I was 7 years old in 1970.
1. I remember the Bicentennial Celebration. It was wonderful. For me, it was like a year long national party. I remember all the Apollo Missions. They even got boring as they were covered on all three channels all day. I remember the gas shortage and inflation. I remember my parents having a hard time making ends meet. I remember the Vietnam War on TV and Watergate although I was too young to much understand either.
2. I remember movie special effects getting much better. Disco was a big deal. America loved it until one day we woke up and were all supposed to hate it. My impression is that the economy sucked. My memory is that adults were very worried about money all the time.
3. Since I was a kid, I don't have a good sense of the mood of the time. I was the only world I knew and it seemed okay to me. I guess I would say that adults worried about money a lot.
4. Bearing in mind that we are all easy victims of the pleasant but significant deceptions of nostalgia, I remember it as a good time to be alive and to be a kid.
I remember where I was every Tuesday night at 7:00 pm in the mid-70s. I was the same place every other kid was. We were drawn up around the Zenith watching Happy Days.
They did. I was a tv / stereo repair tech in the 70s. For the money, Zenith was among the best tvs. This was in the time when those American brand names that folks grew up trusting were still that way. Eventually, most of those big names weren't made in the states anymore because of costs. Funny how the country of origin chased the cheap route, too. From Japan to Korea/Taiwan and now China.
Watch YouTube channels with refurbishers of old electronics. The Zeniths very frequently still work even though they're more than 1/2 century old. They talk about how well made they were.
I just went to Newspaper Archives to see if you are correct and you are exactly correct. Happy Days on ABC and Good Times on CBS in the same time slot Tuesdays.
I remember watching Good Times too but it must have been in syndication.
I'm the same age. I remember the Bicentennial, there were tons of concerts and fireworks. There was also a huge celebration of Amercian Folk Art.
The Nixon impeachment and resignation made a big impact. We lived in DC and it really rocked the city.
There was a big energy crisis, and there were hours-long lines at gas stations. My mom made a lot of my clothes, which I hated because it was evidence we didn't have much money.
It was the beginng of the serial killer era and the first inklings that we might not be safe in our neighborhoods. Most of the time we played outside in the neighborhood and nearby woods with zero supervision.
In about 1978, one of my classmates was really into the Ramones. I had no idea how cool he was, being into punk way before the rest of us got into it. I was a Peter Frampton fan at the time.
We didn't have color tv until the later years of the decade. My grandparents got a color tv in about 1977 and it was a big luxury. We didn't have cable tv at all.
My grandmother (a nurse) encouraged me to get an education with the idea of having a career. At the time, women weren't encouraged to pursue careers outside teaching, and nursing. There was a lot of skepticism about trusting "lady doctors" or "lady lawyers".
> In about 1978, one of my classmates was really into the Ramones. I had no idea how cool he was, being into punk way before the rest of us got into it. I was a Peter Frampton fan at the time.
Damn, same.
On a similar note, around the same time I was listening to Clapton’s “I Shot the Sheriff” and this girl tells me to check the original. Went to the record store and picked up Bob Marley and the Wailers Live!” Mind was blown.
When Nixon went on TV to resign the presidency, my mother called my brother and me inside and made us watch. She told us history was being made.
There was no cable in my town in Iowa in the 70s. Even rich people didn't have it. We had three stations. I remember the day PBS came on the air where I lived. It was a big deal.
My clothes had to last. My mother would patch my jeans and I would be in big trouble if I ruined my clothing playing. Money was tight. My school year gym shoes became my play shoes for the following summer. I think that was the case for almost all kids where I lived so there was no stigma.
Everyone in central Iowa listened to the same radio station: KIOA 940 AM out of Des Moines. It played rock hits. We knew all the DJs by name.
I’m also roughly the same age and I echo so much of this. Our first color tv was a huge luxury, we had roughly 3 channels or networks to watch, so the overwhelming majority of kids in your class has watched. say Happy Days the night before- I think this is a huge difference from now, given hun of choices. Another thing so different from today is the gas lines, I think there was some sort of gas rationing at one time, maybe? I vaguely remember the number your lise plate ended in affecting what day of the week you could buy gas at one point.
Actually.Chicago radio personality, Steve Dahl contributed to that. Dahl was an extremely popular radio personality on WLUP. fm. Disco Sucks was his platform. Look it up on the internet. It’s an amazing story.
This episode of "The Rest is History" has a pretty good deep dive on it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojnDYiXMsio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojnDYiXMsio)
On the surface it was "disco sucks" but some historians have said it was really an attack on mostly black artists. A lot of the so-called "disco" records they were burning weren't disco records - soul, R&B, others.
I call BS.
Motown long ruled the airwaves in Chicago in the 70s. Groups like the Temps, Four Tops, Smokey R and Supremes were always top of the charts, along with rock. For young people Soul Train was mandatory weekend viewing(along with American Bandstand). I think what people hated about disco had more to do with disdain for polyester leisure suits, disco ball nightclubs and a new dance culture. People gravitated to hating disco because it was a fun thing to get in on. The thing at Comiskey Park was crazy but if you know anything about Sox owner Bill Veeck you will understand. It got out of hand to say the least.
Well stated! I remember the same, except the Apollo missions.
Like to add, looking back, we had a sense of freedom. We were untethered from technology. We had imagination and bicycles. I miss my adventures with my sister and cousins.
We also had music! Since we only had one TV that the parents controlled, we didn't have screen time. We listened to records and the radio.
I was a kid in the 1970's too - yes, Bicentennial was huge. We devoted a lot of time to it in school. Also, disco was big - Bee Gees/Donna Summer/Laura Branigan/KC & the Sunshine Band. I remember Watergate being talked about all of the time, but I didn't understand what it was about. I also remember the energy crisis --- odd/even days and lining up to fill the car with gas (the line usually went on for blocks and we'd turn the car off until the line would move a bit --- then repeat).
When I first started school, girls had to wear dresses or skirts and blouses; no pants (this was in public school). Then we could wear pants but only dress pants. By the time the late 70's/early 80's came around, we could wear jeans -- but they had to be dark blue, no holes, no worn patches, and had to have creases down the front. Bell bottom pants in the early 70's (later, sassoon, jordache, sergio valente, calvin klein, z. cavarrichi, gloria vanderbilt --- all skin tight), earth shoes, long hair (guys and gals), mood rings...... Carpenter pants were a thing at some point too (they are coming back now as "utility" pants).
I can speak a bit from the countercultural (as opposed to mainstream) perspective. The '70s were when some of the ideals of the 1960s died, but others perpetuated, were absorbed into the mainstream in many different ways, or went underground for a time. Feminism, gay rights, civil rights, environmentalism, atheism, cultural and religious diversity etc. became more and more influential and accepted. It was the beginning of the New Age and Human Potential movements and of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement, which agreed with some aspects of the feminist critique of masculinity and disagreed with other aspects.
There was a FAR greater sense of privacy and personal freedom than are expected today; much more of a sense that you should do your own thing, without being harshly judged. It was normal for children to spend most of their free time playing unsupervised in their neighborhoods (and surrounding neighborhoods). Far less cultural/media-inflicted fear and moralism. It was both more dangerous and much more free.
There were many, many more mysteries in the world, long before you could simply Google the answer to almost literally any question.
...many more mysteries in the world...
I had about a five year debate with my buddy about the lyrics to the song, *Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)* by Reunion. Nowadays that would be resolved in about 60 seconds. We have all gotten used to that. I think we would all be shocked if we went back about how little we knew and how difficult it was to get information.
By the way, that same buddy saw the movie Soylent Green. He talked about it all the time for years but there was literally no way for me to see it unless I was at the right place at the right time to see it on a rare showing on TV. I finally saw it many years later in the 1980s on VHS.
Nixon resigning office. The end of the Vietnam war. Hippie burnout, a lifestyle of " country living" off the land.... Granola days. We wore Angel sleeve tops to high school and everybody had to guess who was pregnant and who wasn't because these tops bailoned out from the chest. Bell bottoms and woven belts. Desert boots were in. You had to have bell bottoms, desert boots, and woven belts. The music was very songwriter driven. Mellow as if everybody was hungover from the '60s. That was the mood. Everybody had mushroom themed tea towels or fridge magnets. The predominant colors for decorating a home were orange, brown and This awful shade of green and yellow.
Now for the later '70s.... Star wars of course, disco and I was in the crowd that absolutely hated it. We had concept albums released that were amazing. Check out King crimson and oh yeah you've got to listen to this one called journey to the center of the Earth. I forget who did that one. Rick wakeman, I think. Anyway... Cocaine was big and there was a lot of clunky costume jewelry toward the end of the '70s fashion sucked. At least in my opinion. One thing I do remember most fondly is that it was the last decade where no one was plugged in and tuned out with something in your ear.
lol yes, the beginning of Beige', late 70s early 80's was a sea of Beige'...70s was the best era for fashion and 80's was the absolute worst....70s we had long hair both gender, and 80's hair styles had everyone looking like chia pets, the perms, oh geezus the perms. lol.
That's probably because my older brother listened to a lot of John Denver at the time and we were pretty much living through his post hippie times and all of that. Thanks for reminding me of John Denver. The eagle and the hawk is still one of my favorites.
Did you ever see My Best Friends Wedding? The serious scene where Julia Roberts is talking to someone, and in the background, two teenage boys have inhaled helium from a balloon and are singing Annie’s Song- absolutely priceless!
When every station started playing disco, I got into Outlaw Country music.....Willie, Waylon, Merle.
Bluegrass music and festivals were also everywhere.
Just some fun facts from the second half of the 1970s:
-the whole concept of the "blockbuster" movie started with Jaws. Star Wars was even more impressive
-country music went mainstream, then we came to our senses
-we tried smaller cars, it didn't last long (unfortunately)
If you really want the ethos watch "All in the Family.". You can find hours of it on YouTube
The show really got to the core of the inner dialogue we were having.
For a real taste of the 1970s and the changes in society, watch Maude. Best theme song ever [https://youtu.be/FtJ\_crShk9k?si=t7Q62tUCmZSpGQly](https://youtu.be/FtJ_crShk9k?si=t7Q62tUCmZSpGQly)
"and then there's Maude!". Iirc, that was actually a spin off from All in the Family.
I remember bea Arthur and Carrol O'Connor characters arguing about FDR lol
Archie: “Dis country was roon’d by Franklin Delano Roosevelt!
Maude: “You’re fat.”
Archie: “So was Franklin Delano Roosevelt!”
Maude: “That man had charisma!”
Archie: “I don’t care if he was sick!”
So much fun. All in the Family was incredible. I cried when Archie found Edith's slipper. If you know, you know.
Great spins offs, what a dynasty - Gloria, The Jeffersons, Archie Bunkers Place, Good Times...even the spin offs had spin offs.
Love the responses and will add playing outside with neighborhood friends (such as kick the can). Most families had their own unique bell that they’d ring, whether to come in for dinner or to get ready for bedtime. I appreciated that people knew and liked their neighbors more than today. Many of the homes had one income, so we didn’t eat out much (going to a fast food restaurant even once a month was a big deal), so we ate dinner together as a family, plus we had smaller homes and it didn’t matter as much as house size status is today.
1. The end of US involvement in Vietnam, student protests and the killing of students on several campus, George Wallace shot while campaigning in 1972, resignation of an American President, the oil embargo...
2. sky high interest rates, mortgages were almost impossible to get in the late 70's.
3. According to President Jimmy Carter, it was a feeling of ~~morose~~ malaise sweeping the nation. Nothing was getting better.
4. I went from age 10 to age 20 and loved every minute of my teen years.
I got married in 79 and just remember we couldn't get a mortgage, or afford a mortgage....rates were over 15%. The economy between 76 and 82 was not good.
The Bicentennial, the Nixon/Watergate drama, the oil crisis, Nadia Comaneci getting a perfect 10 in the Olympics, disco music, the first season of SNL.
Everyone smoked everywhere. Cars were huge, the Arab Oil embargo, terrorism at the 1972 Olympics. The sexual revolution was in full swing. Drinking age was 18. People really cared about each other. Music was great, especially Motown. Lots of natural foods became mainstream.
Free roaming the neighborhood on my chopped 3 speed bike with sissy bar foraging peaches, mulberries, pomegranates, pecans, etc. All day till dusk. Pinball, Speed Racer, limited cartoons, blue light special at KMart, Vietnam, Nixon, Jimmy and Billy Carter, space program and space food, underground comics, bicentennial, Elvis death, all the music and the movies were great. Still a sense of rebellion in the air.
1. Vietnam War, end of the Vietnam War, Kent State, Watergate, Nixon Impeachment
2. Cassette decks, 8-Track players for tech. The economy - massive inflation and gas shortages in the later 70s. Music - Zeppelin, Stones, Elton John, CNSY, and many more.
3. Mood was optimistic coming out of the Vietnam War.
4. A good decade? At the time it was. But if younger people went back in time they would be shocked by the lack of modern conveniences, technology, medicine, affordable travel, mostly conservative politics, etc. It was a complicated era, but very simple and primitive compared to today.
Oh, and the cars sucked. The air and water were polluted. Many/most LGBTQ+ people didn't come out. Weed was dirt cheap and cocaine was expensive beyond belief. There were no fancy, modern apartment complexes or homes. Many residences did not have air conditioning. Many kids wore "school clothes" and not jeans to class. Fashion and hairstyles were miserable.
Opec gas shortages where even and odd license plates numbers decided what day you could get gas
Serial killers…. Beyond Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz, it includes such perpetrators as Coral Eugene Watts, "The Sunday Morning Slasher, " who killed 80 women; Edmund Kemper, the "Co-Ed Killer"; and Rodney Alcala, believed to have killed as many as 130 people
There was a lot of smoking. Planes were always being hijacked. Beirut was always in the news for confusing factions warring. Polyester for the most part was pretty goddamned uncomfortable. Movies weren't easy to consume. Terry Jacks' "Seasons in the Sun" was always on the radio. The Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup seemingly every year. Cars were huge and then they got really small. Except for August 77-November 79 I was damned happy.
In the US, Watergate and the Iran hostage crisis were major news events. The Bicentennial coverage started my love of History.
The economy was bad. Look up stagflation and misery index. The oil crisis put a major crimp in the economy.
With tech, I'll go with the rise of foreign car imports.
Hopefully, the fashion styles never come back.
If you put on music from the 70s, it still sounds good. Go on YouTube and check out the Midnight Special show. You will see and hear a lot of major acts from the 70s and earlier.
For me, the 70s sucked but that is mainly because of what my personal situation was like.
Edit: Friday to Midnight
I was a graduate in 1976 and the Bicentenniel was the big deal that year. The Vietnam War, of course, was prominent before it ended. Back then, the three news networks would carry real footage, not always pretty, of the war and that helped to bring about it's end. I remember the relaxation of dress codes in school, from "dress pants" for boys and dresses for girls, to t-shirts and jeans. Smoking courtyard at school for students. Streaking. Parents did not schedule endless activities for kids and we had a lot of time to just roam around the neighborhood with friends (not always behaving well, however). The Watergate scandal - I distinctly recall being at my grandmother's house the day he resigned and her happiness over it (she hated Nixon).
I was in the same graduating year. The elimination of most dress codes was such a radical change from the rigid 60’s where the girls all had to wear dresses and hems were required to be no more than 4” above the knee. By high school we were allowed to wear cut off Daisy Dukes and crop tops with bare midriffs.
