# Stuff that was different in the 60s and 70s **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 11, 2017, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688 "2017-06-11T14:38:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/101 "2017-06-13T00:22:17Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > At the grocery, a customer selects a couple packs of cigarettes from an open rotating rack by the checkout. > Clerk: “You don’t look old enough to buy these” > 14 year old customer: “I am” > Clerk: “OK, that’ll be a $1.20” > [@AHunter3](#): > > Ermm, not in the 60s and 70s. > > 65¢ for a pack in 1977. Some regional variations to be sure but $1.20 would be way out of range. 😕 If 65 cents a pack is standard, and 60 cents is way out of range, what would you call a reasonable variation? The oldest prices I remember – Michigan, ca '62 or '63 – were 30 cents for cigarettes and 33 cents for gas. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/102 "2017-06-13T00:26:30Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > That hasn’t changed. 😉 > > The big answer is Civil Rights. Blacks and women were much less empowered then, and gays were absolutely disempowered. I remember when my mother wanted to sell some of her own property, and still had to get my father’s permission. Unthinkable today. Don’t be so sure that last thing has changed. I think English common law, still in effect, holds that a married person cannot sell real estate without their spouse’s permission. A real estate agent told me that the main reason for title insurance is that someone could come and challenge that the property had been sold without the required approval. I can recall (back in the 50s) buying a pack of cigarettes by throwing a quarter into a vending machine. A gallon of gas also cost a quarter. Long distance phone calls were fearfully expensive ($3 for 3 minutes or less) and I often signaled my safe arrival by calling person-person asking for myself. Tuition at Penn in 1954 was $700/year. It hasn’t gone up by a factor of 100 yet, but is trending there. On the other hand, my family didn’t have $700 and I got no scholarship, so I got a full-time job and studied part-time. The lack of cell phones meant that plans to meet gone awry could lead to real problems. Our first TV (1950) cost $130 and was 10" BW. Our first car (1953, used of course), cost $125 and lasted only five months. Our second cost $300 and I was still driving it in 1962. Civil rights was a big issue. I see that once again, they are trying to figure out how to prevent blacks from voting. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/103 "2017-06-13T00:27:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Halloween was for kids. Parents did not escort their precious snowflakes around the neighborhood as they went trick-or-treating. People did not decorate their houses like it was Christmas in October. You would not see any Christmas ads during Oct. Peanuts, October 23, 1959: Charlie Brown: I went down to the store to buy a Halloween mask, and they were all out! Violet: Aren’t they going to order any more? CB: are you kidding? They were busy putting up Christmas decorations! ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/104 "2017-06-13T00:58:01Z")
> [@Patx2](#): > > School worksheets were run off on a mimeograph machine with the purple type. And you had to smell them. > [@bibliophage](#): > > The bank (and there was only one in town) opened at 10 AM and closed at 3 PM, Monday through Friday. They were also open one or two Saturdays a month for a few hours. There were no ATMs, but there was a slot through which you could deposit cash and checks. If they didn’t like the color of your skin or your accent you couldn’t get a mortgage. > > There were no Internet retailers of course, but there were mail-order catalogs. Allow 4 to 6 weeks for shipping. Yes, I said weeks. There was no FedEx, UPS was a bit player, and without any competition to speak of, the Post Office was a lot slower than it is today. Seems UPS back then was mostly reserved for really, really large items. We had a piece of furniture delivered once, in a box my brother and I both fit into at the same time, and it came UPS. It’s the only UPS delivery I remember us ever getting. > [@](#): > > Cars were easier to fix yourself, but they also broke down a lot more often than modern cars. In all my years of driving I’ve needed to be towed only once. My father’s cars weren’t any older or junkier or worse maintained than mine but when I was growing up it seemed like he needed towing about once every two years. In the late 1990s, I had a 1961 Falcon. Great car. I worked on it myself. It broke down in traffic once, and I fixed it in five minutes on the side of the road. Once, when a part on the carburetor broke, while we waited for the replacement to be shipped, I made one out of a paperclip and duct tape. Sold it after I had a baby. _Sigh_ > [@](#): > > Very few married women with children worked outside the home, almost none worked full time. The ones who did, usually worked in family businesses, or for their husbands, like working as his receptionist if he was a lawyer just starting his own practice. It allowed him to bring home more money. Then, there were lots of teachers who had older children-- teenagers. My fifth grade teacher had high school kids, and had just gone back to work a couple of years before; she’d taught for like 8 years, then had her kids, stayed home, and went back, and taught another nearly 20 years. > [@](#): > > To find a magazine