I've been on something of a 70s jag lately. Call it sentimentality and a yearning for those things that represent (in memory anyway) much simpler times. The 1970s were my formative growing up years; a decade of time where I went from a dumb kid with no boobs to a smart ass know-it-all teenager with PMS. Last night as I tried to sleep with the DeFranco Family playing over and over in my head, I started thinking about really specific things I liked (and disliked about the 70s). This list could go on for days, of course; instead here's a partial list:
Good 1970s Things:
-Soul Train
-The Sunday Mystery Movie ("Columbo" "McCloud" "McMillian & Wife")
-Bicentennial Hoopla
-Tight skinny jeans (you had to lay down to zip them up) and Candie's wooden platforms
-My"Disco Sucks" T-shirt
-Tricked out vans with shag carpeting & 8-track tapes
-"Have a Nice Day"
-Cheap Humboldt dope
-The Firebird and the Cordova (with its fine Corinthian leather)
-Italian men
-Michael Bennett's original production of "A Chorus Line"
-"The Sony & Cher Good Time Hour"
-Space Food Sticks
-Ecology and that cool green decal
-Supertramp, Foreigner and Frampton
-Norman Lear's sitcoms
-Peasant blouses
-Newman & Redford
-The advent of punk rock
-Billy Martin
-Peter Finch's speech in "Network" ("I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!")
-Shaft, Superfly and Cleopatra Jones
-"The Dating Game"
-Barry White
-Woody Allen
-Quisp cereal
-Joe Tex' very un-PC (but funny) anthem "Ain't Gonna Bump With No Big Fat Woman"
-Those cheesy Coca-cola ads
-"Layla" by Derek & the Dominoes
-Bonne Bell lip smackers in root beer
Bad 1970s Things:
-Disco
-Polyester in all its evil forms
-Maxi skirts (I am still convinced they were named for Maxi-Pads)
-Men in Angel Flight pants and Members Only jackets
-Feathered hair (the catalyst for 30 years of hair anguish)
-Spandex
-The Watergate hearings on television (never ending)
-The Pinto, the Gremlin and the Pacer
-Screaming Yellow Zonkers
-Birkenstocks
-Tang (the beverage of the Astronauts!)
-"Keep on trucking!"
-Irwin Allen disaster movies
-The bump
-Tie Dye and hand stamped leather purses
-Black light posters
-Quaaludes
-Leisure suits
-Seventeen Magazine with their beautiful blond Breck Girls on the covers that undermined the fragile egos of gawky ugly ducklings with bad hair and skin (not like I knew what that was like or anything)
-Dippity-Do
-Pastel colored cowl neck sweaters
-George Steinbrenner
-Bell bottoms
-Copious male chest exposure/hair/gold jewelry (the 70s was very unkind to male fashion)
-"You Light Up My Life"
-Crocheted bikinis
-Mint green eyeshadow
-Those people who could do ALL the Duncan yo yo tricks (I never could manage Around the World or Walk the Dog)
-Hamburger Helper
I really could go on all night (and you know it) but enough from me. If you're old enough to remember the 70s, what are your highs and lows?
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4 comments:
C&W, I'm surprised you, of all people, forgot this one: pre-AIDS sex! The 70's had the 60's sensibility of free love without the 80's fear of AIDS. Good times.
Just wondering why so many people
think an earlier time or era was
always easier????
Oh well have some good wine this
weekend!
You're right, morewines. Memory mellows the hard edges of the reality of the time. But it was also 30 years ago and it gets easier to filter out all the dreck.
And Caryl, I confess I was a virgin until I went off to college. By then it was the 80s. I still made the absolute most of it. Condoms are your friends!!
Ack!!!! You said Quisp! I love Quisp! You can still buy it you know, at www.quisp.com
And for the record, no list of good things can be complete without a mention of The Bugaloos. They're in the air and everywhere, you know. :)
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