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The only thing I can add is that there were no microwaves in the 1970's. Meals were cooked on the stove or in the oven. There were TV dinners, but most of them (to me) tasted awful. I'm thinking Mr. Coffee was invented sometime in the 70's, until then coffee drinkers used electric percolators and bought Maxwell House or Folgers already ground. I didn't see my first whole (gourmet) beans until the early 80's.
TV remotes were rare until the advent of cable in the 70's, early 80's. I lived in a part of North Dallas then and we didn't get cable until 1984. Long Distance phone calls were either station to station, person to person or collect.
On the downside mortality due to cancer and other diseases was a lot higher. Smoking, as mentioned, was still common, probably 35-40% of adults smoked then.
Professional football was only played on Sundays and the big basketball tournament for the NCAA was the NIT.
I recall an elderly relative having one of the first TV remote controls. It made an annoying clicking noise every time you pressed one of the four buttons. She'd watch the Phil Donahue show.
The movies were pretty accurate. When we weren't chain-smoking away in pine-paneled office, we were picking out avocado colored refrigerators and redecorating the house so it would be ready for the next swingers and cocaine party.
Professional football was only played on Sundays and the big basketball tournament for the NCAA was the NIT.
The sports are way off Monday Night Football was free and an institution on ABC by the 70s and remained so until the NFL started selling bits off to cable and adding other nights to the Sunday and Monday games. The Monday games where chosen in an attempt by the schedule makers hoping would be the best match that week
The NCAA Tournament had surpassed the NIT by the the 60s which was consolidated with the 60s and early 70s UCLA dynasty and the NIT were an afterthought about to become a preseason tournment.. By the Magic versus Bird Final Four in 1979 the NCAA Tournament had the NBA Finals on its heels getting prime time footage while the NBA was shown tape delayed
The sports are way off Monday Night Football was free and an institution on ABC by the 70s and remained so until the NFL started selling bits off to cable and adding other nights to the Sunday and Monday games. The Monday games where chosen in an attempt by the schedule makers hoping would be the best match that week
The NCAA Tournament had surpassed the NIT by the the 60s which was consolidated with the 60s and early 70s UCLA dynasty and the NIT were an afterthought about to become a preseason tournment.. By the Magic versus Bird Final Four in 1979 the NCAA Tournament had the NBA Finals on its heels getting prime time footage while the NBA was shown tape delayed
Yes. I was about to make these points until I read your post. I believe that 1970 was the first year for Monday Night Football.
On the subject of sports, with cable television in its infancy, there wasn't as much coverage of pro sports. The NFL was covered entirely at the network level, just like now, with regional games early Sunday afternoon and a feature game or two later in the afternoon, like now.
The other sports had mainly local coverage, as they do now, but without regional cable networks, not all games were televised. I grew up in the Boston area. I'm pretty sure I recall local television coverage of the Red Sox mostly on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, with some occasional weeknight coverage for especially big games.
There were network games of the week. CBS had a Sunday afternoon NBA game, NBC's Game of the Week in baseball was a fixture that had been around for years. I think I recall reading years ago that NBC's Game of the Week had been around so long that it actually had begun on radio.
In the mid '70's--1976 I believe--ABC started Monday Night Baseball. I believe it was also ABC that tried a hockey Game of the Week on Sunday afternoons, for maybe two seasons--'73-'74 and '75-'76, something like that--but it didn't last.
The '70's saw the beginnings of free agency. I've read that several lawsuits dating back to the late '60's opened the path to free agency in baseball. I recall 1976 as the first year that free agent signings began to happen with some frequency, but the first big move in free agency happened in '75, when the Yankees (yes, even back then they were the big spenders) signed Catfish Hunter.
With free agency just beginning, players' salaries were paltry compared to what they are today. That deal with Catfish Hunter was a five-year deal for a total amount of something like 3.35 million dollars. Pretty sure that made him the highest paid baseball player ever at the time. Even adjusted for inflation, that's minuscule compared to the pay the average journeyman player makes today.
That was also a time when quite a few teams won pro sports championships, rather than having a few dominant teams hogging most of the titles. Maybe it was because this era fell in the time when the major sports had player draft systems but free agency had not yet really taken hold, or maybe it was just chance, but, after the Yankees had owned the '50's in baseball an the Celtics the '60's in basketball, few teams won more than two championships in the '70's or early '80's.
The most notable exceptions to this happened in hockey, where Montreal won a number of titles in the '70's, while the NY Islanders won Lord Stanley's Cup four years in a row in '80-'83. In any other sport, the closest thing to a dynasty was the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won four championships in six seasons in the mid and late '70's.
IDK about you all, but I find the OP's questions a bit odd. (3-yr-old thread we're working on, here, folks...)
"Did burgers taste different". How would burgers taste different? It's not another planet we're talking about, or even another country. Burgers are burgers. The cheap ones taste like grease, and the higher-end restaurant ones taste like the ones you make at home, if you're lucky.
And all that about smoking. Smoking was more of a 50's and 60's thing. It was on the way out by the 70's and 80's, except with older generations. I never encountered smoking in stores or restaurants. That really does sound like another planet.
So, whatever. The main difference between the 80's and now is that now we have the internet, and a lot of people are fixated on their devices. People seem to go out less (?), because they can stay home and watch Netflix instead of going to a theater. That said, I live in a town that's HEAVILY into film and film societies, so what I just said doesn't apply to where I live. I could say that because of the internet, people tend to isolate themselves more, but I haven't observed that among my friends.