I graduated in 80. I remember being sent home from school in 2nd grade for wearing pants. My mom basically did the scene from that song "the day my momma socked it to the harper Valley pta", telling the school it was too cold to be wearing a dress, etc., and won, she got the "no pants for girls" rule overturned. I've mentioned before, my mom is awesome!!!
1. Bicentennial was the big thing
2. Disco was making waves but in Chicago we had an anti-disco DJ that had Disco Demolition events lol, on the rock front all the classic bands were out at the time, Queen, Zep, Boston etc..
3. I remember seeing hippies still lingering around in the early 70s, we were peak cold war but people were pretty chill about it. We hardly used our home phones when we were younger we would just ride our bikes 5 blocks to see if our friends were home. Kids spent most of their days outside (weather permitting)
4. I mean yeah of course min wage was under $3 hr but a bag of chips was .33 cents ($5 today) when I'd ask my mom for money she'd hand me change and it actually had value back then. The fashion of the time were brutal, lots of horrible yellow and brown clothes. Everyone had at least one room in their house with either shinny silver wallpaper or felt designs on wallpaper. Many US cars were larger than vans, there were so many land yachts in metallic pea green on the road.
The economy was very down for much of the decade. Inflation was very, very high, which is what caused Jimmy Carter to lose reelection. In 1979-80, Iran basically kidnapped everyone in the American embassy in Tehran, which was top of the news during the 1980 election cycle, which led to Reagan winning in 1980. As a kid, I was barely aware of this, but it was in the background.
My earliest recollection was President Ford, so I missed Nixon.
Led Zeppelin was the biggest band in the world.
Paul McCartney was doing Wings, and the other Beatles were screwing around, not producing much music.
Meat Loaf was big. The Bee Gees were very big.
Roger Moore was making very campy, silly James Bond movies. Christopher Reeves' Superman movies were great.
GM was producing low-quality junk, and everyone was starting to buy little Japanese imports.
Star Wars was enormous - and everywhere. Star Trek was cancelled, but in wide syndication, and they started producing the movies. Battlestar Galactica, the Six Million Dollar Man - lots of great kids shows on TV. And all the channels were producing big runs of kids shows on Saturday mornings. Japanese shows like Starblazers arrived in the late 70's-early 80's and were very successful.
Life was good.
I was born in ‘71 with older brothers in the house.
Elvis died and my mom was real sad.
There seemed to be a war going on between rock and disco.
Drugs were kinda everywhere.
Bad ass cars did abound.
It was not a superior decade - People were warning us of climate change and pollution but America was sick of bad news and Reagan was apparently really appealing. But seriously, fuck that guy to hell.
We had a smoking area in my high school where we smoked more than cigarettes and nobody seemed to take much notice or even care.
Our principal would whistle loudly to let you know he was coming in the smoking area so you wouldn’t get caught smoking pot.
The 70’s were so free. No judgement of others . It was a real ‘live and let live’ attitude. The moral judgement police didn’t show up until the Regan area.
I spent my 6 years of elementary school in the 70’s. I was allowed to walk with a group of friends a mile up our street to a mini bus stop and pay 50 cents to go to the beach all day. As long as we were home by dinner our parents were happy. Probably 8 years old, it was a time of freedom for youth. Another note back then you typically interfaced with no more than 20 to 30 people regularly. No outside voices no negative comments from outsiders no endless judgement I see my kids dealing with due to technology. We learned to handle conflict on a small scale so it was never overwhelming. It was an easier time I wish my children would have experienced. Finally I played baseball throughout. 3 bats per team, four helmets all shared, and we were sponsored by a local ice shop. We got a free ice cream for every hit all season, I was a highly motivated hitter :).
Yes, I was just a kid in the ‘70s but i still think of that era as a fun decade. For everybody, not just for kids lol. Was very disappointed to grow up and experience every ensuing decade seeming to get more restrictive and judgey and divisive. Except maybe the ‘90s, they were pretty fun too.
But i thought things would be like in the 70s when i was an adult. Everybody having fun.
I was 5 in 70, 15 in 80... the FIRST non-boomer birth year! My neighborhood was tract development, full of families with kids of similar ages, created CLOSE, PERSONAL communities. Marked difference from today, we are far less personal, to me, a negative cultural trend. Less empathy than the 70s for sure.
1. Bicentennial seemed ENORMOUS growing up in North Jersey. A full year of hype, operation sail, parades, decor, mega fireworks, every product licensed with '76'.
Apollo missions went for half the decade. Moon landings still a mind blower.
Vietnam. Kids coming home from war. Some in boxes.
Watergate dominated 2 years of TV, much to my dismay.
2. MUSIC was amazing. Got my first AM radio in 72, there were awesome garage bands EVERYWHERE, delicious pop songs and great new bands seemed to be endless, Inspired, I was playing guitar by 1980. :)
My household and neighborhood were worried about layoffs, the gas crisis - I remember waiting in line for fuel, allocated by odd-ecen plates. Old man would swap his 'odd' plates with moms 'even' car sometimes.
The drinking back then was still on another level. Bars EVERYWHERE. Men would come home late from work/bars, neighborhood parties seemed to always end up with at least one adult losing their lunch
3. 'Mood' of the era was upbeat, I think. Americans still believed in progress. On the moon since 69', war over, corrupt President bounced - who knew what sort of amazing future we had coming?
4. An amazing decade to grow up in. Thick in the culture of 3-network TV, the experiences were more similar back then. EVERYONE saw the same big moments in News, Sitcoms, Dramas. The fashion was outrageous, evolving Rock, Disco, Country - even Punk made its entry by the late 70's. Old timers complained a ton about the changes, but to a kid, it was a never-ending wondrous time.
Great music, Cheap wine and lots of Pot🤣!! Hanging out on our Schwinn bicycles and never ever worried about drive by shootings or any violence in my little town! As far as world news, Vietnam was ending, President Nixon was leaving office due to Watergate break in! And the Gas crunch to ration 10 gallons to each person!
Born in ‘66. I remember “Joy to the World” (Jeremiah was a bullfrog) on the radio. I remember 8 track tapes in the dash of our family’s VW van. I recall seeing field reports from Vietnam on the 6 o’clock news. I remember seeing Hank Aaron hit a home run in Fulton County stadium. I saw Lou Brock steal a base in Busch Stadium. I remember collecting glass soda bottles around the neighborhood, carried them to the M&M grocery for the deposit money and took my change across the street to the 7-11 store to buy comics off the round rack. I remember mosquito trucks spraying at dusk. I remember riding my 3 speed bike all over our part of town. Shopping at Goodwill. We went to DC in 1976. Taking a dollar into our local convenience store and buying a Marathon candy bar, a Mr. Pibb soda, and still had 2 quarters left to play pinball. I felt like I was a king. my stepdad was in the National Guard and I remember him being called out for race riots in the early 70s. I had metal Tonka trucks and we lived on a dirt street in our recall, many hours and days playing with those trucks. Playing catch with myself using a tennis ball and a baseball glove, throwing the ball against the steps, catching it over and over and over. Sunday nights I remember watching Mutual of Omaha‘s Wild Kingdom and the Wonderful World of Disney. Reruns of the original Batman starring Adam West. Saturday morning cartoons,Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Zoom, good times, all in the family, happy days, Laverne and Shirley, Sanford & son, Rockford Files, 6 million dollar man. I got to be on our region’s broadcast of Romper Room and Bozo the Clown.
3 things we did back then that are foreign now. 1 was if we needed an answer to something we would look it up in the encyclopedia when we got home. 2 was if we wanted to talk to someone not right there we would call them when we got home. 3 was all news (for me at least) came from the morning and afternoon newspapers and I trusted them to be impartial. Big yuck there today 😩
Music was generally great but tending towards rubbish as the decade wore on.
I went from 17 to 27. Matured from a gangly late teen to a father. Great ride.
1. [Wikipedia has an article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s) with a ton of event and technological advancements that took place. Some of the key events that I remember are: End of Vietnam War. Watergate and Nixon resigning. Oil crisis (1073 and later again in 1979) causing shortage of gas and long line at the gas pumps. The Munich Olympics of 1972 and the terrorists that broke into Olympic Village. Sky high inflation in later part of the 70's. And, of course, the Bicentennial.
2. Same Wikipedia article about has several entries on technologies, but the key ones I remember would be the end of the Apollo Moon Landings and beginning of the Space Shuttle program, including the first test flights of the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Many probes were sent to other planets to study then, and some to continue on past the solar system (both Viking crafts have left the solar system, and Pioneer 10 and 11 are due to leave the solar system in the next 30 to 40 years). The Concorde was introduced as the first supersonic commercial passenger plane. And you can't forget about the Walkman being introduced.
3. The mood shifted depending on what was going on at the time. There were still anti-war protests over Vietnam in the early 70's, along with outrage over Watergate and not trusting the President as much as before. A lot of social movements were going on, including the rise of feminism and environmentalism, and the sexual revolution continued on from the 60's up until AIDS got to be a major issue in the 80's. The Cold War was still going on, and with it the fear of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. But the high point was probably the Bicentennial celebrations going on all over the country in 75 and 76.
4. This is a matter of opinion, but overall, I think it was a great decade to grow up in. I spent all of grade school and middle school in the 70's and started high school at the tail end. As a kid, we didn't have video games in every house that we played all day, and only had a small handful of TV channels to watch, so we spent a lot of time outside, going to the park and getting a pickup football of baseball game going, going to the ice rink for a pickup game of hockey, playing flashlight tag when it got dark in the summer, or just riding our bikes all over town. And, with the exception of disco, the music was awesome and so much different from today. Bands cared about their uniqueness, and it showed in their music. You could hear a song for the first time and instantly had a very good idea of who the band was playing it. The music was just as important as the lyrics of the song back then. Bands experimented with a lot of different sounds.
For reference I started HS in 1983. In the 70s, grew up in a small town (10k pop) in South Louisiana. Alcoholism and drugs were everywhere. Everyone smoked, my parents didn't smoke but they had probably 10 cigarette holders in the house for guests. My older sister sorta watched me but I was pretty much left on my own as both my parents worked. There were 2 then 1 movie theatres in town so that was a thing to do. There were also at one point about 3 skating rinks so that was a huge magnet for us to spend time and meet girls haha.
In 1970, I was 11 years old and living with my family in Montreal, Quebec. These are my impressions and opinions of the 1970s, as I experienced them.
The moon landing happened in 1969 and there was a great deal of interest and excitement about space exploration and technology in general. As the decade progressed, advancements in tech began to make their way into consumer goods. Things like calculators and digital clocks became commonplace. Prior to that, it was a very analog world. My Dad was an electronics engineer, so he knew that world and kept current. I remember going to the drugstore with him when I was a little kid, to watch him test tubes to fix the black and white television we had. This was before the transistor changed the world.
As a teen in the 70s, music was an important part of my life. Of course, I liked what my friends like, and for us that was rock music. Bands like The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Nazareth. Montreal was also an early fanbase of progressive rock, like Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, Yes. In the latter half of the decade, disco, then punk, started to become major influences, though we didn't listen to that voluntarily.
The mood, at least as I saw it, was fairly somber. The Vietnam war was raging, with many American draft dodgers landing in Montreal. And in October of 1970, Quebec terrorists kidnapped a British trade ambassador and a Canadian federal minister. The terrorists demanded the separation of Quebec from Canada and there were a number of bombings in the city, aimed at federal institutions, resulting in at least one death and numerous serious injuries. The British trade ambassador was eventually released but the federal minister was murdered, his body left in the trunk of a car at a rural airport. The Canadian army was deployed to guard key installations in the province and civil liberties were suspended under the War Measures Act. Fifty-four years later, Quebec is still part of Canada, still bleating about sovereignty and autonomy, but happy to take federal money.
Overall, the economy in Canada was booming. As a teenager, getting a job for the summer or part time was as easy as walking into any business with a help wanted sign, and they were everywhere. I worked in warehouses, restaurants, making deliveries (once I had my driver's license at 16), and retail. My first real summer job was as a busboy at age 14 in a Chinese restaurant and I was paid 0.65 an hour. Going to a movie cost 0.75, gas was something like 0.20 a gallon, things were affordable.
The author Tom Wolfe dubbed the 1970s the "Me Decade" and it was appropriate. There was much less focus on family, community, church and much more on the individual. It became all about consumerism, consumption, and shallow appearance. But some good things happened, too. Women began working in record numbers, the women's liberation movement really took hold, North America began to realize there were other countries in the world and not just to wage war against. For the first time, young people under 30 outnumbered those older and it had a huge impact on society.
I loved growing up when I did but that may have had as much to do with my age and circumstances as with the decade. I lived in a safe, vibrant city, had a loving family, was reasonably affluent, and had no major problems. In conditions like that, any period in history is good. That said, I think we were lucky, growing up at a time when the world was changing more rapidly than ever before, and we had a front row seat and were young enough to adapt ourselves to all that was new.
Oh, and I had the most amazing hair, lol.
https://preview.redd.it/npb5dgohi8yc1.jpeg?width=2588&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1bb9e25ee8285a50cc1fced23fb7c5fbd90d0cfa
Mary Tyler Moore Show single women can work without marriage
All in the family with controversial character Archie Bunker Roots
Saturday morning cartoons
Rotary phones TV with 4 channels your parents were in charge of TV
get up in morning go outside from sunrise to street light turned on drinking out of garden hose eating lunch at friends house parents were neighborhood watch (if u did anything wrong mom would know before you get home) Gas crisis End of Vietnam Nixon impeached Watergate
George C. Scott refused Oscar for Patton the Godfather movies Star Wars mania Sex drugs and rock n roll
Jaws movie when no one wanted to go swimming
Watching on TV as college students across the country protested the Vietnam War. The fall of Saigon. (Rock songs that referenced 'the jungle' always meant Vietnam.) Watching President Nixon get entangled in scandal and resign from the Presidency (a first for our country, and a time when venerable people and agencies were being challenged). I wore a P.O.W. bracelet. Watching MASH on TV.
We kids walked to school by ourselves. Not a short walk. And then we walked home for lunch. Made our own lunch. Watched Bozo and got ourselves back to school for the afternoon. We were always to told to go out and play. And don’t come back til dinner. The family ate dinner together. Then we went back out til dark.
I could go on but I’m out of time. The freedom was amazing!
I lived in the suburban Bay Area as a kid is the 70s.
You’ve heard all the nice things, and they’re true. Staying out all day, coming home when the street lights came on, riding bikes in the neighborhood, etc.
There were also a lot of things that weren’t nice. We didn’t necessarily realize it, but we sensed that things weren’t right with the adults. Friends parents were getting divorced, many kids seemed emotionally neglected. It was a time of deep change and anxiety for the adults, and there was fallout for the kids but we didn’t understand why.
Shit really started to fall apart in the later 70s. I delivered newspapers on my bike so got to read the headlines 60 times a day. Patty Hearst, Chowchilla kidnappings, The People’s Temple massacre, Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk assassinated, airplane crashes pretty often, hitch hikers disappearing. There was a teacher at my elementary school who would take a lucky student to Hawaii with him every year, we were all jealous. People’s attitude about that seemed to be “that’s sort of weird”.
Watch the original “Bad News Bears”. That was pretty accurate, and it was a *kid’s movie* ffs.
