Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I like looking @ retro stuff on TV! I like catching '70s episodes of Soul Train, especially the early episodes, from '71-'75, and checking out some of the styles and fashions they wore on there! I think '70s fashion, particularly early '70s fashion, is waaay better than that hip hop gear they pass off as fashion today! I also dig the big afros as well! Overall, I also think our society is more wimpy today compared to back in the day! Even though most of my childhood years were in the '80s (was born in '73, just celebrated my 38th b'day on 2/21), we were much more active and spent more time outside, and we were much more physically fit than young people today! I find it appalling that a lot of our young children are walking around with big bellies and having all of these health problems that much older adults would normally have! They definately need to bring Phys. Ed. back into our schools b/c our children need to get back in shape! There is definately a noticeable difference in the maturity levels amongst young people today compared to when we came up! When I was in High School, we looked more like adults than the teenagers do today! Some 16 year olds today look like they should still be in middle School, it's amazing! That's my rant for today, Great Thread!
Last edited by prwfromnc; 02-23-2011 at 03:32 PM..
I like looking @ retro stuff on TV! I like catching '70s episodes of Soul Train, especially the early episodes, from '71-'75, and checking out some of the styles and fashions they wore on there! I think '70s fashion, particularly early '70s fashion, is waaay better than that hip hop gear they pass off as fashion today! I also dig the big afros as well! Overall, I also think our society is more wimpy today compared to back in the day! Even though most of my childhood years were in the '80s (was born in '73, just celebrated my 38th b'day on 2/21), we were much more active and spent more time outside, and we were much more physically fit than young people today! I find it appalling that a lot of our young children are walking around with big bellies and having all of these health problems that much older adults would normally have! They definately need to bring Phys. Ed. back into our schools b/c our children need to get back in shape! There is definately a noticeable difference in the maturity levels amongst young people today compared to when we came up! When I was in High School, we looked more like adults than the teenagers do today! Some 16 year olds today look like they should still be in middle School, it's amazing! That's my rant for today, Great Thread!
Children now adays are overweight because there parents born in the 70s buy them expensive video game systems instead of actually wanting to be a part of there life and only feed them crap food, as does the schools they go to.
As for maturity levels, your off your rocker. It's been proven that kids are aging much faster now than ever. Physically due to the hormones there food is pumped with, and mentally due to being jaded from terrorist attacks, crime, gangs, drug addiction, the economy bad parents, cheerlessness, and the older generations basically selling out and taking away there future.
You say high schoolers now look like middle schoolers in the 70s?
How many middle schoolers had gang tattoos in the 70s, and did an sold hard drugs? I knew plenty and its now even more common than when I was in school.
Really it's sad, and I'm glad I'm not any younger now than I am.
The baby boomers and Generation X for the most part seem selfish an just don't seem to give a damn about there childrens future.
My theory is many of them were spoiled as children and were the center of there parents universe.
Now the trend has changed, but the outcome remains the same, creating selfish people.
Instead in the future adults will be selfish not because they were coddled to become brats but because they don't know who there father is and there mother was never around so they feel it's needed for survival.
I never lived in the 70s, but I don't like the 70s. The fashion looks silly, the music had no substance, Aids first started in the 70s due to the loose perverted sexual "free love" culture of the era. The hippies were all stoned and protesting things that were irrelevant compared to all the real problems going on in the inner city. Blacks were still being oppressed.
And children of the 70s are the ones who created the crackbabies born in the late 80s early 90s. Half of them are too retarded to be a threat, but the other 50% don't appear retarded but are just psychopaths who kill people for no reason without thinking.
Children of the 70s also had a great deal to do with the economic collapse.
Thank you Baby Boomers and Generation X for taking what the greatest generation struggled and endured hardships to built and destroying what was given to you in less than half a lifetime.
I was 8 years old when the '70's began and 18 when they ended. Here are just a few random observations on life back then:
"All in the Family" on Saturday nights. My aunt and uncle and cousins would come over EVERY Sat. night and we'd all watch "All in the Family", the first TV show that actually had swear words "hell" and "damn". Shocking!! We would sit there with our mouths opened-can you believe he just said that on TV?!! My mom thought they shouldn't allow it.
Earth tones. Biege. Avocado green. Burnt Orange. My parents redecorated our house in the early '70's in "Spanish" style. Not "Southwest", or "California Mission" or "Craftsman" but "Spanish!". Biege carpets, biege walls, brick red "Spanish" tile, a wrought iron room divider. Ughh!!!
Drugs. My mom freaked when I was ready to start high school. She was so afraid of the drugs, she almost sent me to Catholic school, even though we weren't Catholic. I had an older cousin who was a stoner and he told his mom that some of the kids in high school made you lick the back of stamps that were laced with LSD. My mom went into a panic after that.
Smoking. Everywhere. My high school had a smoking lounge for the Seniors!
