The only danger in opening mail from a mysterious sender in the s was the possibility of getting a chain letter. But unless you were especially superstitious, you could usually ignore those. Still, in the '70s, we would never open a letter and find out later, "Oh no! My house is infected with a virus now! What Farrah Fawcett poster, you ask? Okay, imagine a meme that's so popular, everybody in the world decides that it's the only meme that matters, and everybody wants their own copy of the meme so they can hang it on their bedroom wall, and simply displaying the meme means that you're somehow in the know with popular culture, that your tastes are more sophisticated than other kids' and that you understand something about the world that only adults really appreciate.
That was the Farrah Fawcett poster. Steven Spielberg's classic had almost no special effects, and we only saw the shark for a few minutes at the very end. But it had a psychological effect that made an entire generation terrified of getting into the water —we mean any body of water including pools, freshwater lakes, and maybe even the bath. We were certain we would see a shark fin gliding towards us, and we were moments away from being devoured alive.
There's no experience quite like letting your body sink into some shag carpeting. For a true '70s kid, nothing makes us smile like memories of doing snow angels on a shag carpet. Whether you were a city kid or a country child, leaving the house without being constantly patrolled by a parent wasn't a big deal in the '70s.
By today's standards, it was an unprecedented amount of freedom, and we relished every second of it. It wasn't just rare to see a kid in a bike helmet during the '70s, it was unheard of.
Even if you considered yourself something of a neighborhood Evel Knievel , wearing a helmet was like admitting to the other kids that you expected to crash. We probably had a few more concussions than necessary, but we didn't know at the time just how dangerous it was to have our craniums so exposed.
If you wanted to catch your favorite cartoons, there was only one time to do it: Saturday morning. We didn't have the luxuries of kids today, with their digital streaming services that make it possible for them to watch their favorite shows at any time, 24 hours a day. And we're happy we didn't.
Saturday morning cartoons taught us to be patient, and to be grateful for every last second of Bugs Bunny. You couldn't have a short attention span when there were only 30 minutes of Looney Tunes every week. If you weren't paying attention, you'd miss it all! Sure, But we didn't care. If anything, we reveled in the myth-making, eager to think that such flawless teenage titans as Shaun and David Cassidy existed in the world.
We didn't want to be told otherwise, and we sure weren't interested in what was going on in the adult news world. It's not just that we adopted rocks and pretended they were actual pets, akin to a dog or cat except incapable of showing real affection. We actually paid somebody to sell us those rocks, despite the fact that rocks are pretty much available for free everywhere you go. Yes, it was ridiculous, but it was a fun and harmless diversion.
The brilliance of Schoolhouse Rock is that it taught us timeless lessons about grammar , math , politics , and science without any of us realizing that we were learning. The cartoons were funny and the songs were catchy—we can still sing the whole " Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function " song without missing a beat—and, when it was all over, our heads were filled with facts and useful information that we probably would have ignored if it came from an actual school teacher.
Saturday Night Live is now an institution and one that you don't actually have to stay up late on Saturday to watch anymore. I don't recall there being a lot of racism, but there also wasn't a lot of blending. There were a few black kids in my classes, but not many. I got into a fight with one black girl who called me "honey-child" because I thought she called me a bad word.
It was her tone of voice, I guess. We slapped at each other, girl-style, and then the next day she taught me a hand jive that became our favorite thing to do on the playground.
All huge. And every time I hear the song "Celebration" I think of being in the 4th grade and having a jump-rope competition at school. In PE, they taught us square dancing. I loved it! Last edited by Niftybergin; at PM.. I was born in Pac Man, Asteroids, Donkey Kong If there is one thing that screams 70's it's this. Magnum Mike. Location: Arizona, The American Southwest. Big cars were around then, and they were reduced in size around for fuel economy.
I remember shortly after I turned 17, it was around this time of the year in , when my father had to wait in long lines at the gas stations. Gas prices were around 32 cents a gallon earlier in the year, then I remember gas shortages in the spring and summer of '73 caused gas prices to jump up to Then came the October war in the middle-east between Israel and it's neighboring Arab countries, and the OPEC oil embargo that followed because of the United States' support for Israel.
That caused even more gas shortages and gas prices shot up to around a 1. Cars from the s - The performance and the quality of cars from Detroit went downhill around because of tough economic times, and due to the OPEC oil embargo, the so-called "Big 4" auto-makers had to compromise on performance and reduce weight to improve the gas mileage.
I know when the Mustang II first came out, it was a joke, and it looked like a big Pinto, with a 4-cylinder engine. They also put the V-8 in them, but they were pathetic and nowhere near in the level of performance compared to the ones that were made up until Music of the s - Most will probably put that in one word - Disco! The popularity of Disco eventually diminished in the early s.
Also, in late , a new band came about that gave birth to a whole new style of Rock 'n Roll, when Van Halen's first album came out. Eddie Van Halen showed his flashy guitar style, with David Lee Roth's high-energy vocals, along with Alex Van Halen's drumming, and Michael Anthony's bass, who added to the rhythm section.