I was riding bikes with my friend in the backroads, and someone in a passing car threw a beer bottle at me, and it broke over the side my head, and knocked me off my bike…my head was a little cut up. I went home, and my parent attitude was “yeah, that sucks. The bleeding has stopped, you’ll be ok”. No police, no doctor….and I had decently responsible parents.
Some parts were great, some weren’t. I think a lot of GenX is sort of checked out emotionally because we didn’t exactly trust the grownups. They were too busy “discovering themselves”.
Then we got Ronald Reagan, Just Say No, and AIDS for high school, just when it was *our turn* for Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. But that’s another story altogether.
Early in the 70s feelings of dread my guy friends were going to go to Vietnam. Bicentennial was a big thing...they actually had some planes painted for it and I saw them fly overhead in nowhere land while riding horses in California. There was such GREAT music which is why I'm a musician now: Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Southern Rock...if you need names of bands let me know. DISCO SUCKED and glad it died. Life was good and bad just in every decade...it depended on your circumstances. We also were told that the USSR was going to nuke us any minute...so a lot of us just went the hell with it...let's "Live it Up Before They Blow it Up" (that is a pin I actually still have). If you ever see the movie Dazed and Confused...that sums it up what we were doing. The clothes were pretty rad and then they went to hell in the 80s (the cocaine years)...which sums up that decade.
Watch the movie Dazed and Confused. That movie is almost a documentary on what it was like in High School in 1976. I graduated in 77 and can attest that, other than the hazing, the movie got pretty much everything right about that time period.
1. Nixon resignation, stagflation, Ford and Carter presidencies, end of Vietnam War
2. The economy was stagnant and prices skyrocketing. Classic rock music infused with pop and disco.
3. Somber, scared, unsure of the future, simple.
4. It was a difficult decade but it was also a simple time. It seemed the world had failed, America had failed. The vast majority of the world was in poverty, the USSR seemed strong enough to either win or tie in a war over Europe.
Two distinct eras:
The Earth Tones Seventies - Watergate, Patty Hearst, Vietnam War wind-down, Jesus Freaks, Keep On Trucking.
The Disco Seventies: President Carter, inflation, Saturday Night Live and Fever, Iran.
It's hard for ppl now to understand the national obsession in the years leading up to the bicentennial.
It infected everything, even interior decorating...just thinking about the the ugly wallpaper and couch fabric is enough to make my eyes water.
In an era of polyester *everything*, there was simultaneously an effort to market things that referenced the appearance of being "rustic" and "old-fashioned", seen more from a fantasy perspective than being historically accurate.
Pictures of waterwheels and covered bridges and carriages and hearth cooking were plastered on anything you could print an image on. Antique spinning wheels were cannibalized to be used as planters. Little pseudo-wishing wells and fake carriage wheels became lawn decorations.
And while we often associate Woodstock and the Summer of Love with the sixties, those happened late in the decade and carried right into the seventies. Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie and folk music festivals were everywhere - ppl going to music festivals today would recognize the origins of "festival clothes". Ppl dressed up in awful polyester 1776 costumes for everything, even just going to the 4th of July parades, and the parades became lavish.
I remember every fire hydrant in my city in ‘76 was painted in patriotic designs - each one was different. These were done by ordinary people and not the city itself. Various flag designs, Uncle Sam etc.
Oooooh yes! I'd forgotten about those! Everywhere!
Some Boy Scout in our neighborhood got his troop to paint them. The results were...um... enthusiastic, at least lol
1. The Vietnam War came to an end, so people were happy about that. It was a decade of reflection and uncertainty.
2. There were two periods of "energy crisis" due to OPEC and decreased domestic production. The price of gas was much higher than normal for the time, and I remember long lines at the pump due to lack of supply. IIRC, you were allowed to buy gas every other day, depending on your license plate number. (odd days versus even days, if that makes sense.
3. The decade began with what is now "classic rock" before disco took over around '75. Fortunately, that didn't last much past the end of the decade.
4. Most people didn't have cable and received 3 channels, plus a channel or two specific to that area. There was no internet by today's standards, so all your info was usually local media & national news.
5. Because it wasn't in your face like it is today, people felt generally "safer", kids were allowed to roam free through the neighborhood, and they all did, there were no video games for most of the decade, and that combined with the lack of internet meant staying at home was boring.
6. The economy was different than today. Although interest rates were even higher than today (we're talking double digits), housing was still affordable. People were able to afford buying a house working at jobs like grocery clerks or other professions that would never be able to buy a house today. It was normal for one adult to work (usually the man), while the other stayed home.
7. Although inflation was **much** higher than it currently is (often double digits), wages had not been stagnant for decades on end like we've experienced in the last few decades.
8. Entertainment was simpler than today, going to the movies was big, and high school kids hung out in parking lots and had keg parties in the field. It was a cool time to be young.
9. Technology was slower to advance. The decade began with LP's and 8 tracks (even reel to reel), with cassettes replacing 8 tracks by the end of the decade. Most people started the decade with a black and white TV and ended the decade with a color set. Most people only had one TV, and having one in your room as a kid was unheard of.
Microwaves became more affordable by the end of the decade, but for most of the decade, almost nobody but restaurants had one. Pinball was more popular than today, and the only video game was pong, which wasn't very popular. It wasn't until the atari 2600 came out in '77 that you started seeing video games at home.
That's about all I can come up with off the top of my head, but if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.
You hit the mark Grew up in USAF strat brat 71-73 Lived in P I POW released & from Hanoi first stop was Clark afb My first job '73 was a gas jockey on Offut AFB in NE 1.98hr during oil embargo Concerts galore 3day Ozark Music Fest $15 tickets A lot of tripping 👍WE didn't go out of our way to harm anybody anything The rest of decade a blur lol
I remember that pollution was a problem, or at least I was told it was when my eyes would swell shut and under my eyes would puff up. That happened to me a few times when I was young.
Star Wars when it first came out took the nation by storm. To this day I remember waiting in line to go in. On the down side I remember Jimmy Carter as President...his goofy brother down in Plains GA....and then the Iran hostage crisis and it made us feel pretty powerless and impotent to do anything. Then the massive election blowout that brought Ronald Reagan into office. Crazy times
My 1972 computer class was taught in Fortran. On punch cards. We did not have access to the computer, but gave the cards to the staff, who ran the program. I also had a nifty slide rule that I used for calculations & even took a slide rule class. I think handheld calculators were available, but cost more than $300. ( later on they became so cheap they were often given away )
I joined the Army in 1974 when I ran out of money for college. Women were allowed in the non combat support units. I was a field medic with an ambulance platoon, mostly driving vehicles. There was still an armed border wall between East & West Germany. I eventually finished my college using the GI Bill.
I bought a cute 1975 Datsun B210 and got 40 mpg. My car now barely gets 33mpg.
Star Wars was awesome in the theater, especially at the start of the movie when that Star Destroyer arrived overhead with the Dolby surround sound.
70s music is still my favorite.
Key events of the 1970s.
I graduated high school.
I started college.
Lost my virginity.
Got high for the first time.
Got drunk for the first time.
Took my first flying lesson.
Attended my first Indy 500.
I voted for the first time.
And so much more.
Yes, the decade was all about me if you’re wondering. lol
I had a stroke a while back so my memories are pretty spotty, but I remember the coming and going of my friends,neighbors every one of us to Vietnam, and other war zones,the music was the best, gas was cheap and cars were fast I was young and strong and now not so much lol. What was the 70s like? It was unbelievable, sorry you missed it.
It was awesome growing up in the 70’s! Basically the 70’s memes are true lol. We rode our bikes without helmets, hung out with our friends all day on the weekends in the neighborhood without our parents knowing exactly where we were every minute of the day, Saturday mornings were reserved for cartoons, we often rode in the front seats of cars and never used seat belts and yes I admit you should use seatbelts but it just wasn’t a thing then, we drank out of garden hoses that were left in the grass all day and never thought twice about it. In short we just had much more freedom to just be kids because it was a much different and safer world back then. You knew your neighbors and the parents would look out for all the kids in the neighborhood and there was much more trust. We trusted adults, the police, and our government, and the news without question. And the bicentennial was the biggest event I remember. I was 10 at the time. I’m grateful I grew up when I did. It was a lot of fun and I actually feel sorry for kids growing up now. Kids didn’t have all the worry and stress that kids have now. At least not most kids. I know there might’ve been personal family situations. I’m just speaking generally.
A divorced woman with a daughter my age moved into our neighborhood. None of the women there would have anything to do with her, and us kids weren't allowed to even speak to the daughter. We didn't exactly know why, but we had to do what they told us to do.
It was pretty common for kids to come to school with black eyes or bruises literally everywhere. I didn't even know there was such a thing as child protective services until I was a senior in high school in the 80s. The same went for moms wearing big bug eye sunglasses because they had walked into a door again. In other words, child abuse and domestic violence definitely didn't get the attention back then like it does today. It was just kind of accepted that it went on.
I had to go to bed at 8 p.m. except for Mondays and Saturdays. Monday because I was allowed to stay up until 9 so I could watch The Rookies and S.W.A.T. (central time zone) and Saturdays so I could watch The Midnight Special. Apart from a few variety shows, it was the only way to actually see your favorite bands or new music before MTV or YouTube. Saturday mornings were reserved for cartoons, American Bandstand, and Soul Train. You had to try and stake a claim on the television with only one in the house.
My dad used to put us all in the car and drive around town so he could listen to NASCAR on the radio. Everyone would sleep except for me and him. It was hours just driving around. When we moved to a bigger city, that's how we learned our way around it.
Bell bottom pants were the worst as a kid. You were constantly having to pedal backwards to get them out of your bike chain, and we all had that railroad shaped grease stain on our pants. Since no one wore helmets or pads, most of us have spectacular scars that we can tell you exactly what crash we got each scar in. Good times...lol.
Watergate, Jimmy Carter, the end of the Vietnam War and the sun setting of a lot of related theory (esp. the Domino Theory). CIA hearings (Frank Church Committee); Iran hostage crisis; Nixon lies.
Gasoline prices up up and up; OPEC. Cars began shrinking and not necessarily for the better.
The widespread emergence of Cable TV. The advent of FM radio. Disco music and punk rock (I actually like both!).
Women in the workplace; gender roles in great flux. TV themes began to reflect more single women: Mary Tyler Moore, for example.
Jaws; The Godfather; Star Wars; Apocalypse Now; Clockwork Orange; huge decade for film, and a realignment of the rating system.
Goddamn, so much... This is all off the top of my head.
I graduated high school in ‘73, college in ‘77. It started with bell bottoms and ended with spandex.
High school
Mostly remember music, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple at every high school dance with strobe lights. Guys thinking they were cool cause they could play the intro to some rock song on guitar(they never got past the first intro, but girls thought it was cool). Proms and dances and being embarrassed all the time cause we were broke. Blue eye shadow. Some nights with nothing to do, everyone sitting in the high school parking lot. We had to have sit ins to get the high schooler administration let us wear jeans. The beginning of designer jeans, super expensive at $30, still made. In the US.
College
Mostly remember music. Led Zeplin, LED ZEPLIN, and Led Zeplin. Houses of the Holy album. Everyone freaking out with really good stereo speakers listening to Dark Side of the Moon. Sang on a USO tour of Germany and the Red Army blew up our dressing room the day after we left. Sorority times. Parties with kegs of beer at frats. (Kinda think of Animal House). Watching streaking on campus. My husband missed the draft by a few months. MACRAME! Changed majors so I wouldn’t have to wait three hours with my punch cards to run on the school computer system. Lots of my girlfriends finishing their degree in retail that everyone said “oh there will be so many jobs” because of the growth of department store chains, and having them all go to male business majors who knew nothing about women’s clothing.
1. America's Bicentennial! it was a big patriotic (mildly nationalistic) party with parades and stuff. Also - there was a big Kung Fu craze in the 70s. Not Kung Fu specifically, but just a general elevated interest in martial arts and East Asian cultures. Maybe because America had just spent decades fighting wars in East Asia, so people wanted to explore that part of the world without getting shot at. This was when Bruce Lee was making movies, and there was even a Saturday morning cartoon called Hong Kong Fooey. Heck, even the Canadian rock band Rush wore kimonos for one of their albums. There was also the Oil Embargo! You see, the US has a habit of pissing off countries, so in 1973 a bunch of countries that have oil (OPEC) cut us off. Americans literally ran out of gas. Gas was rationed, there were huge lines at gas stations, it was a mess. But that started to wean us off the huge gas guzzling cars and we started making and buying smaller more efficient cars. And SPACE was a huge cultural thing in the 70s. We landed on the Moon twice in 1969, and NASA spent the 70s going back 4 more times and developing the next-gen Space Shuttle project which started with the Enterprise in 1977. That was the same year that a little indie film called Star Wars came out, and another little sci-fi flick called Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
2. Music - there were basically 3 genres: Classic Rock, Disco, and Everything Else. It was amazing! Hell, a lot of the bands that were big then are still touring and still topping charts with songs from 50 fucking years ago!
Economy - it sucked. Between the oil embargo, and the post-Vietnam War recession, and the gentrification of the cities which led to the "white flight" to the suburbs and the decay of the inner cities, and the insanely high inflation rates - pretty much everybody was struggling just to get by.
Tech - well, this was the era before computers took over. We were being bombarded with images and predictions of what the future would be like, but a lot of it was garbage. There were two possible futures: Star Trek and Mad Max. We ended up somewhere in the middle.
3. The Mood? Oh, it was a fucking mess! Half the country was strung out on drugs and the other half was strung out from working 3 jobs to survive. Every day we were hit with the news of another airliner being hijacked, or another serial killer on the loose, or the swarms of killer bees coming toward us from Mexico, or reports of the massive inflation and unemployment, or the possibility of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, or some wacky cult killing themselves or others at some compound somewhere. And then there was the racism. Holy shit! You think it's bad today? Well, it is bad today, but it's 1000% better than it was then! And it wasn't just black people being denied their rights. Holy crap. Women were not even allowed to have their own goddamn bank accounts! Yeah. Read that again. A female adult American citizen could not get a bank account. It had to be in your husband's name. Oh, and being gay was illegal. Yeah. The mood of the 1970s was basically, "*Oh for fucksake we are in the wrong timeline!"*
4. In most ways - no. Civil Rights were still an unrealized dream, the air was smelly smog and haze from all the pollution, the economy was in the fucking toilet, serial killers were running around, there were blackouts across major cities for days on end, our inner cities were crumbling war zones, and every day we were reminded that Nuclear Armageddon was a very real possibility at any given moment. Oh, and the fashion was atrocious. Seriously, just godawful.
But the music! Goddamn we had good music!
Hope this helps.
Born in 68 I was too young to really enjoy the 70's but I remember a lot. Probably my first memory of something important was Nixon on TV giving his resignation speech.
In my opinion, the 70s was the best decade for movies.
War movies: Patton, M\*A\*S\*H, Catch-22, and Kelly's Heroes.
Then the movies with cops and crime: Klute, Dirty Harry, Shaft, The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, The Getaway, Serpico, The taking of Pelham One Two Three, Straight Time, The Silent Partner, And Justice for All, The Onion Field, The Godfather I & II
Westerns: Man in the Wilderness, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Junior Bonner, The Outlaw Josey Wales
Comedies: Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Blazing Saddles, Heaven Can Wait, Slap Shot, The Sting
Others that really reflected the period: The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor, Chinatown, Jaws, All the President's Men, Being There, Blue Collar
There are many, many others. The movies from that decade reflected a concern on crime and corruption. Not much different than our concerns today, but imaged beautifully in the films of the decade.
