Children of the 1970's

[Alex K]

What did you do to people who were not your "friends",?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Fuxxake, I was six years old.  Stabbing was what you DID to friends.

Boru

[Nope]

I was a kid in the 70's. The thing that I remember most is riding my bike everywhere without a helmet. I hated the song, Wildfire about a woman getting lost while chasing her horse. My stepfather took my friend and me to see Star Wars and I developed a crush on Han Solo and, for some weird reason, Darth Vader's voice. (I was a strange kid). Even though I loved them, I couldn't eat pop rocks because my mom thought they would explode in my stomach.

[ignoramus]

Heavy metal at it's finest. All English with a few exceptions.
Muscle cars at their finest.
That's me! Help. I'm stuck there!

[c172]

I was born in 1975. Tail end of it. Barely remember my mother blasting Joan Armatrading on the record player.

I remember San Diego Unified School District using a lot of Crown busses (for any of you who are transport buffs). Very old-school, and I loved them, even though I was on a short bus.

I remember reruns of The Electric Company on PBS.

I remember TV Guide. In magazine form.

I remember some girl I knew who had a onesie with white, plastic-looking toecaps.

I remember watching homemade wooden go-karts fly down the street.

I can find a lot more stuff on YouTube from that era. Things I don't necessarily remember, but it's neat to see anyhow.

[Jackalope]

I remember around 1976 having a skateboard decked out with California Slalom trucks and *shag carpet*.

[Jenny A]

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.

[popeyespappy]

Twenty-five cent quaaludes. For some reason everything else is a little fuzzy.

[Jackalope]

49 cent/ gallon gasoline.

[vorlon13]

Something you didn't see in the 70s was pubic hair beards like Mark Wahlberg is inflicting on the rest of us.

Bottled water was pretty rare till Perrier came to America.

I remember where I was when I heard my first song by Prince (I Wanna Be Your Lover) and it was really electrifying.  Same with Donna Summer and I Feel Love.  The entire bar actually stopped and caught it's breath when that song was played the first time, it was THAT good.

The rest of America seemed a little slow to pick up what was going on with the Village People.

Sgt. Leonard Matlovich vs. U.S. military was a big deal in my world, I'd bet 99% or more of today's America has no idea who he was.

Anita Bryant got a pie in her face (Banquet brand lemon meringue, as I recall) in Des Moines Iowa in 1977.  

I had a 75 Camaro, and a 77 Monte Carlo.  Wish I STILL had them.  The Monte had a powered sun roof (I LOVED IT !!!) and an emergency crank in the glove box in case it should fail to close.  

Kill A Queer For Jesus t-shirts were around.  A comedy movie, can't recall the name, had a scene on hunting the wild faggots in New York City with high powered rifles.

America was mortified there was a gay character on Soap.  Even the John Ritter character on Three's Company who only pretended to be gay was controversial.

I was in the Chicago Gay Pride Parade in 1979 (theme: Stonewall 10 years after) with 250,000 of my closest friends.  The one day a year the Chicago PD was required to protect (instead of persecute) the homos.

I never went to Halsteads.  I am probably alive today due to that omission.

A friend of mine had a stamp that said "GAY MONEY" and he'd stamp every piece of US currency he got his hands on.

It was tough to be 'out' in your home town, or even your home state, but if you moved away, it was much easier.

Sometimes you'd see hetero couples at gay bars/discos.  It was a great place for them to go if they were having an affair, no one was going to tell.  If they saw someone they knew, they couldn't tell either.

No internet in those days, and no specific advertising ever, ever, ever used the word 'gay', but my friends and myself always knew where the gay bars were wherever we went.  I still don't know how that worked.

Gay really was a separate world back then.  We've lost an aspect of our sense of community from the increasing acceptance over the years.  The younger gays these days have no idea what that was like.  Intellectually, I know that's a good thing, but I still miss the feeling.