Overall, I don't think life has changed much since the period the OP is asking about. But I guess that's me.
I spent the 70's living and working in Berkeley California,, Vancouver Canada, and various places in Idaho.
Smoking must have been a east coast thing. Hardly, anybody smoked out west.....the green stuff excepted.
Watergate had a major impact particularly in places like Idaho. I think Merle Haggard said it best...."before Nixon lied to us on TV". That was huge. People started to doubt government.
The 70's were awful in terms of economics. In 1974, I worked for a small consulting firm. They had to layoff people for the first time in their history. There were TWO of us left that were not part owners of the company
I missed the first round of gas shortages since I was living in Canada. I do remember the second round in Idaho, but living in a tourist community we had plenty of gas once the tourists quit coming.
Vancouver, Canada was just becoming a world class city. Canada was more of a cultural backwater than Idaho. A Queen?? Really?? How quaint. It was still 1950 in 1975 in Canada.
Computers were becoming quite common in California. In 1974 my employer told me to take night classes and learn to program.
The big difference was how far ahead California was relative to Idaho and Canada in technology. The rest of the west really did feel like a third world country. Today, every time I go to California it feels like I am going to a third world country!!
That is a huge change. Idaho was a backwater. Today, Idaho is way ahead of California in so many ways. We live in a fairly rural part of eastern Washington and have had fiber for over 15 years. Going back to California is really a trip back into time. I suspect that is why some poster say things have not changed much.....they live in California.
Socially, the values in California like acceptance of gays, etc. have moved into other parts of the country including Canada.
When it comes to the economy the 1970's are quite similar to America since 2008. Slow economic growth and lack of trust in the government. I remember filling up my gas tank in 1979 and paying $1.95 a gallon and saying "crap, I can't afford this". I remember thinking the same thing in 2013 when I was paying $5.00 a gallon!!
The big difference was that in the 1970's the economic stagnation hit everybody rather hard, today the 1% escaped the downturn.
I think the 80's showed up when my C-Band dish and I got an account with CompuServe. But living in a rural area I still had a party line so had to explain to my neighbors how to disconnect me if I was on-line. Those two items changed everything.
I only read the first page, and then skipped to the posts from this year.
I was born in 1977, so my earliest memories are from the early 80s. Here are some big things I remember that are different from today:
1. Seatbelts were optional, even for little kids. Often, when driving around, I'd stand on my knees, and look out at the world passing from the side window. If there were two adults, I'd get to sit on the fold-down armrest between the two adults. (sometimes, I was put in the back seat, but still without being buckled in)
2. Some of my family members still had wall-mounted rotary-dial phones, although touch-tone phones were available. When my mom and step-dad married, in 1983, we got new phones for the house that were very modern; they didn't ring with an actual bell, but made a tone, instead. The stupid tone was so high-pitched, that my great-grandmother couldn't hear them, when she came to visit.
3. Before my mom and step-dad married, we lived in both a rural location, and a small-city urban location. In both places, I was allowed to roam free outside. (Although I did have to stay within shouting distance of home)
4. Smoking was allowed in a lot more places. First, I think there were "non-smoking" sections, then there were "smoking sections" and now there's just no smoking. I don't remember people smoking in grocery stores, though. Maybe I just never noticed?
5. At fast-food places, most of the deluxe sandwiches came in Styrofoam boxes. Only the basic hamburger was wrapped in paper. (anyone remember the McDLT? "keep the hot side hot and the cold side cold!" That might have been a mid-late 80s thing) I remember when the chicken nugget was introduced at our local McDonald's. Before that, you went to Kentucky Fried Chicken for chicken.
6. At that time, my aunts and uncles were still in their early 20s, and so they'd take me with them, occasionally, when they went out. So, I remember going to an actual disco. Being 5 at the time, the only things I remember were that it was crowded, and I was amazed that the floor was lit up. I thought it looked like glass block (although I didn't know that's what it was called, then) and each square lit up, and changed from yellow to orange to red.
The big difference was how far ahead California was relative to Idaho and Canada in technology. The rest of the west really did feel like a third world country. Today, every time I go to California it feels like I am going to a third world country!!
That is a huge change. Idaho was a backwater. Today, Idaho is way ahead of California in so many ways. We live in a fairly rural part of eastern Washington and have had fiber for over 15 years. Going back to California is really a trip back into time. I suspect that is why some poster say things have not changed much.....they live in California.
Fascinating about Idaho! In what ways is Idaho ahead of CA?
No, I don't live in CA. But I live the same way I did back in the 80's, except I have a car now. No cable/satellite TV, no microwave, no cell phone or MP3 player. The only difference is that I have a PC on my desk. Life is as simple as it ever was. I've never been into popular culture, so whatever changes have happened there--music, Hollywood, whatever--are outside of my experience. Life is as routine as ever, I still get out into nature on the weekends, or go to concerts, or whatever, take walks, visit friends. The economy goes up and down, same as ever.
The only difference now is that the gov't surveils its citizens and terrorism has come to the US, and there's global climate change to worry about. But back in the 60's, there was COINTELPRO, when the FBI spied on citizens, and there were nut jobs like the Unabomber and the Zodiac Killer, and Timothy McVeigh, so there was domestic terrorism.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, Except for the climate change part, and all the people who lost their homes in the sub-prime mortgage scam.
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