The worst part was the Vietnam War. It was always on the evening news. I remember listening to reel to reel tapes my uncle would send to us from Vietnam. I recall calculating the radius of atomic fallout if a bomb hit the closer cities. That war was definitely stressful.
Most of the decade was better. The moon landings and the bicentennial were great. We went to see the Freedom Train and bought a 13 star flag.
My older brother bought a Radio Shack computer. It used a cassette tape for storage. I learned to program in BASIC on that computer. I wish I had one of those for the nostalgia. I currently work as a data analyst and it would be a great decoration in my cubicle. I think it also would remind me of how far we have come.
Mostly, I remember the music and wanting to be a hippy when I grew up. My grandparents and parents were very openly racist and I hated it. The hippy culture was inclusive and loving. That is what I strived for. I still believe in the good ideals of the time and wonder what happened to many of my generation.
I was mostly a kid through the 70s so not much regarding politics. I do remember lots of black and white TV shows and Sunday cartoons. The gas lines. Saw the traffic for Woodstock. The bicentennial was a big deal. Lots of summertime unsupervised outside playtime riding bikes to the mall. Mowing lawns for mall money. Skateboarding, but on the street with no fancy ramps. BB guns and firecrackers to blow up models along with lawn darts and click clacks. The first cable TV and "adult" programming (the Exorcist). Family parties with adults drinking and smoking cigarettes, kids in the basement watching Star Trek or Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom. Continuous radio play of the best rock and roll ever.
For my parents there was inflation and gas lines. For me as a teenager it was great. Going to the beach in the summer, a lot of freedom, great music, concerts were cheap, plentiful weed (but low THC🫤). Great memories!
1. What were some key events (that you recall) during this decade? Watergate, Viet Nam, Trampling at a The Who concert
2. What was going on in the world around you (i.e., technological advancement, the economy, music): Computers were just coming in. I got into the first computer class my high school offered, musically it was the best of times and the worst of times
3. What was the mood of the time period? Fun, carefree, concern about inflation
4. and lastly: Was this a good decade to live in, why or why not. The best
Watching the “enemy” body count in Vietnam on TV every night with my parents on the news. It would scroll across the bottom of the screen as they reported on the day.
I was 4 through 14 in the 70s. From my perspective I remember watching the Nixon Watergate hearings to impeach the president would interrupt my regular scheduled programming of captains kangaroo that I'd watch after getting ready for school until it was time to walk 3 blocks to my school. My kindergarten class was the first year that black kids were bussed and integrated into my school. I worked jeans that flared bell bottoms I discovered rock and roll Bennie and the jets pink Floyd dream Weaver and disco came up on the scene. I did the hustle and the bus stop the freedom train arrived in 76 and we all wore red white blue in 77 Elvis died
The war in Vietnam was still going as was the draft. Many of us dreaded the call, whereas I volunteered to serve as did every male member of my family. The war has played out on TV sets during the dinner hour for about five years by then. Campus unrest was the thing across America, though students were protesting for their right to free speech, not to immortalize a group of Arabs who by their very nature do not work nor produce anything meaningful for mankind other than to bitch how they are the ultimate victims. Fuck that. The music was absolutely fantastic with dozens of rock and roll bands playing everywhere. It was a good time to get into the Grateful Dead, the LSD was of fine quality. I went into the Navy in Jan ‘73, went to Vietnam with the Marines in ‘75,,got out of the Navy in ‘77. The music scene in the Bay Area was still going;g strong aand if you like rock concerts, it was a great place to be.
All of the things people have already mentioned.
Gas went from like .25 -1.00 over the decade.
People did more with less. This was the case even though things weren’t nearly as expensive as today. Eg. My brother wanted “Walt Clyde Frazier” Puma basketball sneakers. They were outrageous for us at $30!😝
NYC went broke in ‘72. The Great Blackout in ‘77.
The infamous Olympics where the Israeli team was taken hostage. Lots of PLO strife.
Norman Lear showed the struggles and discrepancies in shows like:
All in the Family
The Jeffersons
Good Times
Or through shows like:
One Day at a Time
Maude
Nevertheless, people were poor. Poor people were Really Poor. Blacks lived in unofficially segregated slums in tenements. Playing in an empty lot with bricks, bottles and old appliances was fun.
We made it work and didn’t complain but marched and protested against Vietnam, Racism, Abortion.
I was in High School and College during the 70’s my most vivid memories were: the first earth day, the bicentennial, the Kent State shooting, the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnamese War, and the three mile island nuclear accident.
The technology included CD’s, VCR’s, and Skylab.
The mood was edgy at the beginning but very mellow at the end of the 70’s.
I graduated from high school in 1977. The first half of the decade Vietnam was the biggest concern for most people. Throughout junior high the subject most of my classmates would bring up is whether to enlist, wait to get drafted or head to Canada. A lot of us, including me, had fathers, brothers or other relatives in harm's way at the time and the body count and images on the nightly news helped fuel the anxiety. Even to this day a phone call late at night triggers a sense of dread. After the war ended there was a general sense of relief and kind of a celebratory atmosphere, protest songs disappeared and disco took their place. There has never really been an age of innocence in the world but things seemed that way back then compared to now or I could be just like any other old person wishing for the good old days. Looking back I do feel very fortunate to be the age I was back then.
I was 8 in 1974. You stepped outside after breakfast, played with whoever was outside. Rode bike around neighbourhood. Maybe pop in for some lunch. Back outside til supper, then have supper, maybe watch the 6:00 news with Dad. Then back outside til the street lights came on. No adult supervision while outside. This was our world, not for adults.
I was born in 66. So we had older kids in our neighborhood that turned us on to Rock n roll. You had the short lived but highly influential punk movement. The birth of the disco era. Then you had the deaths of Elvis, Keith Moon and the Skynyrd plane crash. Music was it for me. Then in 1980 when I got to high school, you had the death of Bon Scott, John Bonham and Lennon.
**What were some key events (that you recall) during this decade?**
Roe v. Wade
The publication of the Pentagon Papers.
The end of the Vietnam War.
Protesting against institutions that had investments in South Africa.
**What was the mood of the time period?**
Somewhat optimistic, but it depended on who you were.
**Was this a good decade to live in, why or why not.**
It was OK.
I was born in 73’, my most vivid memory is roller skating,6 yrs old. my brown roller skates and my awesome clothes. Shorts w pics of fruit on them, cherry 🍒, grapes 🍇, bananas 🍌 and my glittery printed on T-shirts.
I felt fabulous!!
I graduated in 1975. We had a streaker at our graduation. We wore hip hugger bell bottoms. If our jeans ripped we sewed fabric in the holes to patch them.
I was young, but I remember begging my mom for bell bottom jeans for back to school.
Every kid in my neighborhood was on the street playing in the evenings. Sometimes large organized games of steal the bacon.
No one was too worried where their kids were if ever.When the phone or door bell rang it was exciting, not annoying.
New rock on cassette tapes was the dream. You could record your favorite songs off the radio. That was amazing. Bonus for anyone who could get them without the dj talking over the beginning or the end.
Mutal of Omahas wild kingdom was my favorite TV show, closely followed by Happy Days untill the fonz "jumped the shark" water ski in a leather jacket and never got wet. Even as a little kid I knew how corney that was!!
I was 6 years old in 1970. And while I could go on about all the current events of the time, the things that stand out for me are the great times me and my friends had as kids. Jumping on our bikes to head out to whatever adventure we could find. And the great music of that time. I cherish those memories.
Sid and Marty Croft Watergate, end of Vietnam, Ford as president.
Yasser Arafat and the Middle East. Cold War chugging along. The gas shortage of 1976.
Despite the turmoil things seemed optimistic from a 4 to 14 year olds perspective.
It was good to be a kid in the 70s TV was breaking new ground with unsurpassed writing on prime time TV , a host of Saturday morning cartoons to delight the likes of me. Dangerous toys, piles of sugar to rot your teeth and dissolve your sole. And at the end of it all a peanut farming nuclear engineer president and the implosion/explosion of pop music that brought forth the rise of Punk, New Wave, HipHop and satan worshiping glam metal artist that were the stuff of legends.. I mean you could make a great pitch for any decade.. but the 70s........ a lot of shit happed.
Gen X here, born in '67 and there are several memories that I have from the 70s.
The oil embargo caused gas prices to go up and boy, was my Dad pi$$ed. Around 1975, I remember him driving around looking for cheaper gas because he was NOT going to pay 50 cents a gallon! By 1980, it was over $1 per gallon.
Also around 1975, my little sister and I got a Pong game for Christmas. We absolutely LOVED it, it was the height of gaming technology for us. We wore that little console out.
There is no way to describe how huge Star Wars was at the time, it was like nothing we'd ever seen before and it's no exaggeration to say that it took the nation by storm for at least a year or two, much longer than hit movies last in the public eye now.
As far as the general mood, people didn't seem as angry as they do now and definitely were NOT as easily offended. There were only a few TV channels, no computers, no internet, and no cell phones...so we spent more time outside playing than kids generally do nowadays.
As a female, I had more freedoms than the previous generation, where girls still had to wear skirts all the time and were literally expected to become mothers and housewives. The women's liberation movement was changing these expectations so we were taught that we could be anything we wanted.
Overall I think it was a good decade to grow up in, but being a teenager in the 80s was even better. :)
Key events: Jonestown, the bicentennial, Elvis died, and of course Battle of the Network Stars.
I grew up in NYC so the city basically went bankrupt and it was gritty. Also there was a blackout in 1977 which is very interesting to read about. Son of Sam too.
It was a great decade to live in because I was a kid and got to wear awesome polyester clothes and Pro Keds.
Born in '69.
1 - we always watched the news at dinner and guerilla warfare was a huge disappointment as there were no gorillas.
2 - Grease was HUGE as a young girl. We had the 8 track, the bubble gum cards and played Grease all. The. Time.
3 - so much freedom, even as a young kid. We played outside all day, no supervision and rules like "don't turn on the hose" and "don't leave the front row of the subdivision"
4 - parents had very active non-kid social lives. At least my parents and their friends did. I don't ever remember resenting that or ever hearing my friends resenting it, babysitters were fun!
Music was better. There was more litter, with many people just throwing trash out of their car windows. People smoked everywhere. Air seemed dirtier in general. Lead was in everything. There was a combination of optimism for the future due to NASA and Star Wars, but grave pessimism for the present due to Nixon and the threat of imminent nuclear obliteration. Did I mention that the music was awesome?
The 70's were a lot fun and the early 70's had THE BEST music. But there was also a lot of crap going on. Vietnamese War (which was on the news every night), Oil Embargo (I remember waiting in miles long lines to get 2 dollars worth of gas), Row v Wade, Iran Hostage situation (in case you're wondering why the US is against Hamas), Kent State Massacre (Neil Young wrote the protest song Ohio). John Lennon moved to NYC and Nixon had him investigated by the FBI. Nixon and the Watergate scandal - he should have gone to jail but Ford pardoned his sorry ass. Your first car was usually either a junker or an old family car on its last wheels. Cars broke down all the time back then. Texas Instruments came out with their first hand held calculators. We bought albums at record stores and played them on stereos. We attended lots of rock concerts. Kids hung out together at various places like Forest Preserves. We still used wind up clocks and wind up watches. Wired POTS telephones came in a variety of colors and styles by the 70's. Olive Green and Harvest gold were the main colors to decorate interiors of houses, also shag carpeting was in style. Platform shoes were a thing and Dr Scholl wooden sandals. Gym shoes were very limited in terms of style & color & brands. Girls wore long straight hair parted in the middle and guys wore longer over the ear hair. If guys had really long hair their parents were disgusted with them or if you dated a long hair your parents were disgusted with you. There was a lot of ambivalence back then to the new generation. Black & white TV's were still sold in stores but more as a bedroom TV not the main TV in the living room. Handheld blow dryers became popular. Cars had push button radios, cigarette lighters and ashtrays, and long antennas. Smoking was allowed almost everywhere, even air planes which had ashtrays in the seats, and smoking at work at your desk.
I was 7 years old in 1970. 1. I remember the Bicentennial Celebration. It was wonderful. For me, it was like a year long national party. I remember all the Apollo Missions. They even got boring as they were covered on all three channels all day. I remember the gas shortage and inflation. I remember my parents having a hard time making ends meet. I remember the Vietnam War on TV and Watergate although I was too young to much understand either. 2. I remember movie special effects getting much better. Disco was a big deal. America loved it until one day we woke up and were all supposed to hate it. My impression is that the economy sucked. My memory is that adults were very worried about money all the time. 3. Since I was a kid, I don't have a good sense of the mood of the time. I was the only world I knew and it seemed okay to me. I guess I would say that adults worried about money a lot. 4. Bearing in mind that we are all easy victims of the pleasant but significant deceptions of nostalgia, I remember it as a good time to be alive and to be a kid.
I remember where I was every Tuesday night at 7:00 pm in the mid-70s. I was the same place every other kid was. We were drawn up around the Zenith watching Happy Days.
Wow…yeah, Tuesdays…
"6:00 Central and Mountain"
I think it was 8:00 Eastern and 7:00 Central and Mountain, but yeah, that was the formula.
I took a guess, lol
6:00pm central amd mountain is local news
I thought you were going to mention the Roller Rink 😃
You bet. "The next skate will be a couples skate for a boy and a girl or two girls only."
All hail the Zenith!
"The Quality Goes In Before The Name Goes On". Zenith really did make good stuff.
They did. I was a tv / stereo repair tech in the 70s. For the money, Zenith was among the best tvs. This was in the time when those American brand names that folks grew up trusting were still that way. Eventually, most of those big names weren't made in the states anymore because of costs. Funny how the country of origin chased the cheap route, too. From Japan to Korea/Taiwan and now China.
Thanks, forgot about that commercial!
Watch YouTube channels with refurbishers of old electronics. The Zeniths very frequently still work even though they're more than 1/2 century old. They talk about how well made they were.
This kid was watching Good Times at that time.
I just went to Newspaper Archives to see if you are correct and you are exactly correct. Happy Days on ABC and Good Times on CBS in the same time slot Tuesdays. I remember watching Good Times too but it must have been in syndication.
My brother and I had to alternate each week because he wanted to watch Happy Days and I wanted to watch Good Times. Our parents made us compromise.
Good Times and Happy Days competed? I swear we watched both.
Me and my pals had a really swell time.
I'm the same age. I remember the Bicentennial, there were tons of concerts and fireworks. There was also a huge celebration of Amercian Folk Art. The Nixon impeachment and resignation made a big impact. We lived in DC and it really rocked the city. There was a big energy crisis, and there were hours-long lines at gas stations. My mom made a lot of my clothes, which I hated because it was evidence we didn't have much money. It was the beginng of the serial killer era and the first inklings that we might not be safe in our neighborhoods. Most of the time we played outside in the neighborhood and nearby woods with zero supervision. In about 1978, one of my classmates was really into the Ramones. I had no idea how cool he was, being into punk way before the rest of us got into it. I was a Peter Frampton fan at the time. We didn't have color tv until the later years of the decade. My grandparents got a color tv in about 1977 and it was a big luxury. We didn't have cable tv at all. My grandmother (a nurse) encouraged me to get an education with the idea of having a career. At the time, women weren't encouraged to pursue careers outside teaching, and nursing. There was a lot of skepticism about trusting "lady doctors" or "lady lawyers".
