Monday, September 17, 2007

That 70's Blog

Today's Taraday is about celebrating the 70's and I certainly couldn't pass that up! After all, as I went from 6 to 16 in that particular decade, you could say that it was my childhood...and oh, what a magical time it was! Okay, I'll grant you that the 70's may not bring to mind magic, but hey! That's my childhood you dissin'! Here are some things that I recall from those bad old days:

1) We had duck and cover drills at school, because the Cold War was still going on, along with the sad tail end of the Vietnam "conflict". We still feared "the big one" and Russia was the evil empire.

2) Watching Nanny and the Professor, Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch (my imaginary siblings), and The Partridge Family. Cartoons were pretty much restricted to Saturday morning, at least when I was young enough to care about cartoons...

3) We had a black rotary telephone in the den and a tan wall mounted rotary phone in the kitchen. You had to actually sit in the den or the kitchen to talk on the telephone. Didn't stop me from spending a great many nights in high school marooned in the den with that big black receiver pressed to my ear...wow, sounds almost hot, doesn't it? haha!

4) I remember my best friend's older sister ironing her hair, with an actual iron. By the time I cared much about my hair it was time for the Farrah bangs. I could rock them.

5) When I was in high school girls wore very tight, very high waisted pants. A popular brand was Dittos and there was this other kind that was designed to look like the top button was unbuttoned. WTF? Also, boys and girls wore really teeny, sort of silky shorts...like the ones Richard Simmons still wears!

6) At school dances there would be these face offs between Rock and Disco fans. Apparently there was no other genre worth mentioning in the 70's. You admired one or the other.

7) People typed things on carbon paper and used mimeograph machines for reproducing multiple copies. It was messy and if you made a mistake everyone knew :-)

So there you have it children. A genuine old-timey recollection of living in the 1970's. For those of you there, recognize anything? For those of you not yet born, are you at all jealous? haha!

9 comments:

Mrs. Hairy Woman said...

I only remember certain things from the 70's I was pretty young.. I think I might blog aboaut that sometime soon.. Great post BTW...

Tara said...

Love this post! I was born in 74 and remember some of that stuff. I vaguely remember the Farrah bangs and I remember seeing my brother dress in disco gear before he went out dancing. Oh and I totally remember rotary phones! We had two functional phones and then one mysterious phone down in the basement that only picked up static and other people talking on another line.

Viki said...

silky shorts....(giggle)

Churlita said...

I rmemember WAY too much about the 70's. I tried to rock the Farrah Fawcett bangs, but my hair was too curly and it all just curled up. My brother used to call me gutter head. Oy.

laura b. said...

Mrs.BHW: It is ripe for the blogging! Glad you liked it :-)

Tara: I can picture your brother now in his Angel Flight pants and quiana shirt.
Oooh, a mystery phone! Thats kinda cool...

Viki: I know! ha!

Churlita: The 70's come back to me in bits and pieces...
Gutter head! Brothers are mean!

Anonymous said...

I went from 0-9 in the 70s....

I like your list, some of them I can remember personally and some I had to witness second hand (thank the maker).

I always figured that the old "duck and cover" drills were done so that when the government workers came by after "the big one", they could just take the human remains and stack them like folding chairs. Neat and nice and easy to move.

dmarks said...

"6) At school dances there would be these face offs between Rock and Disco fans. Apparently there was no other genre worth mentioning in the 70's. You admired one or the other."

I am remembering now the anti-disco riot they had in Chicago at one point. Thay love to feature footage of it in VH-1 music history documentaries.

Great post!

laura b. said...

Dmarks: Can you imagine that people hated disco enough to riot...well, yeah....
Glad you liked the post!

laura b. said...

Evil-E: You youngster!
ha! I had never considered the possibility that we were just being set up for easy stacking. That is very twisted :-)