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This is such a great thread. I was born in 74 so I only have very vague memories of the early 80's which 81 and 81 kinda carried over from the 70's. One thing I remember about those days is that on Halloween all the kids ran around in packs to get candy people actually answered the door and some even invited us in for hot chocolate it seems like everyone was more trusting in gereral which is weird since the 70's was when the word serial killer was coined. There had to be 20 during that decade, maybe the media did not report on them like they would today with all our social media.
... it seems like everyone was more trusting in gereral which is weird since the 70's was when the word serial killer was coined. There had to be 20 during that decade, maybe the media did not report on them like they would today with all our social media.
Yes, but we all knew in the 70s that serial killers were only a danger to female college-age hitch-hikers with long straight hair, or couples making out in a car in a seclude area.
Like a Dickens novel, it was the best of times and the worst of times. In my neighborhood, 70%+ of parents were divorced and nearly all us kids were latch-key and pretty much raised ourselves, with the help of I Love Lucy reruns, paper-routes, Twilight Zone reruns, street baseball, Three's Company reruns, comic books, Dating Game reruns, and late night Godzilla, Kung Fu, and Western movies. Only a few kids were actually supervised, the rest of us were pretty much long-haired juvenile delinquents, playing sports, wandering around breaking stuff for no reason, swiping candy, riding our dirt bikes around thinking we were cool 'cause we could jump curbs and leave skid marks. The weird thing is how many of us total dirtbag latck-key juvenile delinquent kids I grew up with developed big-time survival skills, went to elite colleges and grad schools, and are now pushing 20 years into their first and only marriage with awesome families we could only dream about as kids. Its like it was so horrendously bad we all just collectively decided it HAD to be better, we HAD to do better than our parents, if not financially, then as spouses and parents. The music was great in the 70's, but the clothes, cars, hair, architecture, marriages, and pretty much everything else kind of got awful for awhile there. I do love my 1978 Mattel Football II game, which I still have and play with my own 10 year old boys, who do prefer their Wii but like some hand-held retro action too. 70's were aight for a kid, in a Battlestar Galactica and Dukes of Hazard were both awesome sense, but the whole "everybody's parents got divorced 'cause they finally could" thing was pretty much a giant bummer.
Interesting.
I was born in 1962, and in my neighborhood in the '70s, I don't remember anybody being divorced. I can't think of anybody other than a couple of people I knew in school back then who didn't have both parents living in the house, and only a small percentage of the mothers worked, mostly part time.
What was so different back then, as you say, was the freedom. There were no "play dates;" kids went out and played on their own, without direct adult supervision. There was less fear about what might happen.
This is such a great thread. I was born in 74 so I only have very vague memories of the early 80's which 81 and 81 kinda carried over from the 70's. One thing I remember about those days is that on Halloween all the kids ran around in packs to get candy people actually answered the door and some even invited us in for hot chocolate it seems like everyone was more trusting in gereral which is weird since the 70's was when the word serial killer was coined. There had to be 20 during that decade, maybe the media did not report on them like they would today with all our social media.
The one I remember best was "Son of Sam." He was a serial killer who terrorized New York in 1976-77. I lived in suburban New York, and it turned out that this killer actually lived one town over from me, in Yonkers, NY. But he did all his killings in New York City boroughs.
I was born in 1965 and grew up in New Jersey. I am trying to figure out what was actually different back then. I know the statistics: since the 70s the American standard if living has gone down. I remember more of a sense of optimism, the feeling that as long as you didn't screw up too much, life would be ok. However, the childhood I remember was simpler: we had one car, a 1973 duster, one TV, and in 1976, in time to watch Carter's campaign speech ("I'm jimmy carter and I'm running for president"), a zenith color tv. Mom was home, we'd get home after school and play outside or watch reruns of the Brady Bunch. We had a house that was tiny by today's standards. Our parents would leave us with a babysitter on Saturday nights and we would watch Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett. Wednesday nights we'd watch Sonny and Cher. But there was no Internet, no video games, no cell phones. Summer evenings the neighborhood kids would play sardines or some other game. Those evenings were truly special. The soft August suburban nights, crickets chirping, reminding us that soon the summer would be over, our parents sitting on someone's porch sipping cocktails as we played into the night, it seemed so perennial, like life would always be that way. What strikes me is how similar our experiences were. We were all middle class. On my street were children of bankers, plumbers, doctors and CEOs. Yet we all played the same games, went to the same schools, wore the same clothes. Today there is much more separation. We have more stuff, nicer cars, bigger houses, more, more, more. But we have so much less because nobody has time to just enjoy the simple things that we did then.