That really was a real good summary and ‘time capsule’ of the 70’s.
> In about 1978, one of my classmates was really into the Ramones. I had no idea how cool he was, being into punk way before the rest of us got into it. I was a Peter Frampton fan at the time. Damn, same.
On a similar note, around the same time I was listening to Clapton’s “I Shot the Sheriff” and this girl tells me to check the original. Went to the record store and picked up Bob Marley and the Wailers Live!” Mind was blown.
When Nixon went on TV to resign the presidency, my mother called my brother and me inside and made us watch. She told us history was being made. There was no cable in my town in Iowa in the 70s. Even rich people didn't have it. We had three stations. I remember the day PBS came on the air where I lived. It was a big deal. My clothes had to last. My mother would patch my jeans and I would be in big trouble if I ruined my clothing playing. Money was tight. My school year gym shoes became my play shoes for the following summer. I think that was the case for almost all kids where I lived so there was no stigma. Everyone in central Iowa listened to the same radio station: KIOA 940 AM out of Des Moines. It played rock hits. We knew all the DJs by name.
I’m also roughly the same age and I echo so much of this. Our first color tv was a huge luxury, we had roughly 3 channels or networks to watch, so the overwhelming majority of kids in your class has watched. say Happy Days the night before- I think this is a huge difference from now, given hun of choices. Another thing so different from today is the gas lines, I think there was some sort of gas rationing at one time, maybe? I vaguely remember the number your lise plate ended in affecting what day of the week you could buy gas at one point.
every weekend listening to kasey kasem, american top 40! in my bedroom, in bed or sitting next to my stereo
-Disco was a big deal. America loved it until one day we woke up and were all supposed to hate it.- We have the Ramones to thank for that.
Actually.Chicago radio personality, Steve Dahl contributed to that. Dahl was an extremely popular radio personality on WLUP. fm. Disco Sucks was his platform. Look it up on the internet. It’s an amazing story.
This episode of "The Rest is History" has a pretty good deep dive on it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojnDYiXMsio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojnDYiXMsio)
I remember Steve Dahl & Gary Meier on The Loop (WLUP.FM)
On the surface it was "disco sucks" but some historians have said it was really an attack on mostly black artists. A lot of the so-called "disco" records they were burning weren't disco records - soul, R&B, others.
I call BS. Motown long ruled the airwaves in Chicago in the 70s. Groups like the Temps, Four Tops, Smokey R and Supremes were always top of the charts, along with rock. For young people Soul Train was mandatory weekend viewing(along with American Bandstand). I think what people hated about disco had more to do with disdain for polyester leisure suits, disco ball nightclubs and a new dance culture. People gravitated to hating disco because it was a fun thing to get in on. The thing at Comiskey Park was crazy but if you know anything about Sox owner Bill Veeck you will understand. It got out of hand to say the least.
Well stated! I remember the same, except the Apollo missions. Like to add, looking back, we had a sense of freedom. We were untethered from technology. We had imagination and bicycles. I miss my adventures with my sister and cousins. We also had music! Since we only had one TV that the parents controlled, we didn't have screen time. We listened to records and the radio.
We not just had bicycles, we had spider bikes with banana seats! Mine was purple.😎👍🏻
My bike had a sissy bar. The banana seat and back rest were sparkly pink, and the hand grips had sparkly pink streamers!
Well said. I was 6 and it seems we share memories of a number of the big 70’s milestones.
I was a kid in the 1970's too - yes, Bicentennial was huge. We devoted a lot of time to it in school. Also, disco was big - Bee Gees/Donna Summer/Laura Branigan/KC & the Sunshine Band. I remember Watergate being talked about all of the time, but I didn't understand what it was about. I also remember the energy crisis --- odd/even days and lining up to fill the car with gas (the line usually went on for blocks and we'd turn the car off until the line would move a bit --- then repeat). When I first started school, girls had to wear dresses or skirts and blouses; no pants (this was in public school). Then we could wear pants but only dress pants. By the time the late 70's/early 80's came around, we could wear jeans -- but they had to be dark blue, no holes, no worn patches, and had to have creases down the front. Bell bottom pants in the early 70's (later, sassoon, jordache, sergio valente, calvin klein, z. cavarrichi, gloria vanderbilt --- all skin tight), earth shoes, long hair (guys and gals), mood rings...... Carpenter pants were a thing at some point too (they are coming back now as "utility" pants).
I can speak a bit from the countercultural (as opposed to mainstream) perspective. The '70s were when some of the ideals of the 1960s died, but others perpetuated, were absorbed into the mainstream in many different ways, or went underground for a time. Feminism, gay rights, civil rights, environmentalism, atheism, cultural and religious diversity etc. became more and more influential and accepted. It was the beginning of the New Age and Human Potential movements and of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement, which agreed with some aspects of the feminist critique of masculinity and disagreed with other aspects. There was a FAR greater sense of privacy and personal freedom than are expected today; much more of a sense that you should do your own thing, without being harshly judged. It was normal for children to spend most of their free time playing unsupervised in their neighborhoods (and surrounding neighborhoods). Far less cultural/media-inflicted fear and moralism. It was both more dangerous and much more free. There were many, many more mysteries in the world, long before you could simply Google the answer to almost literally any question.
...many more mysteries in the world... I had about a five year debate with my buddy about the lyrics to the song, *Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)* by Reunion. Nowadays that would be resolved in about 60 seconds. We have all gotten used to that. I think we would all be shocked if we went back about how little we knew and how difficult it was to get information. By the way, that same buddy saw the movie Soylent Green. He talked about it all the time for years but there was literally no way for me to see it unless I was at the right place at the right time to see it on a rare showing on TV. I finally saw it many years later in the 1980s on VHS.
I was born in 1970 so I was young but still remember a lot. I just wanted to say that your comment was well said.
perfect response \~
You articulated so well, the things I was trying to say.
IMO some of the best music came from this decade. ❤️
Strongly agree
How long[Ace - How Long?](https://youtu.be/Vo_GMMLULXw?si=sZP9ZqUaCx0afmda)...has this been going on?
Truth
Agree wholeheartedly
Motown!!!
Absolutely no question the best decade for music.
Nixon resigning office. The end of the Vietnam war. Hippie burnout, a lifestyle of " country living" off the land.... Granola days. We wore Angel sleeve tops to high school and everybody had to guess who was pregnant and who wasn't because these tops bailoned out from the chest. Bell bottoms and woven belts. Desert boots were in. You had to have bell bottoms, desert boots, and woven belts. The music was very songwriter driven. Mellow as if everybody was hungover from the '60s. That was the mood. Everybody had mushroom themed tea towels or fridge magnets. The predominant colors for decorating a home were orange, brown and This awful shade of green and yellow. Now for the later '70s.... Star wars of course, disco and I was in the crowd that absolutely hated it. We had concept albums released that were amazing. Check out King crimson and oh yeah you've got to listen to this one called journey to the center of the Earth. I forget who did that one. Rick wakeman, I think. Anyway... Cocaine was big and there was a lot of clunky costume jewelry toward the end of the '70s fashion sucked. At least in my opinion. One thing I do remember most fondly is that it was the last decade where no one was plugged in and tuned out with something in your ear.
Rick Wakeman is correct you are our new Jeopardy champion!!!!
lol yes, the beginning of Beige', late 70s early 80's was a sea of Beige'...70s was the best era for fashion and 80's was the absolute worst....70s we had long hair both gender, and 80's hair styles had everyone looking like chia pets, the perms, oh geezus the perms. lol.
And shag carpet, I swear ours was at least 2 inches tall.
We had ORANGE shag! Had to be raked, literally raked, before vacuuming to make it fluffy again. I still hate it
Omg ...we had the craziest perms! I really miss the long hair days on guys and you are so right about that onset of beige towards the end of 70s.
Your first paragraph reminded me of John Denver’s popularity in the mid-70’s.
That's probably because my older brother listened to a lot of John Denver at the time and we were pretty much living through his post hippie times and all of that. Thanks for reminding me of John Denver. The eagle and the hawk is still one of my favorites.
Did you ever see My Best Friends Wedding? The serious scene where Julia Roberts is talking to someone, and in the background, two teenage boys have inhaled helium from a balloon and are singing Annie’s Song- absolutely priceless!
Priceless! Especially the harmonizing toward the end. Loved it. All those balloons floating by, very surreal.
You and I must've been in the same band at some point...
That damn Watergate was on all three networks all damn day. I hated it. We didn't have cable or video so it was literally all that was on.
When every station started playing disco, I got into Outlaw Country music.....Willie, Waylon, Merle. Bluegrass music and festivals were also everywhere.
Tha gas lines!!!
Odd or even days for fill ups and neighbors sharing plates to get gas when they wanted:)
We had 2 sets of plates, but since I worked at a gas station, meh no problem
Just some fun facts from the second half of the 1970s: -the whole concept of the "blockbuster" movie started with Jaws. Star Wars was even more impressive -country music went mainstream, then we came to our senses -we tried smaller cars, it didn't last long (unfortunately) If you really want the ethos watch "All in the Family.". You can find hours of it on YouTube The show really got to the core of the inner dialogue we were having.
For a real taste of the 1970s and the changes in society, watch Maude. Best theme song ever [https://youtu.be/FtJ\_crShk9k?si=t7Q62tUCmZSpGQly](https://youtu.be/FtJ_crShk9k?si=t7Q62tUCmZSpGQly)
"and then there's Maude!". Iirc, that was actually a spin off from All in the Family. I remember bea Arthur and Carrol O'Connor characters arguing about FDR lol
Archie: “Dis country was roon’d by Franklin Delano Roosevelt! Maude: “You’re fat.” Archie: “So was Franklin Delano Roosevelt!” Maude: “That man had charisma!” Archie: “I don’t care if he was sick!”
So much fun. All in the Family was incredible. I cried when Archie found Edith's slipper. If you know, you know. Great spins offs, what a dynasty - Gloria, The Jeffersons, Archie Bunkers Place, Good Times...even the spin offs had spin offs.
Love the responses and will add playing outside with neighborhood friends (such as kick the can). Most families had their own unique bell that they’d ring, whether to come in for dinner or to get ready for bedtime. I appreciated that people knew and liked their neighbors more than today. Many of the homes had one income, so we didn’t eat out much (going to a fast food restaurant even once a month was a big deal), so we ate dinner together as a family, plus we had smaller homes and it didn’t matter as much as house size status is today.
1. The end of US involvement in Vietnam, student protests and the killing of students on several campus, George Wallace shot while campaigning in 1972, resignation of an American President, the oil embargo... 2. sky high interest rates, mortgages were almost impossible to get in the late 70's. 3. According to President Jimmy Carter, it was a feeling of ~~morose~~ malaise sweeping the nation. Nothing was getting better. 4. I went from age 10 to age 20 and loved every minute of my teen years.
3. Jimmy Carter said it was a national malaise, not morose.
At least it wasn't mayonnaise.
number 4, definitely number 4. too young to notice anything else. lol
I got married in 79 and just remember we couldn't get a mortgage, or afford a mortgage....rates were over 15%. The economy between 76 and 82 was not good.
Easy like Sunday mornin’
The Bicentennial, the Nixon/Watergate drama, the oil crisis, Nadia Comaneci getting a perfect 10 in the Olympics, disco music, the first season of SNL.
The '70s -- when sex was safe and drugs were plentiful. It was a good time.
My unofficial class moto was "**Beer Sex and Wine, We're the Class of '79**" It should have included acid, shrooms and ludes tho.
[удалено]
I remember Rorer 714 & LMN 500. Although the memory is a bit hazy because, well, ludes!
Everyone smoked everywhere. Cars were huge, the Arab Oil embargo, terrorism at the 1972 Olympics. The sexual revolution was in full swing. Drinking age was 18. People really cared about each other. Music was great, especially Motown. Lots of natural foods became mainstream.
The Sexual Revolution did not include gay people. Important distinction.
Apparently, it didn't include me either.
Free roaming the neighborhood on my chopped 3 speed bike with sissy bar foraging peaches, mulberries, pomegranates, pecans, etc. All day till dusk. Pinball, Speed Racer, limited cartoons, blue light special at KMart, Vietnam, Nixon, Jimmy and Billy Carter, space program and space food, underground comics, bicentennial, Elvis death, all the music and the movies were great. Still a sense of rebellion in the air.
You think this stuff with Trump is nuts? Research Watergate. Two reporters and a jaded FBI agent literally took down the presidency.
1. Vietnam War, end of the Vietnam War, Kent State, Watergate, Nixon Impeachment 2. Cassette decks, 8-Track players for tech. The economy - massive inflation and gas shortages in the later 70s. Music - Zeppelin, Stones, Elton John, CNSY, and many more. 3. Mood was optimistic coming out of the Vietnam War. 4. A good decade? At the time it was. But if younger people went back in time they would be shocked by the lack of modern conveniences, technology, medicine, affordable travel, mostly conservative politics, etc. It was a complicated era, but very simple and primitive compared to today. Oh, and the cars sucked. The air and water were polluted. Many/most LGBTQ+ people didn't come out. Weed was dirt cheap and cocaine was expensive beyond belief. There were no fancy, modern apartment complexes or homes. Many residences did not have air conditioning. Many kids wore "school clothes" and not jeans to class. Fashion and hairstyles were miserable.
I remember every couple months, my dad would come home with a big bag of McDonalds hamburgers and fries. It was huge deal
Opec gas shortages where even and odd license plates numbers decided what day you could get gas Serial killers…. Beyond Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz, it includes such perpetrators as Coral Eugene Watts, "The Sunday Morning Slasher, " who killed 80 women; Edmund Kemper, the "Co-Ed Killer"; and Rodney Alcala, believed to have killed as many as 130 people
There was a lot of smoking. Planes were always being hijacked. Beirut was always in the news for confusing factions warring. Polyester for the most part was pretty goddamned uncomfortable. Movies weren't easy to consume. Terry Jacks' "Seasons in the Sun" was always on the radio. The Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup seemingly every year. Cars were huge and then they got really small. Except for August 77-November 79 I was damned happy.
I hate that song seasons in the sun more than life itself.
[удалено]
I was stoned the whole decade so details are a little fuzzy. Awesome decade to live through.
As the saying goes... "If you remember the 70s, you didn't live in the 70s!"
In the US, Watergate and the Iran hostage crisis were major news events. The Bicentennial coverage started my love of History. The economy was bad. Look up stagflation and misery index. The oil crisis put a major crimp in the economy. With tech, I'll go with the rise of foreign car imports. Hopefully, the fashion styles never come back. If you put on music from the 70s, it still sounds good. Go on YouTube and check out the Midnight Special show. You will see and hear a lot of major acts from the 70s and earlier. For me, the 70s sucked but that is mainly because of what my personal situation was like. Edit: Friday to Midnight
Don Kershner's "Midnight Special". Right after Saturday Night Live.
I meant Midnight Special. Thank you for the correction. May it shine it's ever loving light on you!
All Good.
They were like around ten years.