article, you might look in the multi-volume series called _Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature_. Oh, man, I used that so much in college! I was one of the last college classes to use it. > [@Periwinkle](#): > > Domestic violence was more accepted, and people hitting their kids was considered their own business, for the most part. Are you kidding? you could hit other people’s kids. If I was at someone else’s house and misbehaved, his mother could swat me on the butt. If I went complaining to my mother, she’d ask me what I did, and then ask if I deserved to be punished, and I’d have to admit I did. She’d tell me I was lucky I didn’t get sent home, and she didn’t get a phone call, because I would have gotten a much worse punishment. People worried much more about their kids’ behavior than their feelings. It seems like now if a kid misbehaves, the parent asks “Why did you do that?” Instead of saying “That was wrong. Don’t do that again.” ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/105 "2017-06-13T01:16:28Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Parents sent kids to the store for stuff all the time, starting when the kids were about 8, and cigarettes were one of the things that they might send the kids to the store for. My mother didn’t smoke, but I remember going by myself to the corner store to buy milk when I was four. > [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > Bikes were 3 speed “English racers”! > [@panache45](#): > > We had milk delivered every morning, through a “milk chute” in the kitchen wall. > > * * * > > I remember when paperbacks were a quarter, and comic books were a dime. > > * * * > > Yes, I remember getting Buffalo Nickles, Mercury Dimes and Walking Liberty Half Dollars. Yes, half dollars were in common circulation. Our milk was delivered to an insulated box on the porch. Had the same deal when I was in Scotland in '89-'90. 🙂 I had some 45-cent paperbacks and 10-cent comic books when I was a kid, but the lowest prices I remember were 60 and 12 cents, respectively (early '60s). Hostess cupcakes and other such items were also 12 cents, until they went up to 15 around 1970 or '71. Indian head cents, too, and the “steel” cents from WW II that someone mentioned upstream. > [@kiz](#): > > All our stores were closed on Sundays until my state repealed their blue laws. First time I ever saw a mall open on Sunday was around 1980. > [@TriPolar](#): > > There were a number of states that allowed 18, 19, and 20 year olds to drink legally. When I was in high school, drinking age in Illinois was 19 for beer and wine, and 21 for hard stuff. About eight miles from my house, across the Wisconsin line, it was 18 for everything. I was 17 when my buddy and I started going up to Kenosha. We didn’t waste time or effort trying to get served in a bar – we found a liquor store and bought three or four fifths each. 😃 We went back to that liquor several times, always buying several bottles. I never did get carded; my buddy did once, but he was 18, so it didn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/106 "2017-06-13T01:36:00Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Peanuts, October 23, 1959: > > Charlie Brown: I went down to the store to buy a Halloween mask, and they were all out! > > Violet: Aren’t they going to order any more? > > CB: are you kidding? They were busy putting up Christmas decorations! Lyrics from _Mame_, which premiered in 1966: From “We need a little Christmas” “But Auntie Mame, it’s one week from Thanksgiving Day now!” Also, I have different memories from people who lived in different places, but I don’t remember Hanukkah being treated as “Jewish Christmas” by the media and retailers when I was a kid (born 1967). I remember asking about Hanukkah presents, because a teacher in public school told me to write about what I wanted for Hanukkah when the other kids in the class were writing “What I want for Christmas,” and my mother told me “Hanukkah isn’t Christmas. Presents come on your birthday and Purim.” Since my birthday is in early January, I wrote about what I wanted for my birthday. (FWIW, my mother now drops about $300 on my son every Hanukkah.) > [@SCAdian](#): > > My mother didn’t smoke, but I remember going by myself to the corner store to buy milk when I was four. I went out by myself to play at four (there was always the usual gang of kids outside, so my mother wasn’t worried); my mother just didn’t trust me with money yet. Sometimes if my older cousin Alisa was around, she sent her, and I tagged along. My aunt and Alisa’s father were divorced in the mid-70s, and my mother was totally scandalized by the whole thing. Only divorce in the whole family. > [@](#): > > Indian head cents, too, and the “steel” cents from WW II that someone mentioned upstream. I collect coins, and sometimes for laughs, I get really worn Indian head cents or Buffalo nickels with no dates that aren’t worth much (like 50 cents, or even just face value), and spend them. Anymore, people under 25 don’t even know what they are, so it’s getting to be less fun. ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/107 "2017-06-13T02:08:23Z")
