When you think of "the '70s..."

In My Humble Opinion
21

I was born in 1970, so most of the important stuff was over my head.

Harvest gold, avacado and lots of brown everywhere. Calico-print A-line long dresses and skirts, way too much polyester. Keds and stacked high heels.

One TV, without cable or VCR, perhaps a second small B&W set if you were well off.

Donny and Marie, The Carpenters, Roger Whittaker, Conway Twitty and Pink Floyd.

Buy American! This was a super huge deal growing up in Motown, of course. I remember having to drive for hours into Canada to get parts for my grandfather’s furrin car (no idea what type it was.)

22

Really, really horrid music, decor, and clothing, horrible politicians committing all manner of interesting crimes, parts of the populace consuming enough drugs to make the previous two items tolerable.

I was born in '86, though, so my knowledge of the 70’s comes from: history class, movies, my mother’s stories of being in the Peace Corps, and my fathers very vague and grudging admission of having fully embraced certain aspects of the counter-cultural movement.

23

Nixon, Vietnam, hippies, some decent music. Hard to remember, having lived through it and stuff. :wink:

(I was 15-25).

24

Being at school. I spent that decade at school.

25

OMG, Spencer’s Gifts! There’s still one at a mall about 20 miles down the road. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long.

(FYI, Spencer’s was the “cool” place to shop back in the 70s. Black-light-flourscent-poster-drug-paraphalia heaven. Haven’t been in the local one for awhile, and I presume they’re no longer selling the drug-related stuff).

26

Pot. Lots and lots of pot.

I don’t see why people say music in the seventies sucked. Disco sucked, but there was a lot of music besides disco: King Crimson, The Clash, Led Zep, The Allman Brothers, and a lot of other bands from every genre. Most of today’s music seems pretty derivative of that era. Even hip-hop had its origins in the late seventies.

27

The end of the Vietnam War and Watergate. I was an undergrad when they happened.

28

John Travolta in a white disco suit thingy.
I was born in '91.

29

Ugly polyester pants outfits.

30

Mr. Rogers. Terrorists. Scooby-do cartoons. Starving kids on TV. Lollies and Now n’Later candy. Pollution and endangered species. Jesus Freaks (hey, even Bob Dylan got Jesus.) The cold war. G-rated Disney flicks. Devil baby movies. Cool toys. Inflation. Skating rinks. Blizzards. Carter and his teeth. Idi Amin. My sister going ga-ga over Shaun Cassidy. My schoolmates listening to disco. The media ranting over the evils of punk. People either seeming sickeningly nicey nice or possessed by mindless rage.

Walter Cronkite saying “That’s the way it is.”

31

I was a kid, & for most of the decade, we lived in the (then) countryside between Waukesha, Wisconsin & Pewaukee.

Mom & Dad, Grandma (I miss her, she raised me as much as Mom & Dad did), my two little brothers, my little sister, my dog Billy, 3 fish tanks full of guppies & a hamster.

Good times, 200 yards from the banks of the Fox River, on old River Lane.

32

Yeah there was some good music out there, but aside from the disco, I remember mostly safe “boogie rock” (think Bad Co., Foreigner, Boston) that was OK for dances but, really, not a whole lot better than disco for listening. In retrospect, it seemed that we were a little ashamed by some of the out-there music and slang of the 1960s, so a lot of the music was just boring.

I came of age in the thick of it…high school from 1972 -1975 and college from 1975 - 1980.

Oh yeah, pot. Lots and lots of it. We really thought it was going to become legal, and a proposition did make the California ballot in 1973, but lost by a wide margin.

33

Oh, Dude, like I forgot to vote.

34

I assume you’re being funny, but considering what a radical proposal it was, it did fairly well. IIRC the vote was something like 70% against, which means 30% turned out to vote for it. In usual political terms 30-70 loss is considered a rout, but for this it was a respectable showing.

35

I came of age in the 70s shudder. A lot of people have already hit the major stuff like diasaster movies, disco, Watergate, the Bicentennial, and AM radio.