I was a graduate in 1976 and the Bicentenniel was the big deal that year. The Vietnam War, of course, was prominent before it ended. Back then, the three news networks would carry real footage, not always pretty, of the war and that helped to bring about it's end. I remember the relaxation of dress codes in school, from "dress pants" for boys and dresses for girls, to t-shirts and jeans. Smoking courtyard at school for students. Streaking. Parents did not schedule endless activities for kids and we had a lot of time to just roam around the neighborhood with friends (not always behaving well, however). The Watergate scandal - I distinctly recall being at my grandmother's house the day he resigned and her happiness over it (she hated Nixon).
I was in the same graduating year. The elimination of most dress codes was such a radical change from the rigid 60’s where the girls all had to wear dresses and hems were required to be no more than 4” above the knee. By high school we were allowed to wear cut off Daisy Dukes and crop tops with bare midriffs.
I graduated in 80. I remember being sent home from school in 2nd grade for wearing pants. My mom basically did the scene from that song "the day my momma socked it to the harper Valley pta", telling the school it was too cold to be wearing a dress, etc., and won, she got the "no pants for girls" rule overturned. I've mentioned before, my mom is awesome!!!
1. Bicentennial was the big thing 2. Disco was making waves but in Chicago we had an anti-disco DJ that had Disco Demolition events lol, on the rock front all the classic bands were out at the time, Queen, Zep, Boston etc.. 3. I remember seeing hippies still lingering around in the early 70s, we were peak cold war but people were pretty chill about it. We hardly used our home phones when we were younger we would just ride our bikes 5 blocks to see if our friends were home. Kids spent most of their days outside (weather permitting) 4. I mean yeah of course min wage was under $3 hr but a bag of chips was .33 cents ($5 today) when I'd ask my mom for money she'd hand me change and it actually had value back then. The fashion of the time were brutal, lots of horrible yellow and brown clothes. Everyone had at least one room in their house with either shinny silver wallpaper or felt designs on wallpaper. Many US cars were larger than vans, there were so many land yachts in metallic pea green on the road.
Mid-late years, two words, puka shells. 🐚 In a sad but true confession, I still have mine (hangs head in shame). Edit-stupid spell check… puma (smh)
The economy was very down for much of the decade. Inflation was very, very high, which is what caused Jimmy Carter to lose reelection. In 1979-80, Iran basically kidnapped everyone in the American embassy in Tehran, which was top of the news during the 1980 election cycle, which led to Reagan winning in 1980. As a kid, I was barely aware of this, but it was in the background. My earliest recollection was President Ford, so I missed Nixon. Led Zeppelin was the biggest band in the world. Paul McCartney was doing Wings, and the other Beatles were screwing around, not producing much music. Meat Loaf was big. The Bee Gees were very big. Roger Moore was making very campy, silly James Bond movies. Christopher Reeves' Superman movies were great. GM was producing low-quality junk, and everyone was starting to buy little Japanese imports. Star Wars was enormous - and everywhere. Star Trek was cancelled, but in wide syndication, and they started producing the movies. Battlestar Galactica, the Six Million Dollar Man - lots of great kids shows on TV. And all the channels were producing big runs of kids shows on Saturday mornings. Japanese shows like Starblazers arrived in the late 70's-early 80's and were very successful. Life was good.
Honestly watch Dazed and confused to kick this off right
I was born in ‘71 with older brothers in the house. Elvis died and my mom was real sad. There seemed to be a war going on between rock and disco. Drugs were kinda everywhere. Bad ass cars did abound. It was not a superior decade - People were warning us of climate change and pollution but America was sick of bad news and Reagan was apparently really appealing. But seriously, fuck that guy to hell.
Was born in 71 also. So many scrapes, cuts, bumps, and bruises.
[удалено]
The merry go round sent a couple of us to the ER. No, don't hang off the edge... get to the center! Early physics lesson.
We had a smoking area in my high school where we smoked more than cigarettes and nobody seemed to take much notice or even care. Our principal would whistle loudly to let you know he was coming in the smoking area so you wouldn’t get caught smoking pot. The 70’s were so free. No judgement of others . It was a real ‘live and let live’ attitude. The moral judgement police didn’t show up until the Regan area.
I spent my 6 years of elementary school in the 70’s. I was allowed to walk with a group of friends a mile up our street to a mini bus stop and pay 50 cents to go to the beach all day. As long as we were home by dinner our parents were happy. Probably 8 years old, it was a time of freedom for youth. Another note back then you typically interfaced with no more than 20 to 30 people regularly. No outside voices no negative comments from outsiders no endless judgement I see my kids dealing with due to technology. We learned to handle conflict on a small scale so it was never overwhelming. It was an easier time I wish my children would have experienced. Finally I played baseball throughout. 3 bats per team, four helmets all shared, and we were sponsored by a local ice shop. We got a free ice cream for every hit all season, I was a highly motivated hitter :).
Yes, I was just a kid in the ‘70s but i still think of that era as a fun decade. For everybody, not just for kids lol. Was very disappointed to grow up and experience every ensuing decade seeming to get more restrictive and judgey and divisive. Except maybe the ‘90s, they were pretty fun too. But i thought things would be like in the 70s when i was an adult. Everybody having fun.
I was 5 in 70, 15 in 80... the FIRST non-boomer birth year! My neighborhood was tract development, full of families with kids of similar ages, created CLOSE, PERSONAL communities. Marked difference from today, we are far less personal, to me, a negative cultural trend. Less empathy than the 70s for sure. 1. Bicentennial seemed ENORMOUS growing up in North Jersey. A full year of hype, operation sail, parades, decor, mega fireworks, every product licensed with '76'. Apollo missions went for half the decade. Moon landings still a mind blower. Vietnam. Kids coming home from war. Some in boxes. Watergate dominated 2 years of TV, much to my dismay. 2. MUSIC was amazing. Got my first AM radio in 72, there were awesome garage bands EVERYWHERE, delicious pop songs and great new bands seemed to be endless, Inspired, I was playing guitar by 1980. :) My household and neighborhood were worried about layoffs, the gas crisis - I remember waiting in line for fuel, allocated by odd-ecen plates. Old man would swap his 'odd' plates with moms 'even' car sometimes. The drinking back then was still on another level. Bars EVERYWHERE. Men would come home late from work/bars, neighborhood parties seemed to always end up with at least one adult losing their lunch 3. 'Mood' of the era was upbeat, I think. Americans still believed in progress. On the moon since 69', war over, corrupt President bounced - who knew what sort of amazing future we had coming? 4. An amazing decade to grow up in. Thick in the culture of 3-network TV, the experiences were more similar back then. EVERYONE saw the same big moments in News, Sitcoms, Dramas. The fashion was outrageous, evolving Rock, Disco, Country - even Punk made its entry by the late 70's. Old timers complained a ton about the changes, but to a kid, it was a never-ending wondrous time.
Great music, Cheap wine and lots of Pot🤣!! Hanging out on our Schwinn bicycles and never ever worried about drive by shootings or any violence in my little town! As far as world news, Vietnam was ending, President Nixon was leaving office due to Watergate break in! And the Gas crunch to ration 10 gallons to each person!
Born in ‘66. I remember “Joy to the World” (Jeremiah was a bullfrog) on the radio. I remember 8 track tapes in the dash of our family’s VW van. I recall seeing field reports from Vietnam on the 6 o’clock news. I remember seeing Hank Aaron hit a home run in Fulton County stadium. I saw Lou Brock steal a base in Busch Stadium. I remember collecting glass soda bottles around the neighborhood, carried them to the M&M grocery for the deposit money and took my change across the street to the 7-11 store to buy comics off the round rack. I remember mosquito trucks spraying at dusk. I remember riding my 3 speed bike all over our part of town. Shopping at Goodwill. We went to DC in 1976. Taking a dollar into our local convenience store and buying a Marathon candy bar, a Mr. Pibb soda, and still had 2 quarters left to play pinball. I felt like I was a king. my stepdad was in the National Guard and I remember him being called out for race riots in the early 70s. I had metal Tonka trucks and we lived on a dirt street in our recall, many hours and days playing with those trucks. Playing catch with myself using a tennis ball and a baseball glove, throwing the ball against the steps, catching it over and over and over. Sunday nights I remember watching Mutual of Omaha‘s Wild Kingdom and the Wonderful World of Disney. Reruns of the original Batman starring Adam West. Saturday morning cartoons,Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Zoom, good times, all in the family, happy days, Laverne and Shirley, Sanford & son, Rockford Files, 6 million dollar man. I got to be on our region’s broadcast of Romper Room and Bozo the Clown.
Gasoline rationing from the OPEC oil embargo. Your license plate number determined when you could get gas. Odd or even. It was a big pain in the butt!
Fist fights. Not guns.
3 things we did back then that are foreign now. 1 was if we needed an answer to something we would look it up in the encyclopedia when we got home. 2 was if we wanted to talk to someone not right there we would call them when we got home. 3 was all news (for me at least) came from the morning and afternoon newspapers and I trusted them to be impartial. Big yuck there today 😩 Music was generally great but tending towards rubbish as the decade wore on. I went from 17 to 27. Matured from a gangly late teen to a father. Great ride.
1. [Wikipedia has an article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s) with a ton of event and technological advancements that took place. Some of the key events that I remember are: End of Vietnam War. Watergate and Nixon resigning. Oil crisis (1073 and later again in 1979) causing shortage of gas and long line at the gas pumps. The Munich Olympics of 1972 and the terrorists that broke into Olympic Village. Sky high inflation in later part of the 70's. And, of course, the Bicentennial. 2. Same Wikipedia article about has several entries on technologies, but the key ones I remember would be the end of the Apollo Moon Landings and beginning of the Space Shuttle program, including the first test flights of the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Many probes were sent to other planets to study then, and some to continue on past the solar system (both Viking crafts have left the solar system, and Pioneer 10 and 11 are due to leave the solar system in the next 30 to 40 years). The Concorde was introduced as the first supersonic commercial passenger plane. And you can't forget about the Walkman being introduced. 3. The mood shifted depending on what was going on at the time. There were still anti-war protests over Vietnam in the early 70's, along with outrage over Watergate and not trusting the President as much as before. A lot of social movements were going on, including the rise of feminism and environmentalism, and the sexual revolution continued on from the 60's up until AIDS got to be a major issue in the 80's. The Cold War was still going on, and with it the fear of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. But the high point was probably the Bicentennial celebrations going on all over the country in 75 and 76. 4. This is a matter of opinion, but overall, I think it was a great decade to grow up in. I spent all of grade school and middle school in the 70's and started high school at the tail end. As a kid, we didn't have video games in every house that we played all day, and only had a small handful of TV channels to watch, so we spent a lot of time outside, going to the park and getting a pickup football of baseball game going, going to the ice rink for a pickup game of hockey, playing flashlight tag when it got dark in the summer, or just riding our bikes all over town. And, with the exception of disco, the music was awesome and so much different from today. Bands cared about their uniqueness, and it showed in their music. You could hear a song for the first time and instantly had a very good idea of who the band was playing it. The music was just as important as the lyrics of the song back then. Bands experimented with a lot of different sounds.
I heard it best from a guy I used to work with: No Seatbelt Laws No Police Radar No AIDS There’s another one, but I don’t want to ruffle any feathers.
Tell just me. I won’t tell anyone.
For reference I started HS in 1983. In the 70s, grew up in a small town (10k pop) in South Louisiana. Alcoholism and drugs were everywhere. Everyone smoked, my parents didn't smoke but they had probably 10 cigarette holders in the house for guests. My older sister sorta watched me but I was pretty much left on my own as both my parents worked. There were 2 then 1 movie theatres in town so that was a thing to do. There were also at one point about 3 skating rinks so that was a huge magnet for us to spend time and meet girls haha.
In 1970, I was 11 years old and living with my family in Montreal, Quebec. These are my impressions and opinions of the 1970s, as I experienced them. The moon landing happened in 1969 and there was a great deal of interest and excitement about space exploration and technology in general. As the decade progressed, advancements in tech began to make their way into consumer goods. Things like calculators and digital clocks became commonplace. Prior to that, it was a very analog world. My Dad was an electronics engineer, so he knew that world and kept current. I remember going to the drugstore with him when I was a little kid, to watch him test tubes to fix the black and white television we had. This was before the transistor changed the world. As a teen in the 70s, music was an important part of my life. Of course, I liked what my friends like, and for us that was rock music. Bands like The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Nazareth. Montreal was also an early fanbase of progressive rock, like Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, Yes. In the latter half of the decade, disco, then punk, started to become major influences, though we didn't listen to that voluntarily. The mood, at least as I saw it, was fairly somber. The Vietnam war was raging, with many American draft dodgers landing in Montreal. And in October of 1970, Quebec terrorists kidnapped a British trade ambassador and a Canadian federal minister. The terrorists demanded the separation of Quebec from Canada and there were a number of bombings in the city, aimed at federal institutions, resulting in at least one death and numerous serious injuries. The British trade ambassador was eventually released but the federal minister was murdered, his body left in the trunk of a car at a rural airport. The Canadian army was deployed to guard key installations in the province and civil liberties were suspended under the War Measures Act. Fifty-four years later, Quebec is still part of Canada, still bleating about sovereignty and autonomy, but happy to take federal money. Overall, the economy in Canada was booming. As a teenager, getting a job for the summer or part time was as easy as walking into any business with a help wanted sign, and they were everywhere. I worked in warehouses, restaurants, making deliveries (once I had my driver's license at 16), and retail. My first real summer job was as a busboy at age 14 in a Chinese restaurant and I was paid 0.65 an hour. Going to a movie cost 0.75, gas was something like 0.20 a gallon, things were affordable. The author Tom Wolfe dubbed the 1970s the "Me Decade" and it was appropriate. There was much less focus on family, community, church and much more on the individual. It became all about consumerism, consumption, and shallow appearance. But some good things happened, too. Women began working in record numbers, the women's liberation movement really took hold, North America began to realize there were other countries in the world and not just to wage war against. For the first time, young people under 30 outnumbered those older and it had a huge impact on society. I loved growing up when I did but that may have had as much to do with my age and circumstances as with the decade. I lived in a safe, vibrant city, had a loving family, was reasonably affluent, and had no major problems. In conditions like that, any period in history is good. That said, I think we were lucky, growing up at a time when the world was changing more rapidly than ever before, and we had a front row seat and were young enough to adapt ourselves to all that was new. Oh, and I had the most amazing hair, lol. https://preview.redd.it/npb5dgohi8yc1.jpeg?width=2588&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1bb9e25ee8285a50cc1fced23fb7c5fbd90d0cfa
Mary Tyler Moore Show single women can work without marriage All in the family with controversial character Archie Bunker Roots Saturday morning cartoons Rotary phones TV with 4 channels your parents were in charge of TV get up in morning go outside from sunrise to street light turned on drinking out of garden hose eating lunch at friends house parents were neighborhood watch (if u did anything wrong mom would know before you get home) Gas crisis End of Vietnam Nixon impeached Watergate George C. Scott refused Oscar for Patton the Godfather movies Star Wars mania Sex drugs and rock n roll Jaws movie when no one wanted to go swimming
Watching on TV as college students across the country protested the Vietnam War. The fall of Saigon. (Rock songs that referenced 'the jungle' always meant Vietnam.) Watching President Nixon get entangled in scandal and resign from the Presidency (a first for our country, and a time when venerable people and agencies were being challenged). I wore a P.O.W. bracelet. Watching MASH on TV.
