1970's favorite memories!

Thought this might be the starter for a companion series of threads celebrating nostalgia! I chose the '70s, having been born in 1958 and view this decade as a "coming of age" marker.

FYI my reference in addition to memory is "70's All American Ads" published by Taschen. Taschen is a publisher of colorful books celebrating nostalgia in varied forms, from specific topics to generalized reviews by decade. My favorite and most treasured is a recently released "making of" 2001 A Space Odyssey collection housed in a metal reproduction of the "monolith." Brutally expensive, and almost immediately sold out!

I won't be posting pics of the topic as IIRC many of you view the forum on a tablet/smartphone and may have issues with data-rich threads!

Mods, please feel free to edit and suggest appropriate modifications!!

I took lots of pictures during the 70s and still have many color photos. In stark contrast to the smartphones of today, it was a dedicated chore to tote a bulky camera and have the negatives developed and printed! Another option was to create a motion picture with 8mm or Super 8 movie film, then watch them via projector to a screen in a dark room. Primitive!

Microwave ovens are a relatively inexpensive way to prepare and reheat foods. IIRC they were introduced for home use in the early 1970s. We had a very heavy Litton Industries unit with a door akin to a bank vault. No fancy electronic controls, just a round dial for timing and perhaps a switch or two for intensity. Lasted a very long time - no planned obsolescence as we see today!!

I wasn't born for another decade, so...

I loved the '70s, I was born in '62. We did not own a microwave until the '80s.
First of all, I loved the music, probably my favourite era. TV was awesome as well, which was good since we only had 3 channels for most of the '70s..lol. I remember watching MASH, Little House on the Prairie, All in the Family, Brady Bunch, and Chiller Theater and SNL on Saturday nights.

What I remember most is summers, and being able to leave the house early in the morning and come home at dark, and my family not worrying something had happened to me.

My favourite clothes were bell bottoms and hip huggers. I also had shirts that we called Butterfly shirts as the sleeves were wide and flared from the elbows down.

Born in "71 and I remember the 70s fairly clearly. Watching Sonny & Cher and Captain and Tennile singing on television. Roaming the neighborhood until dark, us kids were barely ever inside the house, it was more or less like a prison for us to be sitting inside!

Strawberry shortcake, Holly Hobbie. Candy necklaces and cigarettes, bubble gum cigars. Bubblelicious gum, pop rocks...

Shakeys pizza. Shag carpet, bean bags. Orange, green and gold decor, lava lamps. Pet rocks and walking an invisible dog....lol...best I could hope for since my parents wouldn't get me a dog!

Bee gees, Abba, Bonnie Tyler, Ambrosia, Player.

My little friend going to the corner store to buy her mom a pack of cigarettes....wouldn't be happening today! Thank God!

I'm sure I'll think up more later on

ToMang07 said:

I wasn't born for another decade, so...

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Perhaps you could host a decade from your formative years, ie the 1990s! That's still over 15 years ago. Plenty of room for a thread of the 1950s, 60s, and 80s!

Thank you for posting this Scott! This will be an interesting thread .

I can only see the 70's from a child's viewpoint. My parents were quite a bit older (compared to other kid's parents), so I had no idea what was really "cool" back then lol. I do remember absolutely hating the styles of all my clothes. Oh, you asked for "favorite" memories... let's see...

Morton boil-in-the-bag macaroni and cheese. It just had a 'different' taste from all other mac and cheese, and I LOVED it. Perhaps it was the plastic components leaching from the bag into the food ? But when I was little and first ate macaroni (elbow macaroni) I somehow had it in my head that there was a worm in each one. I had to cut each individual macaroni open with my fork, and even when I saw with my own eyes that there was no worm inside it, I still wouldn't believe it. I guess I eventually got over the phobia by the time I tried the Morton boil-in-the-bag.

RavensGryf said:

Thank you for posting this Scott! This will be an interesting thread .

I can only see the 70's from a child's viewpoint. My parents were quite a bit older (compared to other kid's parents), so I had no idea what was really "cool" back then lol. I do remember absolutely hating the styles of all my clothes. Oh, you asked for "favorite" memories... let's see...

Morton boil-in-the-bag macaroni and cheese. It just had a 'different' taste from all other mac and cheese, and I LOVED it. Perhaps it was the plastic components leaching from the bag into the food ? But when I was little and first ate macaroni (elbow macaroni) I somehow had it in my head that there was a worm in each one. I had to cut each individual macaroni open with my fork, and even when I saw with my own eyes that there was no worm inside it, I still wouldn't believe it. I guess I eventually got over the phobia by the time I tried the Morton boil-in-the-bag.