I was born in 1965 and grew up in New Jersey. I am trying to figure out what was actually different back then. I know the statistics: since the 70s the American standard if living has gone down. I remember more of a sense of optimism, the feeling that as long as you didn't screw up too much, life would be ok. However, the childhood I remember was simpler: we had one car, a 1973 duster, one TV, and in 1976, in time to watch Carter's campaign speech ("I'm jimmy carter and I'm running for president"), a zenith color tv. Mom was home, we'd get home after school and play outside or watch reruns of the Brady Bunch. We had a house that was tiny by today's standards. Our parents would leave us with a babysitter on Saturday nights and we would watch Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett. Wednesday nights we'd watch Sonny and Cher. But there was no Internet, no video games, no cell phones. Summer evenings the neighborhood kids would play sardines or some other game. Those evenings were truly special. The soft August suburban nights, crickets chirping, reminding us that soon the summer would be over, our parents sitting on someone's porch sipping cocktails as we played into the night, it seemed so perennial, like life would always be that way. What strikes me is how similar our experiences were. We were all middle class. On my street were children of bankers, plumbers, doctors and CEOs. Yet we all played the same games, went to the same schools, wore the same clothes. Today there is much more separation. We have more stuff, nicer cars, bigger houses, more, more, more. But we have so much less because nobody has time to just enjoy the simple things that we did then.
Interesting. My daughter asked about my dog when I was a kid so I asked my mother to text me pictures of him. Unprompted, she sent me all these pictures from the late 70s when I was a little kid. I have actually had the opportunity to read all 34 pages of this forum and I am quite moved by your stories.
Some observations from my mother's pictures that reinforced my memories:
-People would be caught dead wearing green and orange together in public.
-Tight, "satin", electric blue shirts were the norm and butterfly collars were as massive as I remember.
-Despite birthday parties all involving truckloads of low-quality pizza at Shakey's, everybody was EXTREMELY skinny; if my mother and dearly departed grandmother could be transported to today they would be supermodels and wouldn't even have to change their uncomfortably tight clothes!
-If you actually lived around "diverse" populations chances are there was true integration; everybody played together and were equal opportunity bike riders.
-Income disparities weren't really visible by looking at someone; you either wore crappy clothes outside or were as presentable as possible when going out.
-I almost lost it when I read an earlier post about York Steakhouse; you would have thought we were dressing up as a family to eat with a foreign dignitary when we occasionally went there; I never got steak, I believe I was always ordered a hamburger without a bun.
-I had ZERO input as to what I would eat for meals; I ate what was put in front of me.
-I never went to a movie theater that had more than two screens in the facility in the 70s
-You guys are right, it snowed really heavily in the late 70s!
-Manhattan was not "high dollar" real estate; the prevailing thought was that if you went to NYC as an out-of-towner you would be automatically mugged or killed; I evaded both with only my grandmother as my protector (HEAR THAT HELICOPTER PARENTS - MY MOM LET HER MOTHER TAKE ME TO NYC ON A TRAILWAYS BUS BY HERSELF!)
-My dog slept outside in a doghouse and only slept inside during prohibitively bad weather.
-The ultimate punishment for bad behavior was to be made to come inside and put your pajamas on before the sun went down and other kids were still outside playing.
-Wallpaper in the kitchen invariably had fruit or corn on it; drapes and tablecloths had the same motifs as picnic blankets.
-My house had a couple miniature nude Greco-Roman statues whose sole purpose was for decoration. Smh.
-Stereo equipment with really big knobs and buttons.
-The ultimate honor was to be selected to go get the film projector from the AV room in the school library. Film strips came in the little plastic tubes but you knew you were watching a feature film when the big film reel was broken out. BTW: Although I think it may have been early 1980, did anyone watch "The Gold Bug" in school with a young Anthony Michael Hall? They actually showed this in school!
-Teachers smoking in school and requiring you to "take" foil ashtrays from McDonald's or Burger King to bring in for arts and crafts projects.