School busing. We lived in a probably 95% white area. The big controversy (if I remember correctly) was some giant busing plan that would bus us lily white Orange County kids to some ghetto school in LA County. For those of you too young to know, school busing was a failed social experiment to integrate the public schools. The government would bus white kids into black neighborhoods and black kids into white neighborhoods. Needless to say, it didn't work.
The draft. The Vietnam war was winding down but when I started high school we still had troops there and I remember my mom worrying that the war would still be going on when I turned 18.
Bell bottoms, platform shoes, polyester leisure suits, courderoy OP shorts, girls in Dolphin shorts, Members Only jackets, Hang Ten t-shirts, wide lapels and ties. Oh, and in my sophomore year in high school, rugby shirts. All the guys wore one, even though none of us knew exactly what rugby was.
Sir George's Smorgasbord. Anyone else in southern California remember them? We never went out to eat very often, but when we did, this is where we would usually go. There, and the Sizzler when we really wanted to step out. (hint: people actually ate at home in those days)
Being able to set off your own fireworks in the street. They really need to bring this one back.
Jock strap inspection in jr. high. My jr. high had a very rigid dress code for PE, and every so often we had to line up and pull down the waistband of our PE shorts and show the top of our jock strap to the coach. They had us scared to death that if we did ANY sort of strenous physical activity without wearing a jock strap our balls would fall off.
Peter Frampton Comes Alive! The album that sold millions and made him a superstar. Then he faded just as fast. I think I still have it in a box in the garage somewhere.
Gas rationing. It must have been 1979 because that was the year I got my first car ( a brand new 1979 Datsun pickup). Depending on your license plate number, you could only buy gas on odd or even days.
Watergate. This was on TV all the time. People think politics is bad today, it was worse then. I remember when it was announced that President Nixon would give an important speech and all the speculation was that he would resign. When he announced his resignation, no one could believe it, it was so unprecedented. We had a real constitutional crisis back then.
Nixon going to China. There is no where that President Obama could go that would be the equivalent to this. Maybe Mars. China was closed off for 25 years, no American had been there, and nothing in the store said "Made in China" It was covered non-stop on TV all day and night.
Subscription TV. Before the internet, before cable tv, there was subscription tv. I remember being in high school and one of my friends family got "On TV". It was a subscription service where you put a big clunky cable box on top of your set and you could watch movies. But only on one channel. And only after 8 pm. I begged my mom to get it, and she actually gave in on this one. I remember how amazed we were- "hey look at this, a movie, and with no commercials! And the movie is only 4 years old!"
staying out all day with friends, bike riding anywhere we wanted. Just be home when the streetlights went on.
There's a lot more, but that's just a snippet of things I remember. They weren't the good old days, but there are things today that are a lot worse.
I loved the 70's. I was born in 67 so I do remember most of decade. The reason I loved it is because things were different. As in cars, music etc...now days everything looks the same. In the 80's the corporate look started to take over and by the time the 90's got here everyone had to be just like everyone else. Individuality is gone for the most part now. I don't mind the colors or the clothes...at least they were different! As for the person talking about the music of the 70's had no substance??? You can have the manufactured Lady GaGa and Brittney. I'll take Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley and the Stones of the 70's over anything now....But I will say I think the 60's music was better...if only because of the Beatles.
Good question- I was born in the late sixties and I vividily remember the cigarettes- i remember being sick one time and sitting in a license branch with billows of smoke - it was disgusting.
In the 70's people actually subscribed to news papers and read the LOCAL classifieds to find local deals. People aslos subscribed to a magazine and some people had piles of them and people used to read more books back then.
The telephone usually had a dial vs a push number and it was corded.
If you could not find a phone number in the book you had to call an operator and ask for information. There were also not as many area codes as now either. Most people had a console telephone in the living room and to me a cool phone was one with a really long long cord , becaue you could walk all over.
I too played and played outside till dark and rode my bike filled my days outside in the warm, cold and cool weather even the rain we played and it was awesome. We would use our imagination and just find things to do never ever got bored.
Most people had console tv sets and the spare was usually a black and white tv , i had one in my bedroom and i swear that thing got so darn hot you could fry an egg on it.
Things were neighborly back then and i miss it , it did seem simpler. This 24 news cycle kind of takes the excitment of getting a daily or even an evening paper or both.
Most cars came with an am radio with big buttons you could pre-set your station to and it was crackily.
the gas station pumped your gas and checked air in your tire and the attendant always had a square spongie thing to get the goop and bugs off your window and they always wore a coing changer ( i always thought that was cool)
tv was the three cbs, abc , nbc your local pbs and maybe a random station or two
usually they would show some really old old black and white movies late at night and i still remember them signing off at night time.
I was too young to be into fashion but i wore jeans and usually some type of shirt with a print or something on it like a picture of something I had one with george washngton crossing the delaware and that sticks out like a sore thumb.