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Yep, just a kid in the 70s too, which is why I remember dolls and candy lol..I can't remember any food phobias but I probably had some. One thing I weirdly hated was my mom making me eat a full breakfast before school, oh how I hated that! All I wanted was cold Captain Crunch cereal! She was a stay at home mom until I was about ten, I think it was around that time that house moms had to go off to work and the kids became latch key kids. Before that most moms really didn't work outside of the home, many sold Avon products instead, my mother did that too.

Negative things about the 70s was that there must have been a lot of drunk driving, I remember going to my friends house and her weird drunk stepdad drove us drunk with a beer in his cup holder all the way to the store. I was terrified! Obviously I must have knew that was wrong even at a young age.

We need an 80s thread after this woot!

I was an only child, so I had no music influences from older siblings, I would of course be subjected to whatever my mom listened to at home. Since she was on the conservative side, rock n' roll or disco did not appeal to her. I grew up listening to The Carpenters, Captain and Tenille, Olivia Newton John, Neil Diamond, Bread. Stuff like that.

I remember going to Tower Records with my mom to buy "records". I remember seeing interesting album covers like David Bowie, and urging my mom to buy it. She always said no lol.
Also at Tower Records, they had some "interesting" objects for sale in the glass cases. Beautifully colored swirled glass 'vase like things'. Every time we went there I'd always go over to the case to look at these fascinating objects and ask my mom what they were. I forgot what she said. Every time I would tell my mom to buy one. She never did. Hm, apparently they were marketed for smoking ahem... 'tobacco'. I can't believe they sold those at a mainstream record store.

The 70's were good to me. My two last years of HS and graduation in 72. Finally able to leave home and listen to the music I liked, away from mom's ever watchful eye. Making up for everything I wasn't able to do. Becoming the independent person I already was!
Music, playing guitar, my first job. Getting married, having two children. I packed a whole lot into that decade!

I WAS ALSO BORN IN '62.

We actually didn't come back to the States until '74. We spent '68-'74 in South America.

I was a skate and surf rat through the rest of the 70's, the 80's the 90's and pretty much the 00's. My life revolved around skateboarding and surfing... (I hadn't yet discovered skydiving.)

My memories of the 70's involved flipping out of empty swimming pools, and tagging along with an older crowd, sleeping out on the beach, beach bonfires, and then hitting the (ice cold) waves at dawn. (A lot of that stuff they have since made illegal. My daughter's generation misses out on all this. Illegal to sleep on the beach. Illegal to build a bonfire. We used to sleep out at Davenport. There is a rock shelf, where at high tide, the waves move onto the rock shelf, and get hollow. At high tide, there's a mushy left point break. Steamer Lane, and Pleasure Point were the go to breaks in Santa Cruz...

1980 was actually the summer of my senior year, and we spent that summer chasing hurricane swells up and down the coast. The last day of our trip we scored a perfect 12 foot (triple overhead!) South swell, and I was out for about 12 hours until my arms turned to jello. I was paddling full speed ahead, and not going anywhere. The rest of the 70's were spent "in preparation" for that particular moment in time...

Music? San Francisco had music everywhere, all the time! And since Bill Graham lived here, the concerts usually lasted longer. They used to have days on the green where for about 18 bucks, you could sit on the grass and watch about three top name acts, and two or three more up and coming acts. (Of course, grass was for more than just sitting on... at those things!)

My first car was a 1959 TR3... that didn't run very long. Cool car. TERRIBLE electrical system. TERRIBLE transmission. Ate batteries and rear ends. Long story short, they don't slide around corners, the "hop" around corners. Not enough weight in the rear end. The front comes around quick, and the back sort of bounces... Which is great fun on Highway 1 North in Cali.... EXCEPT at extreme high tide, the water in Bolinas Bay comes right up to the edge of the roadway, and there really is no shoulder. I took a 25 mph curve "a little" too fast... HOP HOP HOP SPLASH! THEN THE TRUNK FILLED UP WITH SEAWATER, AND I WATCHED MY CAR SLOWLY SINK INTO BOLINAS BAY, WITH ME STILL SITTING IN IT! (FORTUNATELY IT WAS A CONVERTIBLE! I WASN'T IN DANGER OF DROWNING... ONLY... HAVING TO EXPLAIN TO MY FATHER HOW MY CAR WOUND UP AT THE BOTTOM OF BOLINAS BAY... AS IF THAT'S A TOUGH ONE TO FIGURE OUT... )

1979... what a way to end the decade, eh?!