-ALL of your teachers remembered what they were doing when Kennedy was shot.
-Bus drivers who were vets of WWII and Korea and were clearly shellshocked.
-Football coaches who told stories of playing with leather helmets.
-You had at least one good friend that moved away to Florida.
- Appliances were horrible colors but everything (including electronics) was American made; it was not uncommon to have a Montgomery Ward or JC Penney's BRAND TV set.
-Call me crazy but I specifically remember having a record player in a red plastic suitcase; did anyone else have one of these?
-All major Christmas shopping was done out of Sears, Best, and JC Penney's catalogs; Sears was not yet in a mall but in a stand alone store in the 70s; that definitely started to change.
-Department stores with escalators were still downtown.
-Macy's was not even a thought, most department stores (and furniture stores) had "Jewish sounding" names; despite the stores seemingly being really large the people working in the stores knew your parents personally somehow.
-Jordache jeans had their own skinny jeans stores!
-Kinney's and ThomMcAnn Shoes.
-All adult men had full beards or at least sideburns; even the ones who were once conservative all grew their hair out into a shag or an afro.
-Big hoop earrings and see-through jelly jackets on girls.
-EVERYBODY regardless of gender or race owned a pair of cowboy boots!
-Looking back on it, my parents were actually young, cool, hip, and totally with the times! As a kid I thought they were so uncool I could curse in front of them and they were so uncool they wouldn't know what a curse word was. Whoops!
-You were taken to the public library just for the sake of actually checking out a book to read; my older sister checked out books by Judy Blume with curse words in them.
-The most politically-incorrect shows actually aired on TV and EVERYBODY loved them; please feel free to watch below; imagine a sitcom airing today in which Rural whites, Jews, Irish, and Blacks were all insulted within the first three minutes of the show!
Carter Country - Hail To The Chief - YouTube
And yes kids were allowed to watch this show, it was universally liked by all demographics and everybody discussed it openly; I have no idea why it only lasted a few years; if anyone who was an adult in the 70s remembers a political backlash to this show please let me know!
-Those people who actually got cable TV and HBO would refer to it by its full name "Home Box Office"; you may be invited over to a neighbor's house on Saturday night to watch a movie premiere on the "Home Box Office".
-Although it was technically released in 1980, "Can't Stop the Music" was the movie that officially ended the 70s. I remember watching it on the "Home Box Office" next door. Unfortunately this clip ended before the Village People brought out their little-boy lookalikes!
There is so much more but I will stop here. Maybe I'll submit another post soon! What I have found out as an adult is that if you go to places that haven't really grown much since the 1970s (Central Pennsylvania comes to mind), you can still find shopping mall architecture, movie theaters (now probably discount or "second run), drive-ins, bowling alleys, and roller rinks that remain virtually unchanged since the 70s. They definitely quench my thirst for nostalgia!
Last edited by Steelers10; 04-28-2014 at 10:45 PM..
Reason: film projector reels!
People smoked ciggies on public transport, airplanes and anywhere really. Tuesday nights belonged to Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, and then SOAP. Youngsters got scooted to bed when SOAP came on, until they were a little older. When kids complained of being bored, they were told to "go out in the yard and run around the block" LOL seriously kids were always outside playing pimple ball, jumping rope, bike riding & skating... Fleetwood Mac & Neil Diamond blasting from the big piece of furniture which served as the turntable/8 track player/radio... Nuns & teachers could smack and paddle until tears, their butts would get sued today The Jimmy Carter peanut jokes, . Weird clothing and even weirder shoes!!!
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What I have found out as an adult is that if you go to places that haven't really grown much since the 1970s (Central Pennsylvania comes to mind), you can still find shopping mall architecture, movie theaters (now probably discount or "second run), drive-ins, bowling alleys, and roller rinks that remain virtually unchanged since the 70s. They definitely quench my thirst for nostalgia!
LOL seriously kids were always outside playing pimple ball, jumping rope, bike riding & skating... Fleetwood Mac & Neil Diamond blasting from the big piece of furniture which served as the turntable/8 track player/radio... Nuns & teachers could smack and paddle until tears, their butts would get sued today 
The Jimmy Carter peanut jokes, . Weird clothing and even weirder shoes!!!