People to me did not complain about the cost of gas that i remember even though we had the energy shortage and as a kid I remember being scared of charles manson and dick nixon for some reason he scared the hell out of me! Read a book about him and who knows why.
I would have friends who made extra money delivering papers on their bike and would fill in when i could and i would make a few extra money mowing or weeding the neighborhoods elderly yards.
I loved it - had a great childhood and times wish i could go back just for a day or two.
oh and we were not over protected had lap belts in the car. ate fried food and plenty of veggies in the summer . we did not have wal mart but sears and montgomery ward and your local five and dime for nick nacks candy and hot wheels etc.. no superstores. it seemed so much better that way
the smaller town always had the basics grocery, five and dime, bakery, restaurant , police, post office, church , medical the downtowns were vibrant and a place to conduct your affairs.
less chain restaurants too. Kmart even had a sit down restaurant that made the best cherry cokes with real cheeries on the bottom....... I miss those days
Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith, Boston
It is your opinion to call the music lame, I for one think you are dead wrong.
Not to mention some of rock and rolls most enduring legends
Kiss, Scorpions, UFO have all endured and lasted since the early 70's amazing when you think about the direction they could have gone
The clothes (leisure suits) were ridiculous. The shoes were ridiculous. Men started looking and smelling like women. (Worst decade for manly men, ever.) John Travolta danced in a white suit and everyone imitated him.
Americans treated returning Viet Nam soldiers like crap.
In the beginning of the decade, Nixon resigned before he could be impeached over the Watergate scandal (bugging the Democrats). Previous to that his Vice President resigned over bribery charges for which he pleaded no contest. Before he resigned, Nixon managed a historic visit to China. Soldiers died in Viet Nam while the likes of Henry Kissinger negotiated the shape of the negotiating table.
Gerald Ford took over after Nixon and all I can remember about him is he fell a lot and Chevy Chase imitated him falling a lot on Saturday Night Live. Ford, in my opinion, was unremarkable. All I remember about his wife was she was a former alcoholic and drug abuser and was waaaaay liberal and outspoken.
The end of the decade's Jimmy Carter, the lamest President ever, was impotent in rescuing hostages held for 444 days. We had an ally in the Shah of Iran, who was friendly to Israel and the majority of Iranian people were culturally modern but Carter raked the Shah over the coals over human rights treatment of Communists leading to the radical fundamentalism takeover (Ahmedinejad was one of them) you see now. By the way, those 3,000 communists Carter was whining about were shot as soon as the radical fundamentalists took over. Carter also gave away the Panama Canal to a corrupt dictatorship. And, he ended wheat deals we had with the Russians leaving our farmers in trouble. We sat on long gas lines (they went around the block) under his administration and could only get gasoline on days based on whether we had odd or even plate numbers. That's right, you had an odd plate number but needed gas on an even plate number day, you were SOL. I'd mention him having America boycott the olympics but that was 1980.
The clothes (leisure suits) were ridiculous. The shoes were ridiculous. Men started looking and smelling like women. (Worst decade for manly men, ever.) John Travolta danced in a white suit and everyone imitated him.
Americans treated returning Viet Nam soldiers like crap.
In the beginning of the decade, Nixon resigned before he could be impeached over the Watergate scandal (bugging the Democrats). Previous to that his Vice President resigned over bribery charges for which he pleaded no contest. Before he resigned, Nixon managed a historic visit to China. Soldiers died in Viet Nam while the likes of Henry Kissinger negotiated the shape of the negotiating table.
Gerald Ford took over after Nixon and all I can remember about him is he fell a lot and Chevy Chase imitated him falling a lot on Saturday Night Live. Ford, in my opinion, was unremarkable. All I remember about his wife was she was a former alcoholic and drug abuser and was waaaaay liberal and outspoken.
The end of the decade's Jimmy Carter, the lamest President ever, was impotent in rescuing hostages held for 444 days. We had an ally in the Shah of Iran, who was friendly to Israel and the majority of Iranian people were culturally modern but Carter raked the Shah over the coals over human rights treatment of Communists leading to the radical fundamentalism takeover (Ahmedinejad was one of them) you see now. By the way, those 3,000 communists Carter was whining about were shot as soon as the radical fundamentalists took over. Carter also gave away the Panama Canal to a corrupt dictatorship. And, he ended wheat deals we had with the Russians leaving our farmers in trouble. We sat on long gas lines (they went around the block) under his administration and could only get gasoline on days based on whether we had odd or even plate numbers. That's right, you had an odd plate number but needed gas on an even plate number day, you were SOL. I'd mention him having America boycott the olympics but that was 1980.
The Viet Nam war and Watergate threatened to tear this nation apart in the 1970s. Plus, the music was incredibly lame.
I disagree. 70's had great music from, well, here's a partial list;
Billy Joel
Led Zeppelin
Elton John
Fleetwood Mac
Foreigner
Aerosmith
The Who
Neil Young
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
