The '70s, from memory

[72doug2,2S]

Like many of us, I grew up in the seventies. Reflecting back from today there are things I miss and don't.

Please share your '70s memories.

[oldE]

I do Not miss:
The smell of unburned gasoline as a car passes by on a street.
I am reminded of that every time a nice old muscle car goes by.
I do miss the length of hemlines.

Best
Les

[72doug2,2S]

I remember trance-like periods of sesame street, electric company, and Saturday morning Looney tunes in the den tv until mom turned on the vacuum. Then the tv screen turned into an angry storm of snow and white noise. "Awe mom, come on."

This sometimes happened with the kitchen blender and mixer.

[dad911]

I miss the music. Simpler lifestyle. Radio shacks, Lafayette, Heathkit, model building, hobby stores, music stores, milk deliveries, and deposit bottles.

I don't miss - unreliable cars that rusted out..... changing shocks and exhausts every 3 years kept midas in business. $1000 for a 19" tube tv. Landlines. Party lines. Expensive long distance phone calls. Expensive plane tickets. 3 on the tree.

[72doug2,2S]

Our tv was also on a movable cart with clear plastic wheels. Nothing weird about a heavy tube and glass monster on a rickety little table.

[tomgalloway1]

In downtown Washingtom DC the air was so bad it would make some people puke.

Also lots of rats and homeless people, Lots of gunfire too - I almost caught one.

But I met a beautiful woman and she's still with me - as is the MGB she was driving.

[Paul_Heery]

I miss this fashion trend

[dad911]

I also don't miss smoking indoors in public and on planes.....

[sugarwood]

Having to prime the carb by pumping the gas pedal. Cars not starting in the cold. Long cranks where the engine barely catches and sputters to life. God damn, EFI is amazing.

[Seahawk]

STD's that didn't kill you, only made you stronger...

[ckelly78z]

I remember the Cleveland (Cuyahoga) river catching on fire from the pollution, and also driving through Pittsburg, and trying to hold my breath from all the steel mill pollution.

I also remember hardly ever being indoors while playing driveway basketball, riding bikes, and skateboards until dark, and having sleepovers with pizza, and movies.

My first job was sorting customer return soda bottles in 1982 as a bagger at our new Kroger store (I had attended a 3 ring circus a few years earlier on the same site).

I remember not being afriad to ride, or walk on our county road (no fear of fast, distracted drivers).

[ckelly78z]

There were no texting, cell phones, or home video games, you had to save up your quarters for a trip to the arcade, and you had to sit in the kitchen to talk on the phone.

I did have a hand held electronic football game that I wore out, and my freind had an Aurora slot car track that we played when it rained.

[ZOO]

I remember my dad coming home with a perm, and a three piece suit made out of denim. He looked like Gabe Kaplan from “Welcome Back Kotter”.

I also remember that we were the weird family with “foreign” cars like a Cooper S, a Mercury Capri, and a VW Rabbit . . .

[ZOO]

Originally Posted by 72doug2,2S

I remember trance-like periods of sesame street, electric company, and Saturday morning Looney tunes in the den tv until mom turned on the vacuum. Then the tv screen turned into an angry storm of snow and white noise. "Awe mom, come on."

This sometimes happened with the kitchen blender and mixer.

This. And thumping the TV to improve the reception.

[Sooner or later]

Working nights. Living at the lake, skiing (Obrien wood), and dirt riding (Elsinore CR250M)


A great time

[Sooner or later]

And vinyl albums. Flipping through rack after rack looking for the latest/greatest rock.

[Sooner or later]

Cable tv with triple rhe channels! 12!

Really long cords on the phone so you could move around.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by 72doug2,2S

Like many of us, I grew up in the seventies. Reflecting back from today there are things I miss and don't.

Please share your '70s memories.

I grew up across the street from the world's largest industrial complex, the Ford Rouge Plant. The one car factory in the world where cars would come in as raw materials and leave completed automobiles, they had their own steel plant, own glass plant, parts plants, all centralized and made on site.

Part of that operation was the electrical power generation and steel making operations (blast furnaces, coke ovens) all coal powered.

I do not miss the coal.

I do not miss the pollution.

I do not miss the constant smell of sulfur like rotten eggs in hell.

I remember the sky darkening when the wind blew and the coal dust from the coal piles would cut lunch time recess short by forcing all the elementary children back indoors under the calling of the teachers.

I remember licking the top part of my lip, running outdoors with my eyes closed and coming back into the school with a proud coal mustache.

I do not miss the pain of coal in my eyes.

The list of things I miss is too long to list.

In case I wasn't clear, I do NOT miss coal.

[cairns]

JBL 4311s (I still have them). The Marantz 2270 and Thorens TD 124 (I don't). Joe Cocker's first album. The Allman Brothers. My Alfa.

[Mark Henry]

Originally Posted by ZOO

This. And thumping the TV to improve the reception.

I don't miss rabbit ears or only 3 TV channels at the cottage, one boring, one snowy and the other that signed off at 9pm.


What I do miss is stabin' at the cabin....because there was no TV