What else do I remember?

– The End of the Vietnam War. In grade school we all wore POW/MIA bracelets, and, if you were especially diligent, you wrote to the family of the soldier telling them you had his name. Some did; most didn’t. By the time we finally pulled out of Vietnam ('76, I think), the war was just one of those ongoing things you stopped thinking about because it was always there. It ended? Didn’t it end a few years before?

–Forced Busing. This was when Boston made national headlines. We had court-ordered desegregation which morphed into melee of epic proportions where nobody won and everybody lost. A lot of “white flight” which included most of my classmates. J. Anthony Lukas’ <i>On Common Ground</i> is perhaps the definitive reference.

–Nixon’s Resignation. I was at scout camp when this happened. The counselors gathered everyone together and we trooped into the staff house to watch it. I didn’t wholly understand Watergate or what exactly Nixon had done, but I remember thinking that something must be terribly wrong if the number one person in the country felt he had to resign.

–Inflation. This peaked after Gerald Ford took office. There was a national movement to “Whip Inflation Now” that included buttons marked “WIN” that you pinned to your coat or whatever. I believe it was the first time in awhile people looked for ways to save/recycle stuff. Oh, and gas prices. Very long lines at every gas station imaginable. They’d show them on the evening news.

Some pop culture highlights:

Peter Max posters (although I think they peaked in the 60s – they were still going strong in the early 70s)

Macramed anything (I used to make those now god-awful hanging planter/pot holders)

Long fringed crocheted vests (we wore these over our school uniforms)

Trolls (those little plastic dolls with the wild hair, pot bellies, and misshapen faces)

Love’s Baby Soft cologne

Charlie perfume

Clairol Herbal Essences shampoo (with the psychodelic hippie chick drawing on the label)

Ford Pintos, the AMC Gremlin, and platform shoes

36

A disastrous first marriage – but I don’t claim my memories to be typical.

37

Age 9-19 - Nixon, Vietnam, the Bicentennial, Star Wars, Animal House, All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Kojak, Roots, disco, arena rock, new wave

38

Earth shoes-that is the first thing I think of.

Mood rings, pet rocks (IMO, mood rings were much bigger than pet rocks, but I remember both).

Brooke Shields half naked photo as a young girl. Also, her starring in Pretty Baby (?). Both caused a great deal of controversy.

Disaster movies-lots of 'em.

Lines at the gas pump, and gas all of 45 cents a gallon. IMS, it hit a dollar/gal before the decade ended. Jimmy Carter telling all of us to put on sweaters, and lower the thermostat. Apparently, we were the only house to do so…

Cigarettes cost less than $1.00/pack.
Wacky Packs, Mad Magazine.
Beatles break up.

VW Rabbits, The Thing (the car), the Pacer, the Vega.

8 track tapes; the original cast of SNL (still the best ones); the Saturday night line-up on CBS: Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett, then we would switch over to channel 9 and watch, “Love, American Style”. And of course, SNL, then Second City.

Dyn-o-mite. (blech).

Alice, the show with Schneider, the handyman, JJ Walker (whatever happened to him?), Love Boat, Fantasy Island.

The announcement that someday soon, people would be able to wear a thin, transparent disc on their eyes INSTEAD of glasses (!).

The announcement that videophones would be THE way to commnicate, soon.(!!)

Lip gloss (can’t recall the brand, but they still make it); preppy clothes (late 70s).

Star Wars/Grease/Saturday Night Fever/Halloween films

I was 8-18, so I have a certain fondness for these years.

39

Fondue sets. And disco. But not together.

40

Young sons in the house - reading books at bedtime - Chimichangas at the little stand by the park when I was in charge of them on Saturdays when Mom was working - not much money -working like the devil to establish myself in a new profession - driving 7 hours to get to San Francisco on rare stolen weekends - wearing “mod” clothes, and wishing I could grow a 'fro (hmmm…I’m white and bald…) - being completely unaware of all of the harmful things in food - Disco!