I almost forgot to mention American Fries . Hot damn, did I love that crispy potato snack. The package that I “remember” was bicentennial themed. It also seems like they stopped making them shortly after '76.
Middle of high school. Important member of the swim team and last man off the bench for the baseball team. I studied hard and got good grades in everything but English…now I am a professional writer, take that, Mr. You-know-who-you-R.
I had a summer job working with kids; spent most of the rest the of the summer on my bike or at the ballpark.
The big family news was that my dad was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the year. He spent “a week or two” in the hospital, as my Pollyanna-ish mother recalls (my sister and I remember more like three months). Surgery and radiation allowed him to survive it, but the healing was a very long process, and that cancer overshadowed most of the rest of the year. I was old enough to step up and take on more responsibility, but didn’t; a little ashamed of that today. Well, it was a tough time.
I was very very aware of girls and their various interesting body parts, but had no confidence in my ability to actually ask one out. In the late evenings I would use their images as fodder for my ongoing attempt to achieve the elusive orgasm. I reached the end of ‘76 still not having experienced it; I am sure it was not for want of trying!
I was transitioning from 8th to 9th grade - junior high to high school. The movie “Dazed and Confused” has always held a special place for me as the younger students in that movie were representing my class. And, I grew up in a small community so the hazing and the keg party in the woods and everyone knowing everyone else rang very true for me.
In the Fall of 1976 I turned 14 and, as I lived in a rural community, we were able to get hardship driver’s licenses (only to be used for driving to and from school or to and from a job). So I got to start driving that year. At 14. We thought it was perfectly natural. When my oldest son turned 14 I called my dad and said, “What the hell were you thinking let a 14-year old drive?”.
Oh, and in the Spring I remember going to the state capital to see the Freedom Train.
Oh–one year shy of *Talking Heads '77. *
I was in elementary school, and loved World War II history, building model airplanes and tanks, riding my bike, and keeping my big sister out of my room. There were times I would’ve killed her, if you’d handed me a gun.
My parents signed me up for Boy Scouts against my will the previous fall. Fortunately, I loved it, and in the summer of '76 I attended Scout summer camp for the first time. Four years later I was a counselor there, serving five summers in a row, and met and eventually shared a cabin with two terrific guys on staff, Jim and David, who to this day are still good friends. On the Bicentennial Day itself, July 4, I flew with another friend and his parents to meet my parents at a ramshackle old beach house on the North Carolina coast, where we all stayed for a week. I still remember seeing fireworks out over the ocean on the night of July 4.
Pretty sure I had a Stretch Monster around then, which was essentially a monstrous version of Stretch Armstrong. I think I also had some crank-driven Evel Knievel motorcycle toys, and a bunch of gloriously unsafe toys like giant robots that shot little missiles and stuff.
(it’s hard to recall exactly; I was four!)
I was 14 in 1976. Not a good year.
The bicentennial stuff was cool but 14 is not a good year for most anybody. I think that was also the year I went from being 5’6" to 6’2". Wretched year.
OMG same here!! :eek:
It wasn’t our house, though, it was our apartment building. My brother was 3, and I was about to turn 5. Our apartment was on the third/top floor, and a neighbor on the same floor fell asleep with a lit cigarette; officials later said that the fire began shortly before 2am. The smoke woke my dad up – followed soon by the sounds of people pounding on doors and yelling “FIRE!” while running down the stairs – and he and my mom grabbed us kids and hightailed it out of the building. We lost our cat, and all of our possessions except the contents of one closet. We watched as the roof directly above our apartment collapsed in flames, and I went into shock and was taken to the hospital (my first and only ambulance ride): Mom rode with me while Dad stayed at the scene with my brother. I shared the ambulance with a fireman who had fallen through the roof when it collapsed, leading to a lifelong appreciation of firefighters that’s slightly more intense than most people’s.
I do have some vague memories of the event itself, but two local papers covered the fire and I have scans of those clippings – plus memories of hearing the story get told by one parent or the other several times over the years. I also still have the teddy bear the Red Cross gave me on the scene.
I’m so sorry. 
Still a few credits short of my BA, working the crappiest of jobs, drinking lots of beer, smoking huge amounts of weed, chasing everything in a skirt. I may not have been a drain on society but I didn’t add anything to it, either.
Wait…
1976 was when I got an unusual coin in change when I picked up Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man at an airport bookstand on my way to basic training. This is the coin I have been using for the last 40 years or so to test those who claim to be psychic.
ooops
Finished middle school and went into high school as a freshman. This was probably the height of my Mormonism. Not an impure thought the entire year. :eek: It would be years before I kissed a girl, drank or even listened to rock music. I was aware that people around me listened to such evil things as Kiss, but I still believed that was a sin.
-twitch- God I’m curious.
My kicks in 1976 were probably some cheap knock-off brand from TG&Y. I don’t think I got branded tennis shoes until I got into high school, in 1980.