in cities and done the hippie thing started moving out into the country to grow weed and organic vegetables. We had a lot of these folks as new neighbors.
The whole thing was tied up with the music of the era, too: John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High,” “Hey It’s Good to Be Back Home Again,” and “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” captured the vibe, along with all the country rock and Southern rock that was hitting the airwaves.
I retract my earlier statement about the music. There was a great deal of good music in the 70s. But, disco was really* really* bad. (and they’re still playing that crap).
I was born in 1960. I had a great time all the way through the 1970s! I’m fairly satisfied having my teenaged years from 1973-1979 – I thought it was great!
I didn’t mind the disco music or the fashions. Plus, there was all sorts of good music that wasn’t disco.
I do regret that a lot of specific moments from this period are fading from my memory, but that’s just age, I guess…