I remember many, many, things in bad taste: shag carpet, popcorn ceilings, barn wood repurposed as interior paneling, olive green appliances, rooms with many different patterns and stripes, aluminum windows, ultra big bell bottoms, ultra low hiphuggers, baby blue tuxes, big hair, huge glasses, patchwork skirts. Visually, it was a horrid decade.
In the background there was inflation, gas shortages, Nixon, and Vietnam. All underlying worries that didn't quite touch us kids. What did touch us was our parents' new freedom to divorce, which they in droves.
But we were so free that I feel sorry for my kids though I've given them more freedom than most parents of my generation. We rode bikes everywhere without helmets and we did it young. No one's mommy came to the park, we were free and on our own. We walked to the grocery by ourselves at 5 and 6 years old. We built our own tree houses and forts without adult supervision. I used power tools by myself from about ten on. We stayed out after dark. At Halloween we took over the streets and no one worried. We used all of the yards on our block as common play space for hide and go seek, war games, etc. There were only two neighbors on the block who objected to kids running through their yards.
We dated young too. And had sex young. Birth control had arrived even for teen. And we played load music. Many states let you drink at 18 or at least let you drink beer at 19.Marijuana was illegal, but the penalties were low. Using was a misdemeanor not a jail sentence. There were few dress codes at school. I wore halter tops and shorts in the last month of school. And somehow we survived.
In the background there was inflation, gas shortages, Nixon, and Vietnam. All underlying worries that didn't quite touch us kids. What did touch us was our parents' new freedom to divorce, which they in droves.
But we were so free that I feel sorry for my kids though I've given them more freedom than most parents of my generation. We rode bikes everywhere without helmets and we did it young. No one's mommy came to the park, we were free and on our own. We walked to the grocery by ourselves at 5 and 6 years old. We built our own tree houses and forts without adult supervision. I used power tools by myself from about ten on. We stayed out after dark. At Halloween we took over the streets and no one worried. We used all of the yards on our block as common play space for hide and go seek, war games, etc. There were only two neighbors on the block who objected to kids running through their yards.
We dated young too. And had sex young. Birth control had arrived even for teen. And we played load music. Many states let you drink at 18 or at least let you drink beer at 19.Marijuana was illegal, but the penalties were low. Using was a misdemeanor not a jail sentence. There were few dress codes at school. I wore halter tops and shorts in the last month of school. And somehow we survived.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