Movies - The Godfather, Star Wars, Jaws, Saturday Night Live, the Airport series of movies, which were sequels of the original Airport movie that originally came out in late or , continued with Airport 75, Aiport 77, and Airport There wee a number of the so-called "sit-com" situation comedy shows, although some were not really considered "comedy", but they still offered some laughs for the entire family.
Fashions - Bell-bottom denim jeans went away around the early s, but the denim remained, and the bell bottoms went to the Disco fashions. The "Plaid" pants were big back then too..
That's what I recall from the s. Originally Posted by lilred Born in , but the 70's were a blast Everything that was said in above posts.
My friends had a big oak tree in their yard which had a rope swing that went back and forth about 70 feet off a short hill, one time I slipped off and nearly went through a wooden fence but wound up with a slightly sprained ankle.
Several of the houses in the area had crabapple trees and we would sometimes have crabapple fights or throw them at the Metrobuses as they passed by our street.
When it snowed, we would get into tons of snowball fights, throw snowballs at the buses or occasionally cars. One day my friend hit a VW bug and the woman nearly jumped through the roof, it was hilarious.
In school, we played kickball, dodgeball, all the tag games, basketball, and soccer. Our playground equipment was made from solid pipes with aluminum sliding boards nice and hot in the summer.
If we weren't playing games, we would build dirt and mud forts and use army men for simulated battles. The big thing was pinball for us. I would load up quarters and head over to the ice cream store which had 3 machines, the game in the same shopping center had 2 of them.
We would go the the local mall which had 2 arcades to play pinball or go see a movie. We would be out from the time we got home from school until way past dark. My mom was a switchboard operator down the street and my dad was out of town a lot so I had to learn to cook using gas when I got home.
I would cook a hot dog on a huge fork over the gas or cook a frozen hamburger in a pan then pretend I was at Roy Rogers that's a fast food restaurant BTW and put ham and cheese on my burger. Great music, I'll add my favorite band Foreigner to the mix. Hated disco, but I remember my first junior high dance and requesting "Disco Duck". Originally Posted by Golfinnova. The movies and TV shows were great, as was the music.
We now know that most scientific studies on drugs and vaccination is not true science but industry funded propaganda. Who was the genius that started convincing parents to keep their children out of the mud and dirt and keep them saturated in chemical concoctions to remove bacteria? Today we know that parents who adopt and overly hygienic lifestyle for their children are at an increased risk of developing asthma, allergies and eczema.
Consequently their immune systems become so sensitive that the babies develop allergies. Scientists at the Food and Drug Administration FDA have at least partially admitted that anti-bacterial soaps may pose a threat to human health.
Combine this with geoengineering initiatives polluting the entire atmosphere with toxins, and you have a toxic planet from soil to sky. Developing children are at even greater risk than adults for harm from the above chemicals. A child in the s was far less poisoned overall than children are today. Current generations are exposed to toxic effects which are far reaching affecting almost every body system, so it is imperative that they learn how we must change our planet into one that is environmentally friendly with consumer products that benefit the planet and all its organisms rather than destroy it.
The 70s and 80s became the downfall of modern agriculture in terms of toxicity. The herbicide quickly established itself as a mainstream product for widespread agricultural and consumer use. Monsanto quickly began manipulating plant genomes to develop genetically-modified organisms GMOs that not only tolerated glyphosate-based pesticides, but required their use.
Up until the mid 70s we still had an amazing diversity of organic farms with very minimal pesticide use. The nutrient content of foods was still very high compared to today. With the advances in modern food technology came extended shelf life which added a tremendous diversity of emulsifiers, preservatives, artificial sweeteners to replace full-fat in dairy products, which led to low-fat and sugar-free products being introduced thereafter at the expense of our health.
Only then was there an influx of dozens of harmful ingredients that were incorporated into many foods. The balance and ratio that mother nature created for wheat was also modified and human digestion and physiology could simply could not adapt quick enough to the changes. The concept of gluten being a very dangerous protein was then investigated and hence today, many foods are gluten-free.
Dairy-free is another term that was absent from food labels. As milk became more harmful to human health through the introduction of more antibiotics, growth hormones and pasteurization, more people became increasingly ill in the 80s and onwards as factory milk farms created a liquid devoid of practically all nutrition. Besides the popularity of veganism today, more people are choosing dairy-free products due to what is now the inherent toxic nature of all processed cow milk.
We must realize that with every passing decade comes a cycle of change. We can never go back to who we were and our focus should be on making our future better for ourselves and our children. We can continue on this cycle of fear and raise a generation of timid and paranoid children, or we can empower them to become all that they can be, accepting consequences and responsibility of becoming mature, benevolent, conscious and loving beings. When love is in the equation, fear usually takes a back seat.
At that point, anything is possible.
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