I am gonna let my fingers puked some observations for a while… Coke machines where you pulled a 12oz bottle out of a long skinny vehicle door on the left… Lowest I ever saw gas was 19.9cents/gal during the gas wars in '72… Spanking…at home, on a bare ass with a leather belt…at school, up against the locker with a paddle…I HATE the motherfucking “brown nosers” that made paddles in shop class (with holes drilled) for the teachers. Free raining as a kid…my parents don’t even have a clue about what I did or where i ventured and explored. Even my siblings don’t know everything. TV’s were furniture. Our first color TV (c.'68) was 24"/25"? inch screen in a cabinet with a built in stereo turntable and am/fm tuner. Two huger offers and a horn tweeter flanked each side of the screen. It was magnificat, I was 7 or 8. Racism was obvious and more blatant…we are making progress but we have a way to go… Drinking age was different …I lived in Illinois in "79, I was 19. I could legally drink beer and wine. next year 1980, the law changed, i could NOT legally drink anything with c2h5oh…move ahead one year, late 1981, I was stationed at great lakes naval base and frequently drove to Racine and Kenosha WI…I was 21,…girls could drink in bars in Wisconsin at 18 but guys had to be 21. Jeans were typically Levis, Lee’s or Wrangler’s. They came NEW, not distressed, acid washed, prewashed, bleached or manipulated in any way. Anything other than straight heterosexual was ignored or severely mentally (sometimes physically) castigated. This is sad for me cause my dad was gay…My parents stayed married for 27 years cause catholics didn’t divorce back then. Thankfully dad got about 12 years of being himself before he passed. Grandpa’s house ALWAYS smelled like a tobacco shoppe…mmmmm to the op: …thanks!.. good thread. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/108 "2017-06-13T02:38:51Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Peanuts, October 23, 1959: > > Charlie Brown: I went down to the store to buy a Halloween mask, and they were all out! > > Violet: Aren’t they going to order any more? > > CB: are you kidding? They were busy putting up Christmas decorations! Kids in the 60s didn’t correct their elders. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/109 "2017-06-13T02:51:04Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > I thought of an odd difference yesterday as I was walking across a parking lot. > > Does anyone else remember needing to watch your step on parking lots due to oil stains? If you didn’t you’d get stains on your shoes (and track them in). Modern cars hardly leak at all. The old ones left stains wherever you parked them. Oh modern cars leak just fine. modern or old it just depends on if it is being maintained right or not. 5W20 seems to kind of blow off into the wind more though, and 10w40 seems to like to stick to the bottom of the car better and wait for you to park 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/110 "2017-06-13T03:00:18Z")
Anyone else remember Toughskins jeans for kids? ---
**Author:** ![Marci\_Al](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Marci\_Al](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marci_Al)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/111 "2017-06-13T03:05:01Z")
I miss the world where most things man-made, from toys to machines, were made of wood, metal, and cotton. Plastics were cheap excuses and electronics were weird contraptions. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/112 "2017-06-13T03:09:34Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > [li]To play ball, get on your bike and ride around the neighborhood and recruit players. No need for adults in any capacity.[/li] Which is pretty much how soccer football and baseball practice where attended too, no soccer moms required > [@](#): > > [li]It was a big deal the night each year that the Wizard of Oz was shown.[/li] Well… > [@](#): > > [li]Educational films on 16mm or on film strips. Sometimes the filmstrips came with an LP that emitted a beep to advance to the next frame. Sometimes it worked.[/li] Oh the beep worked perfectly, or teacher whacked little johnny upside the head for dozing off at the button 😃 > [@](#): > > [li]You went to the gas station to pump up your bike tires. And of course you ran over the little hose that activated the bell to tell the attendant a car had arrived.[/li] So… It was YOU!! I got in trouble for that > [@](#): > > [li]The girls often dressed really nice for school and we boys appreciated it. But not as much as when the young teacher wore a mini.[/li] Wait what?? All my women teachers were like 80 years old > [@](#): > > [li]You had one television in the house and three channels. You would fight over who got to watch when there were two thing on at once.[/li] Nope, there was a fix to that, it was called DAD Fight was ended. Something i forgot to mention. Sears was someplace you actually wanted to buy from. Appliances from Westinghouse, they didn’t wear out, their owners did. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/113 "2017-06-13T04:22:49Z")
Car tires lasted 5000 miles if you were lucky. They were also all hard-riding bias ply tires. When and where I grew up, not knowing how to work on and tune up your own car would bring more derision than throwing like a girl. Cars also had to be tuned up a couple times a year, too- points, plugs, condenser, rotor. Car bodies from the sixties and seventies also had factory installed rust, it seemed. Two or three years was all it took for the tinworms to eat them up. Nowadays, cars don’t rust out like they used to, you can get 40K miles out of a set of tires, and tune-ups amount to new spark plugs at 100+ thousand miles. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/114 "2017-06-13T07:46:10Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > carburetor broke, while we waited for the replacement to be shipped, I made one out of a paperclip and duct tape. > ." High Macguyver level shit:cool:. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/115 "2017-06-13T13:16:08Z")