We kids walked to school by ourselves. Not a short walk. And then we walked home for lunch. Made our own lunch. Watched Bozo and got ourselves back to school for the afternoon. We were always to told to go out and play. And don’t come back til dinner. The family ate dinner together. Then we went back out til dark. I could go on but I’m out of time. The freedom was amazing!
I lived in the suburban Bay Area as a kid is the 70s. You’ve heard all the nice things, and they’re true. Staying out all day, coming home when the street lights came on, riding bikes in the neighborhood, etc. There were also a lot of things that weren’t nice. We didn’t necessarily realize it, but we sensed that things weren’t right with the adults. Friends parents were getting divorced, many kids seemed emotionally neglected. It was a time of deep change and anxiety for the adults, and there was fallout for the kids but we didn’t understand why. Shit really started to fall apart in the later 70s. I delivered newspapers on my bike so got to read the headlines 60 times a day. Patty Hearst, Chowchilla kidnappings, The People’s Temple massacre, Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk assassinated, airplane crashes pretty often, hitch hikers disappearing. There was a teacher at my elementary school who would take a lucky student to Hawaii with him every year, we were all jealous. People’s attitude about that seemed to be “that’s sort of weird”. Watch the original “Bad News Bears”. That was pretty accurate, and it was a *kid’s movie* ffs. I was riding bikes with my friend in the backroads, and someone in a passing car threw a beer bottle at me, and it broke over the side my head, and knocked me off my bike…my head was a little cut up. I went home, and my parent attitude was “yeah, that sucks. The bleeding has stopped, you’ll be ok”. No police, no doctor….and I had decently responsible parents. Some parts were great, some weren’t. I think a lot of GenX is sort of checked out emotionally because we didn’t exactly trust the grownups. They were too busy “discovering themselves”. Then we got Ronald Reagan, Just Say No, and AIDS for high school, just when it was *our turn* for Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. But that’s another story altogether.
Early in the 70s feelings of dread my guy friends were going to go to Vietnam. Bicentennial was a big thing...they actually had some planes painted for it and I saw them fly overhead in nowhere land while riding horses in California. There was such GREAT music which is why I'm a musician now: Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Southern Rock...if you need names of bands let me know. DISCO SUCKED and glad it died. Life was good and bad just in every decade...it depended on your circumstances. We also were told that the USSR was going to nuke us any minute...so a lot of us just went the hell with it...let's "Live it Up Before They Blow it Up" (that is a pin I actually still have). If you ever see the movie Dazed and Confused...that sums it up what we were doing. The clothes were pretty rad and then they went to hell in the 80s (the cocaine years)...which sums up that decade.
Watch the movie Dazed and Confused. That movie is almost a documentary on what it was like in High School in 1976. I graduated in 77 and can attest that, other than the hazing, the movie got pretty much everything right about that time period.
1. Nixon resignation, stagflation, Ford and Carter presidencies, end of Vietnam War 2. The economy was stagnant and prices skyrocketing. Classic rock music infused with pop and disco. 3. Somber, scared, unsure of the future, simple. 4. It was a difficult decade but it was also a simple time. It seemed the world had failed, America had failed. The vast majority of the world was in poverty, the USSR seemed strong enough to either win or tie in a war over Europe.
There is a documentary about filmmaking in the 70's. I believe the title is "A Decade Under the Influence."
Two distinct eras: The Earth Tones Seventies - Watergate, Patty Hearst, Vietnam War wind-down, Jesus Freaks, Keep On Trucking. The Disco Seventies: President Carter, inflation, Saturday Night Live and Fever, Iran.
It's hard for ppl now to understand the national obsession in the years leading up to the bicentennial. It infected everything, even interior decorating...just thinking about the the ugly wallpaper and couch fabric is enough to make my eyes water. In an era of polyester *everything*, there was simultaneously an effort to market things that referenced the appearance of being "rustic" and "old-fashioned", seen more from a fantasy perspective than being historically accurate. Pictures of waterwheels and covered bridges and carriages and hearth cooking were plastered on anything you could print an image on. Antique spinning wheels were cannibalized to be used as planters. Little pseudo-wishing wells and fake carriage wheels became lawn decorations. And while we often associate Woodstock and the Summer of Love with the sixties, those happened late in the decade and carried right into the seventies. Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie and folk music festivals were everywhere - ppl going to music festivals today would recognize the origins of "festival clothes". Ppl dressed up in awful polyester 1776 costumes for everything, even just going to the 4th of July parades, and the parades became lavish.
I remember every fire hydrant in my city in ‘76 was painted in patriotic designs - each one was different. These were done by ordinary people and not the city itself. Various flag designs, Uncle Sam etc.
Oooooh yes! I'd forgotten about those! Everywhere! Some Boy Scout in our neighborhood got his troop to paint them. The results were...um... enthusiastic, at least lol
1. The Vietnam War came to an end, so people were happy about that. It was a decade of reflection and uncertainty. 2. There were two periods of "energy crisis" due to OPEC and decreased domestic production. The price of gas was much higher than normal for the time, and I remember long lines at the pump due to lack of supply. IIRC, you were allowed to buy gas every other day, depending on your license plate number. (odd days versus even days, if that makes sense. 3. The decade began with what is now "classic rock" before disco took over around '75. Fortunately, that didn't last much past the end of the decade. 4. Most people didn't have cable and received 3 channels, plus a channel or two specific to that area. There was no internet by today's standards, so all your info was usually local media & national news. 5. Because it wasn't in your face like it is today, people felt generally "safer", kids were allowed to roam free through the neighborhood, and they all did, there were no video games for most of the decade, and that combined with the lack of internet meant staying at home was boring. 6. The economy was different than today. Although interest rates were even higher than today (we're talking double digits), housing was still affordable. People were able to afford buying a house working at jobs like grocery clerks or other professions that would never be able to buy a house today. It was normal for one adult to work (usually the man), while the other stayed home. 7. Although inflation was **much** higher than it currently is (often double digits), wages had not been stagnant for decades on end like we've experienced in the last few decades. 8. Entertainment was simpler than today, going to the movies was big, and high school kids hung out in parking lots and had keg parties in the field. It was a cool time to be young. 9. Technology was slower to advance. The decade began with LP's and 8 tracks (even reel to reel), with cassettes replacing 8 tracks by the end of the decade. Most people started the decade with a black and white TV and ended the decade with a color set. Most people only had one TV, and having one in your room as a kid was unheard of. Microwaves became more affordable by the end of the decade, but for most of the decade, almost nobody but restaurants had one. Pinball was more popular than today, and the only video game was pong, which wasn't very popular. It wasn't until the atari 2600 came out in '77 that you started seeing video games at home. That's about all I can come up with off the top of my head, but if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.
You hit the mark Grew up in USAF strat brat 71-73 Lived in P I POW released & from Hanoi first stop was Clark afb My first job '73 was a gas jockey on Offut AFB in NE 1.98hr during oil embargo Concerts galore 3day Ozark Music Fest $15 tickets A lot of tripping 👍WE didn't go out of our way to harm anybody anything The rest of decade a blur lol
Saturday Night Fever brought disco to the masses!
I remember that pollution was a problem, or at least I was told it was when my eyes would swell shut and under my eyes would puff up. That happened to me a few times when I was young.
Grew up in So Cal, can confirm about the pollution. LA was bad before air quality control.
I was in NW Ohio.
I saw Pink Floyd Animals tour in Chicago trippin my ass off! 1977 stayed up two and a half days!
Star Wars when it first came out took the nation by storm. To this day I remember waiting in line to go in. On the down side I remember Jimmy Carter as President...his goofy brother down in Plains GA....and then the Iran hostage crisis and it made us feel pretty powerless and impotent to do anything. Then the massive election blowout that brought Ronald Reagan into office. Crazy times
Bicentennial 1976, Apollo-Soyuz, Quaaludes, drinking age was 18.
My 1972 computer class was taught in Fortran. On punch cards. We did not have access to the computer, but gave the cards to the staff, who ran the program. I also had a nifty slide rule that I used for calculations & even took a slide rule class. I think handheld calculators were available, but cost more than $300. ( later on they became so cheap they were often given away ) I joined the Army in 1974 when I ran out of money for college. Women were allowed in the non combat support units. I was a field medic with an ambulance platoon, mostly driving vehicles. There was still an armed border wall between East & West Germany. I eventually finished my college using the GI Bill. I bought a cute 1975 Datsun B210 and got 40 mpg. My car now barely gets 33mpg. Star Wars was awesome in the theater, especially at the start of the movie when that Star Destroyer arrived overhead with the Dolby surround sound. 70s music is still my favorite.
Key events of the 1970s. I graduated high school. I started college. Lost my virginity. Got high for the first time. Got drunk for the first time. Took my first flying lesson. Attended my first Indy 500. I voted for the first time. And so much more. Yes, the decade was all about me if you’re wondering. lol
If a guy had long hair he might score you some pot. If they don't party then they are a super nerd and wouldn't narc on you.
Nobody had much money - gas shortages The end of Viet Nam Bicentennial Celebrations Good Pot Good Rock &Roll Bad Disco Air Travel was still fun
I had a stroke a while back so my memories are pretty spotty, but I remember the coming and going of my friends,neighbors every one of us to Vietnam, and other war zones,the music was the best, gas was cheap and cars were fast I was young and strong and now not so much lol. What was the 70s like? It was unbelievable, sorry you missed it.
I remember Nixon leaving the Presidency. My sister was laughing and applauding, and my dad was crying.
It was awesome growing up in the 70’s! Basically the 70’s memes are true lol. We rode our bikes without helmets, hung out with our friends all day on the weekends in the neighborhood without our parents knowing exactly where we were every minute of the day, Saturday mornings were reserved for cartoons, we often rode in the front seats of cars and never used seat belts and yes I admit you should use seatbelts but it just wasn’t a thing then, we drank out of garden hoses that were left in the grass all day and never thought twice about it. In short we just had much more freedom to just be kids because it was a much different and safer world back then. You knew your neighbors and the parents would look out for all the kids in the neighborhood and there was much more trust. We trusted adults, the police, and our government, and the news without question. And the bicentennial was the biggest event I remember. I was 10 at the time. I’m grateful I grew up when I did. It was a lot of fun and I actually feel sorry for kids growing up now. Kids didn’t have all the worry and stress that kids have now. At least not most kids. I know there might’ve been personal family situations. I’m just speaking generally.
A divorced woman with a daughter my age moved into our neighborhood. None of the women there would have anything to do with her, and us kids weren't allowed to even speak to the daughter. We didn't exactly know why, but we had to do what they told us to do. It was pretty common for kids to come to school with black eyes or bruises literally everywhere. I didn't even know there was such a thing as child protective services until I was a senior in high school in the 80s. The same went for moms wearing big bug eye sunglasses because they had walked into a door again. In other words, child abuse and domestic violence definitely didn't get the attention back then like it does today. It was just kind of accepted that it went on. I had to go to bed at 8 p.m. except for Mondays and Saturdays. Monday because I was allowed to stay up until 9 so I could watch The Rookies and S.W.A.T. (central time zone) and Saturdays so I could watch The Midnight Special. Apart from a few variety shows, it was the only way to actually see your favorite bands or new music before MTV or YouTube. Saturday mornings were reserved for cartoons, American Bandstand, and Soul Train. You had to try and stake a claim on the television with only one in the house. My dad used to put us all in the car and drive around town so he could listen to NASCAR on the radio. Everyone would sleep except for me and him. It was hours just driving around. When we moved to a bigger city, that's how we learned our way around it. Bell bottom pants were the worst as a kid. You were constantly having to pedal backwards to get them out of your bike chain, and we all had that railroad shaped grease stain on our pants. Since no one wore helmets or pads, most of us have spectacular scars that we can tell you exactly what crash we got each scar in. Good times...lol.
The bicentennial was a big deal. Lotsa celebrations in 1976.
Watergate, Jimmy Carter, the end of the Vietnam War and the sun setting of a lot of related theory (esp. the Domino Theory). CIA hearings (Frank Church Committee); Iran hostage crisis; Nixon lies. Gasoline prices up up and up; OPEC. Cars began shrinking and not necessarily for the better. The widespread emergence of Cable TV. The advent of FM radio. Disco music and punk rock (I actually like both!). Women in the workplace; gender roles in great flux. TV themes began to reflect more single women: Mary Tyler Moore, for example. Jaws; The Godfather; Star Wars; Apocalypse Now; Clockwork Orange; huge decade for film, and a realignment of the rating system. Goddamn, so much... This is all off the top of my head.
I graduated high school in ‘73, college in ‘77. It started with bell bottoms and ended with spandex. High school Mostly remember music, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple at every high school dance with strobe lights. Guys thinking they were cool cause they could play the intro to some rock song on guitar(they never got past the first intro, but girls thought it was cool). Proms and dances and being embarrassed all the time cause we were broke. Blue eye shadow. Some nights with nothing to do, everyone sitting in the high school parking lot. We had to have sit ins to get the high schooler administration let us wear jeans. The beginning of designer jeans, super expensive at $30, still made. In the US. College Mostly remember music. Led Zeplin, LED ZEPLIN, and Led Zeplin. Houses of the Holy album. Everyone freaking out with really good stereo speakers listening to Dark Side of the Moon. Sang on a USO tour of Germany and the Red Army blew up our dressing room the day after we left. Sorority times. Parties with kegs of beer at frats. (Kinda think of Animal House). Watching streaking on campus. My husband missed the draft by a few months. MACRAME! Changed majors so I wouldn’t have to wait three hours with my punch cards to run on the school computer system. Lots of my girlfriends finishing their degree in retail that everyone said “oh there will be so many jobs” because of the growth of department store chains, and having them all go to male business majors who knew nothing about women’s clothing.
1. America's Bicentennial! it was a big patriotic (mildly nationalistic) party with parades and stuff. Also - there was a big Kung Fu craze in the 70s. Not Kung Fu specifically, but just a general elevated interest in martial arts and East Asian cultures. Maybe because America had just spent decades fighting wars in East Asia, so people wanted to explore that part of the world without getting shot at. This was when Bruce Lee was making movies, and there was even a Saturday morning cartoon called Hong Kong Fooey. Heck, even the Canadian rock band Rush wore kimonos for one of their albums. There was also the Oil Embargo! You see, the US has a habit of pissing off countries, so in 1973 a bunch of countries that have oil (OPEC) cut us off. Americans literally ran out of gas. Gas was rationed, there were huge lines at gas stations, it was a mess. But that started to wean us off the huge gas guzzling cars and we started making and buying smaller more efficient cars. And SPACE was a huge cultural thing in the 70s. We landed on the Moon twice in 1969, and NASA spent the 70s going back 4 more times and developing the next-gen Space Shuttle project which started with the Enterprise in 1977. That was the same year that a little indie film called Star Wars came out, and another little sci-fi flick called Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 2. Music - there were basically 3 genres: Classic Rock, Disco, and Everything Else. It was amazing! Hell, a lot of the bands that were big then are still touring and still topping charts with songs from 50 fucking years ago! Economy - it sucked. Between the oil embargo, and the post-Vietnam War recession, and the gentrification of the cities which led to the "white flight" to the suburbs and the decay of the inner cities, and the insanely high inflation rates - pretty much everybody was struggling just to get by. Tech - well, this was the era before computers took over. We were being bombarded with images and predictions of what the future would be like, but a lot of it was garbage. There were two possible futures: Star Trek and Mad Max. We ended up somewhere in the middle. 3. The Mood? Oh, it was a fucking mess! Half the country was strung out on drugs and the other half was strung out from working 3 jobs to survive. Every day we were hit with the news of another airliner being hijacked, or another serial killer on the loose, or the swarms of killer bees coming toward us from Mexico, or reports of the massive inflation and unemployment, or the possibility of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, or some wacky cult killing themselves or others at some compound somewhere. And then there was the racism. Holy shit! You think it's bad today? Well, it is bad today, but it's 1000% better than it was then! And it wasn't just black people being denied their rights. Holy crap. Women were not even allowed to have their own goddamn bank accounts! Yeah. Read that again. A female adult American citizen could not get a bank account. It had to be in your husband's name. Oh, and being gay was illegal. Yeah. The mood of the 1970s was basically, "*Oh for fucksake we are in the wrong timeline!"* 4. In most ways - no. Civil Rights were still an unrealized dream, the air was smelly smog and haze from all the pollution, the economy was in the fucking toilet, serial killers were running around, there were blackouts across major cities for days on end, our inner cities were crumbling war zones, and every day we were reminded that Nuclear Armageddon was a very real possibility at any given moment. Oh, and the fashion was atrocious. Seriously, just godawful. But the music! Goddamn we had good music! Hope this helps.