MY NEXT CAR WAS A VW BUS!!!

Music: I really loved the 70s and to a great extent the 80s as well. More than half of my downloaded music is from the 70s, a large number from the 80s, and the balance 90s or later.

Décor: In the late 70s my parents redecorated the house with orange (!) mid-length shag carpet with diffuse vertically striped wallpaper in many rooms that had orange/yellowish hues. Very funky but it worked!

Air travel: Commercial travel was still fairly comfortable with abundant frills in the first half or so of the 70s. Deregulation occurred in the U.S. and the great rollback of comfort began in the latter half. Seats had generous legroom, meals served on almost every segment, postcards/stationary and assorted gadgets were available. But it was relatively expensive and folks mostly dressed up to fly! Widebody equipment such as the 747, DC-10, and L-1011 were prolific and piano bars/lounges were a competitive effort.

Clothing: Bell bottoms, Levis, and colorful Hang Ten T-shirts were popular in my school. Proud to say I never had a white belt!!

Film: Grease, Apocalypse Now, Animal House, Easy Rider, Star Trek the Motion Picture, Godfather II, Invation of the Body Snatchers, and The Black Hole were released in the 70s.

Cars: My first was a 1975 Ford Pinto Hatchback, white with orange Landau Roof! Lots of mechanically awful cars were produced by US manufacturers while some high quality imports set the pace for the next few decades.

Julie, I had not thought of Tower Records in ages!! I waited in line there to buy John Travolta's album! I also had a nice little collection of their "glassware"
It went well with the black light posters and lava lamp.

Everyone our age hung out at Tower records AT LEAST once a week...

And actually I had about 600 records... including all or most of David Bowie's stuff.

Levi's bell bottoms, and lightning bolt, or hang ten tees... Gerry Lopez was king of the pipe, and most all the surfers wore bolts, including me.

Along with Vans shoes, and flip flops. (Mostly flip flops, which I still consider my "shoe" of choice. Come to think of it, I still have a pair of Vans too.)

Terry57 said:

Julie, I had not thought of Tower Records in ages!! I waited in line there to buy John Travolta's album! I also had a nice little collection of their "glassware"
It went well with the black light posters and lava lamp.

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Oooh, Oooh, Mr. Kotter! (Horshack in "Welcome Back Kotter") Terry, you just triggered a hilarious memory referencing Tower Records! During the 70s there was a record store chain called "Wherehouse." My maternal grandmother moved nearby circa 1975. One day visiting the mall she gazed at the bright neon sign and exclaimed "Is that legal" while momentarily thinking it said "Whorehouse." Funny, since she had recently moved from Las Vegas!! (never legal in Clark County, but....)

Oh yeah, black light posters!! AFAIK lava lamps have been available as retro items for years.

Waterbeds! Who among us had a waterbed? They were the rage in that decade. Most were simply large bladders contained in a wood or metal structure, and had a definite wavy motion. Later versions had compartments to dampen the movement yet still allow for the cushy ambiance.

RavensGryf said:

I grew up listening to The Carpenters, Captain and Tenille, Olivia Newton John, Neil Diamond, Bread. Stuff like that.

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It's a wonder she wasn't arrested for cruelty to children... but enforcement was LAX in those days.

Publicly admitting that must be tough....

Although, Karen Carpenter was a graduate of Long Beach State (my undergrad)

(We didn't have many famous Alumni... )

Movies: There were A LOT of Classic 70's movies!!!

All those great Mel Brooks movies: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein...

MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL... (It's just a flesh wound!)

Jaws, Star Wars, the Godfather, the Exorcist, One Flew Over the CooCoo's nest, American Graffiti, the sting, Close encounters, Alien...

Of course I had a waterbed!

If you didn't have a waterbed, you weren't cool...

AND NOW, SUDDENLY I FEEL VERY, VERY OLD...

Scott said:

During the 70s there was a record store chain called "Wherehouse." My maternal grandmother moved nearby circa 1975. One day visiting the mall she gazed at the bright neon sign and exclaimed "Is that legal" while momentarily thinking it said "Whorehouse." Funny, since she had recently moved from Las Vegas!! (never legal in Clark County, but....)

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Oh that's hysterical Scott! She recently moved from Vegas :18:! If I remember correctly, I was still seeing Wherehouse stores here into the 00's.

Groovy car you had back then too . I was too young to drive, but I remember the "boats" my parents used to drive. You didn't need to wear your seat belt either!