> [@Periwinkle](#): > > It seemed like divorce was more rare, I remember kids whispered about it if another kid had divorced parents. Domestic violence was more accepted, and people hitting their kids was considered their own business, for the most part. Police could only arrest a husband for beating his wife if they saw him do it. If they arrived at the house and the wife was battered, bloodied and crying, they could do nothing but tell her to go stay at a friend’s house. There was the implication that she had asked for it by being “a bad wife.” That changed after a few battered wives killed their husbands. Martial rape was a legal impossibility, as your husband had the right to have sex with you on demand. Any woman raped by a stranger or her date was “asking for it” by walking alone at night, wearing a tight skirt, etc.etc. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/116 "2017-06-13T13:40:00Z")
I once told a child who was trying to open the cash register next to mine that he could not be behind the register and to leave immediately. His mother complained to the manager that I had no right to discipline her child. Females always wore a dress. If you wore pants on a cold day, you wore a skirt over them _Snicker_. Littering was more common, and people left what their dog did on the sidewalk. Music was “white” (folk, bluegrass, country) or “colored” (jazz, gospel, soul). The categories were strictly enforced in the USA, with radio stations playing only one or the other. This was especially true in the USA, which explains why rock music (a blend of the two categories) come out of England. One of the best conversations I ever had in my life was with Rudy Isley of the Isley Brothers, talking about touring Europe with the Beatles and introducing"Twist & Shout" to John Lennon. As one person said at Chuck Berry’s funeral “He took black music and white music and turned it into music.” Indeed, rock music’s effect on integration cannot be overplayed. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/117 "2017-06-13T13:47:17Z")
Drug use was not so prevalent, especially prescription drugs. Crazy people were accepted as they were (good) or locked away (bad). People who broke the law did not have the “Yeah, but…” excuses that are so accepted today. You did the crime, you did the time. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/118 "2017-06-13T13:48:20Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Music was “white” (folk, bluegrass, country) or “colored” (jazz, gospel, soul). The categories were strictly enforced in the USA, with radio stations playing only one or the other. This was especially true in the USA, which explains why rock music (a blend of the two categories) come out of England. One of the best conversations I ever had in my life was with Rudy Isley of the Isley Brothers, talking about touring Europe with the Beatles and introducing"Twist & Shout" to John Lennon. > > As one person said at Chuck Berry’s funeral “He took black music and white music and turned it into music.” Indeed, rock music’s effect on integration cannot be overplayed. This passage is confusing. While I’d agree that rock music came out of England, it was an extension of Rock ‘n’ Roll, a style which you even mention in the next paragraph, which also combines the two varieties of music and which came out of America. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/119 "2017-06-13T14:01:14Z")
While rock and roll came out of America, it was considered a fad. However, England’s rock music is a classic form of music that came be combined with any other form (being a combination itself) and one that will probably be around forever. I consider rock and roll and ROCK to be two separate forms of music. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688/120 "2017-06-13T15:07:58Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > … > Females always wore a dress. If you wore pants on a cold day, you wore a skirt over them _Snicker_… In grade school, when there was snow on the ground, the girls did wear long pants under their dresses and removed them when we got inside the building. This did indeed lead to much snickering among the boys. When I started at my Catholic women’s college in the fall of 1966, freshmen were given a booklet with all kinds of rules and protocols. One was that we were not allowed to wear pants (trousers, slacks, etc.) ANYWHERE on the campus except in a dorm ROOM and in the gym/on the playing field. That held until the Summer of Love (we were behind the rest of the country, so it didn’t hit here until the summer of 1968). For my first three years of college, I went every day in heels and hose. In the fall of 1968, we attended classes in jeans, usually bell-bottomed. I went straight to graduate school where I was a teaching assistant in freshman English. I taught in bell-bottomed jeans and wore a leather headband (with fringe, no less!) around my forehead. Jane Q. Cool–that was me. :rolleyes: People wear jeans everywhere now, but not then. I remember going to a nice restaurant at night with a guy around 1970 and when you arrived at the door, the host shined a flashlight on your attire to see if you could be admitted. The flashlight revealed that my friend was wearing jeans, so we were turned away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-that-was-different-in-the-60s-and-70s/788688.md?page=7)