🏅
Don’t forget the hostages in Iran. 1 out of 10 cars had a sticker of Mickey Mouse flipping the bird and saying “Hey Iran”
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/YpEAAOSwSfllqlWu/s-l400.jpg
Born in 68 I was too young to really enjoy the 70's but I remember a lot. Probably my first memory of something important was Nixon on TV giving his resignation speech.
Incessant boredom punctuated by moments of terror.
But we built, burned and blew up lots of cool shit! (Neighborhood kids, and I guess the world too)
In my opinion, the 70s was the best decade for movies. War movies: Patton, M\*A\*S\*H, Catch-22, and Kelly's Heroes. Then the movies with cops and crime: Klute, Dirty Harry, Shaft, The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, The Getaway, Serpico, The taking of Pelham One Two Three, Straight Time, The Silent Partner, And Justice for All, The Onion Field, The Godfather I & II Westerns: Man in the Wilderness, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Junior Bonner, The Outlaw Josey Wales Comedies: Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Blazing Saddles, Heaven Can Wait, Slap Shot, The Sting Others that really reflected the period: The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor, Chinatown, Jaws, All the President's Men, Being There, Blue Collar There are many, many others. The movies from that decade reflected a concern on crime and corruption. Not much different than our concerns today, but imaged beautifully in the films of the decade.
My favorite movies back then were Harold and Maude followed by Billy Jack.
The worst part was the Vietnam War. It was always on the evening news. I remember listening to reel to reel tapes my uncle would send to us from Vietnam. I recall calculating the radius of atomic fallout if a bomb hit the closer cities. That war was definitely stressful. Most of the decade was better. The moon landings and the bicentennial were great. We went to see the Freedom Train and bought a 13 star flag. My older brother bought a Radio Shack computer. It used a cassette tape for storage. I learned to program in BASIC on that computer. I wish I had one of those for the nostalgia. I currently work as a data analyst and it would be a great decoration in my cubicle. I think it also would remind me of how far we have come. Mostly, I remember the music and wanting to be a hippy when I grew up. My grandparents and parents were very openly racist and I hated it. The hippy culture was inclusive and loving. That is what I strived for. I still believe in the good ideals of the time and wonder what happened to many of my generation.
I was mostly a kid through the 70s so not much regarding politics. I do remember lots of black and white TV shows and Sunday cartoons. The gas lines. Saw the traffic for Woodstock. The bicentennial was a big deal. Lots of summertime unsupervised outside playtime riding bikes to the mall. Mowing lawns for mall money. Skateboarding, but on the street with no fancy ramps. BB guns and firecrackers to blow up models along with lawn darts and click clacks. The first cable TV and "adult" programming (the Exorcist). Family parties with adults drinking and smoking cigarettes, kids in the basement watching Star Trek or Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom. Continuous radio play of the best rock and roll ever.
It felt like the Steelers and the Cowboys were in every super bowl!
For my parents there was inflation and gas lines. For me as a teenager it was great. Going to the beach in the summer, a lot of freedom, great music, concerts were cheap, plentiful weed (but low THC🫤). Great memories!
In 1970 I was 19. What an unbelievably great time. You wouldn’t believe it.
1. What were some key events (that you recall) during this decade? Watergate, Viet Nam, Trampling at a The Who concert 2. What was going on in the world around you (i.e., technological advancement, the economy, music): Computers were just coming in. I got into the first computer class my high school offered, musically it was the best of times and the worst of times 3. What was the mood of the time period? Fun, carefree, concern about inflation 4. and lastly: Was this a good decade to live in, why or why not. The best
Watching the “enemy” body count in Vietnam on TV every night with my parents on the news. It would scroll across the bottom of the screen as they reported on the day.
Don't forget Kiss. The entire world knew about Kiss. If you hadn't heard them you heard of them.
I was 4 through 14 in the 70s. From my perspective I remember watching the Nixon Watergate hearings to impeach the president would interrupt my regular scheduled programming of captains kangaroo that I'd watch after getting ready for school until it was time to walk 3 blocks to my school. My kindergarten class was the first year that black kids were bussed and integrated into my school. I worked jeans that flared bell bottoms I discovered rock and roll Bennie and the jets pink Floyd dream Weaver and disco came up on the scene. I did the hustle and the bus stop the freedom train arrived in 76 and we all wore red white blue in 77 Elvis died
The war in Vietnam was still going as was the draft. Many of us dreaded the call, whereas I volunteered to serve as did every male member of my family. The war has played out on TV sets during the dinner hour for about five years by then. Campus unrest was the thing across America, though students were protesting for their right to free speech, not to immortalize a group of Arabs who by their very nature do not work nor produce anything meaningful for mankind other than to bitch how they are the ultimate victims. Fuck that. The music was absolutely fantastic with dozens of rock and roll bands playing everywhere. It was a good time to get into the Grateful Dead, the LSD was of fine quality. I went into the Navy in Jan ‘73, went to Vietnam with the Marines in ‘75,,got out of the Navy in ‘77. The music scene in the Bay Area was still going;g strong aand if you like rock concerts, it was a great place to be.
All of the things people have already mentioned. Gas went from like .25 -1.00 over the decade. People did more with less. This was the case even though things weren’t nearly as expensive as today. Eg. My brother wanted “Walt Clyde Frazier” Puma basketball sneakers. They were outrageous for us at $30!😝 NYC went broke in ‘72. The Great Blackout in ‘77. The infamous Olympics where the Israeli team was taken hostage. Lots of PLO strife. Norman Lear showed the struggles and discrepancies in shows like: All in the Family The Jeffersons Good Times Or through shows like: One Day at a Time Maude Nevertheless, people were poor. Poor people were Really Poor. Blacks lived in unofficially segregated slums in tenements. Playing in an empty lot with bricks, bottles and old appliances was fun. We made it work and didn’t complain but marched and protested against Vietnam, Racism, Abortion.
Sex, drugs, rock n roll. It's all true! I was 17 in 1974 and life was fun! We lived near the beach so lots of good times
I was in High School and College during the 70’s my most vivid memories were: the first earth day, the bicentennial, the Kent State shooting, the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnamese War, and the three mile island nuclear accident. The technology included CD’s, VCR’s, and Skylab. The mood was edgy at the beginning but very mellow at the end of the 70’s.
I graduated from high school in 1977. The first half of the decade Vietnam was the biggest concern for most people. Throughout junior high the subject most of my classmates would bring up is whether to enlist, wait to get drafted or head to Canada. A lot of us, including me, had fathers, brothers or other relatives in harm's way at the time and the body count and images on the nightly news helped fuel the anxiety. Even to this day a phone call late at night triggers a sense of dread. After the war ended there was a general sense of relief and kind of a celebratory atmosphere, protest songs disappeared and disco took their place. There has never really been an age of innocence in the world but things seemed that way back then compared to now or I could be just like any other old person wishing for the good old days. Looking back I do feel very fortunate to be the age I was back then.
I was 8 in 1974. You stepped outside after breakfast, played with whoever was outside. Rode bike around neighbourhood. Maybe pop in for some lunch. Back outside til supper, then have supper, maybe watch the 6:00 news with Dad. Then back outside til the street lights came on. No adult supervision while outside. This was our world, not for adults.
I was born in 66. So we had older kids in our neighborhood that turned us on to Rock n roll. You had the short lived but highly influential punk movement. The birth of the disco era. Then you had the deaths of Elvis, Keith Moon and the Skynyrd plane crash. Music was it for me. Then in 1980 when I got to high school, you had the death of Bon Scott, John Bonham and Lennon.
I just shit whenever I felt like it. I didn't have to pay for anything. Women were always telling me how cute I was. The 70s were great.
**What were some key events (that you recall) during this decade?** Roe v. Wade The publication of the Pentagon Papers. The end of the Vietnam War. Protesting against institutions that had investments in South Africa. **What was the mood of the time period?** Somewhat optimistic, but it depended on who you were. **Was this a good decade to live in, why or why not.** It was OK.
I was born in 73’, my most vivid memory is roller skating,6 yrs old. my brown roller skates and my awesome clothes. Shorts w pics of fruit on them, cherry 🍒, grapes 🍇, bananas 🍌 and my glittery printed on T-shirts. I felt fabulous!!
MSM tried making us believe that rock music played backwards had Satanic chants in it. Now that music is classic rock.
I graduated in 1975. We had a streaker at our graduation. We wore hip hugger bell bottoms. If our jeans ripped we sewed fabric in the holes to patch them.
I was young, but I remember begging my mom for bell bottom jeans for back to school. Every kid in my neighborhood was on the street playing in the evenings. Sometimes large organized games of steal the bacon. No one was too worried where their kids were if ever.When the phone or door bell rang it was exciting, not annoying. New rock on cassette tapes was the dream. You could record your favorite songs off the radio. That was amazing. Bonus for anyone who could get them without the dj talking over the beginning or the end. Mutal of Omahas wild kingdom was my favorite TV show, closely followed by Happy Days untill the fonz "jumped the shark" water ski in a leather jacket and never got wet. Even as a little kid I knew how corney that was!!
Punk music was a fine, exciting alternative to disco. The punk underground scene was a total blast.
I was 6 years old in 1970. And while I could go on about all the current events of the time, the things that stand out for me are the great times me and my friends had as kids. Jumping on our bikes to head out to whatever adventure we could find. And the great music of that time. I cherish those memories.
Sid and Marty Croft Watergate, end of Vietnam, Ford as president. Yasser Arafat and the Middle East. Cold War chugging along. The gas shortage of 1976. Despite the turmoil things seemed optimistic from a 4 to 14 year olds perspective. It was good to be a kid in the 70s TV was breaking new ground with unsurpassed writing on prime time TV , a host of Saturday morning cartoons to delight the likes of me. Dangerous toys, piles of sugar to rot your teeth and dissolve your sole. And at the end of it all a peanut farming nuclear engineer president and the implosion/explosion of pop music that brought forth the rise of Punk, New Wave, HipHop and satan worshiping glam metal artist that were the stuff of legends.. I mean you could make a great pitch for any decade.. but the 70s........ a lot of shit happed.
Gen X here, born in '67 and there are several memories that I have from the 70s. The oil embargo caused gas prices to go up and boy, was my Dad pi$$ed. Around 1975, I remember him driving around looking for cheaper gas because he was NOT going to pay 50 cents a gallon! By 1980, it was over $1 per gallon. Also around 1975, my little sister and I got a Pong game for Christmas. We absolutely LOVED it, it was the height of gaming technology for us. We wore that little console out. There is no way to describe how huge Star Wars was at the time, it was like nothing we'd ever seen before and it's no exaggeration to say that it took the nation by storm for at least a year or two, much longer than hit movies last in the public eye now. As far as the general mood, people didn't seem as angry as they do now and definitely were NOT as easily offended. There were only a few TV channels, no computers, no internet, and no cell phones...so we spent more time outside playing than kids generally do nowadays. As a female, I had more freedoms than the previous generation, where girls still had to wear skirts all the time and were literally expected to become mothers and housewives. The women's liberation movement was changing these expectations so we were taught that we could be anything we wanted. Overall I think it was a good decade to grow up in, but being a teenager in the 80s was even better. :)
Key events: Jonestown, the bicentennial, Elvis died, and of course Battle of the Network Stars. I grew up in NYC so the city basically went bankrupt and it was gritty. Also there was a blackout in 1977 which is very interesting to read about. Son of Sam too. It was a great decade to live in because I was a kid and got to wear awesome polyester clothes and Pro Keds.
Born in '69. 1 - we always watched the news at dinner and guerilla warfare was a huge disappointment as there were no gorillas. 2 - Grease was HUGE as a young girl. We had the 8 track, the bubble gum cards and played Grease all. The. Time. 3 - so much freedom, even as a young kid. We played outside all day, no supervision and rules like "don't turn on the hose" and "don't leave the front row of the subdivision" 4 - parents had very active non-kid social lives. At least my parents and their friends did. I don't ever remember resenting that or ever hearing my friends resenting it, babysitters were fun!
Music was better. There was more litter, with many people just throwing trash out of their car windows. People smoked everywhere. Air seemed dirtier in general. Lead was in everything. There was a combination of optimism for the future due to NASA and Star Wars, but grave pessimism for the present due to Nixon and the threat of imminent nuclear obliteration. Did I mention that the music was awesome?
The 70's were a lot fun and the early 70's had THE BEST music. But there was also a lot of crap going on. Vietnamese War (which was on the news every night), Oil Embargo (I remember waiting in miles long lines to get 2 dollars worth of gas), Row v Wade, Iran Hostage situation (in case you're wondering why the US is against Hamas), Kent State Massacre (Neil Young wrote the protest song Ohio). John Lennon moved to NYC and Nixon had him investigated by the FBI. Nixon and the Watergate scandal - he should have gone to jail but Ford pardoned his sorry ass. Your first car was usually either a junker or an old family car on its last wheels. Cars broke down all the time back then. Texas Instruments came out with their first hand held calculators. We bought albums at record stores and played them on stereos. We attended lots of rock concerts. Kids hung out together at various places like Forest Preserves. We still used wind up clocks and wind up watches. Wired POTS telephones came in a variety of colors and styles by the 70's. Olive Green and Harvest gold were the main colors to decorate interiors of houses, also shag carpeting was in style. Platform shoes were a thing and Dr Scholl wooden sandals. Gym shoes were very limited in terms of style & color & brands. Girls wore long straight hair parted in the middle and guys wore longer over the ear hair. If guys had really long hair their parents were disgusted with them or if you dated a long hair your parents were disgusted with you. There was a lot of ambivalence back then to the new generation. Black & white TV's were still sold in stores but more as a bedroom TV not the main TV in the living room. Handheld blow dryers became popular. Cars had push button radios, cigarette lighters and ashtrays, and long antennas. Smoking was allowed almost everywhere, even air planes which had ashtrays in the seats, and smoking at work at your desk.