My Seventies

The Me Decade

I turn three the summer of 1970

Elementary school years

Jimmy Carter is elected as the 39^th President of the United States in 1976

The United States celebrates its Bicentennial in 1976

I don't remember The Great Inflation of the 1970s and high unemployment

I remember the Shah of Iran and the Iran Hostage Crisis

T-shirts with iron-on transfers were popular

Blue jeans emerged in the 1970s as everyday wear. Denim was being mass consumed by all ages and seen as the ultimate American garment.

I wanted nothing to do with bell-bottom jeans

I was too young to truly appreciate girls wearing tube tops and halter tops

POLYESTER

LEISURE SUITS

JOGGING SUITS

DISCO

 

 



Leif Garrett in a leisure suit.



 

Flared blue jeans, halter top, cool hair.

 

I turned three in the summer of 1970. I turned 13 in the summer of 1980. So, the decade of the 1970s basically coincided with my elementary school years. The seventies encompassed most of my youth.

During the so-called Me Decade many people were focused on themselves rather than the world at large. 

This turning inward sometimes involved drugs, disco, yoga, meditation, jogging, or self-improvement seminars.

I was a child slowly transforming into a young man during the seventies. My life revolved around family, friends, church, school, television, movies, music, and books. The larger goings-on of the world affected or interested me little. 

During the seventies I began to experience close friendships. I stayed overnight with friends. We built blanket forts, played, watched TV, and listened to records. 

I remember the daredevil Evel Knievel who became an icon in the 1970s for his incredible motorcycle stunts.

Eventually, other daredevils would accomplish the feats Evel Knievel had and even top them. Some stuntman would do things on a motorcycle that Evel never dreamed of. But, I don't believe any stuntman will ever become a household name like him. No one will ever have the notoriety or display the showmanship that Evel did. He was larger than life, legendary, and icon. He was a hero. 

I had an Evel Knievel figure and Stunt Cycle produced by Ideal Toys.

 

Evel Knievel the daredevil icon.

 



The Evel Knievel figure and Stunt Cycle.



Even as a kid I gave some thought to what I wanted to be when I grew up. I considered being an astronaut. The final manned moon landing took place in December of 1972. I would've been five years old so I doubt I really remember that happening. Nonetheless, astronauts and rockets were still fascinating when I was in elementary school.

Apollo 11 successfully landed on the Moon’s surface in July of 1969. America had put a man on the Moon. Everyone knew who Neil Armstrong was. Everyone knew his famous words, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Apollo 17 marked the last moonwalk. This mission landed astronauts on the Moon for the last time in December 1972.

When I was a young boy space travel and astronauts were still fresh in the nation's consciousness. 

Of course I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to blast off in a rocket, navigate outer space, and walk on the moon. I wanted to wear the cool space suit. 

But since I was only a boy I had to make do with my imagination, toy rockets, and playing on the rocket slide at the park. Sometimes I wore a white nylon athletic jacket and pretended it was my space suit. I also had a pair of pajamas with pictures of astronauts and lunar modules on them.

 

A rocket slide.

 

I considered being a scuba diver or a deep-sea diver. The suits looked so cool. I used to watch Wild Kingdom. I recall seeing Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler using scuba equipment in some shows. “Jim's spear gun is loaded and ready, its point honed needle sharp.” 

A book I enjoyed as a kid was Look Out for Pirates published by Random House. In the book a sailor wears a deep-sea diving suit while searching for a box of gold. That book may have triggered my interest in deep-sea diving.

Also, the Disney movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea features a diving scene in which the divers wear some intriguing diving suits. This movie came out in 1954 but I saw it on television during the 1970s. The Nautilus submarine was so cool and the attack by the giant squid was amazing.

I was interested in cowboys too. I watched the TV show Bonanza as well as movies starring John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. I had a holster with six shooters, cowboy hat, and even a sheriff's badge. Sometimes I had cap guns and one time I had a gun that shot plastic bullets. Cowboys probably weren't as popular as during my father's generation but they could still be seen on TV and in movies in the 1970s. I even watched reruns of The Lone Ranger at times. A masked man who rides a white horse and fights for justice. How cool is that? 

I probably never really considered being a cowboy as a profession. We did have a couple of horses on the farm but I knew little about horse riding or throwing a lasso.

But, I guess I was figuring out what interested me and whom I idolized.

I idolized superheroes like Batman and Superman.

I watched reruns of the Batman TV series.

There was a resurgence in the popularity of skating in the 1970s and I was part of that phenomenon. My sisters and I went skating often on Sunday afternoons. 



In the middle 1970’s, disco music catapulted roller skating back into the spotlight. With customers flocking to rinks at a record rate, many entrepreneurs decide to build new state-of–the-art roller skating centers. Countless rinks were built with massive sound and lighting systems. The older, more traditional rinks made few updates, but still profited from the roller-disco craze.



A young woman at a roller skating rink in 1970s Florida.



I stayed overnight with friends occasionally during those elementary school days. Chris and I would make blanket forts. One night his mom let us split a frozen pizza between just the two of us. Chris and I saw Grease together in 1978. John Travolta was cool and Olivia Newton-John was beautiful. I saw Star Wars a year earlier with my family but Chris showed up at the theater too even though he'd already seen it. Chris had a lot of Star Wars trading cards. He even wanted to stage a play at school. I wasn't too keen on being cast as R2-D2 when he cast himself as Han Solo. The play never came to fruition so it didn't really matter in the end.

TV is important when you're a kid. At least it was for me. 

The Brady Bunch

The Partridge Family

Happy Days

Laverne and Shirley

Little House on the Prairie

Adam-12

Starsky and Hutch

Charlie's Angels

Donny & Marie

The Love Boat

Fantasy Island

The Six-Million Dollar Man

The Bionic Woman

Of course, I remember Saturday Morning Cartoons. Watching cartoons on Saturday morning was the highlight of my week. I liked Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! I also liked Josie and the Pussycats, Superfriends, and The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Hour.

I also enjoyed live-action shows like H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, Lidsville, Land of the Lost, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, The Kids From C.A.P.E.R., Shazam!, Isis, and The Krofft Supershow.

I didn't see a lot of movies in theaters as a kid. My family lived on a farm and it was hard to find the time to get to movies very often. I did see a few though.

One film I recall seeing with my parents was Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973). Digby accidentally drinks a top-secret growth formula and grows to gigantic proportions. It was a British film which is perhaps why many people aren't familiar with it.

My parents also took me to The Bad News Bears (1976), The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977), Star Wars (1977), and The Electric Horseman (1979).

I also saw The Rescuers (1977) and The Muppet Movie (1979). One outing was with my grandma and the other was with a friend. 

Thanks to my friend Chris I saw Murder by Death (1976) and Grease (1978).

I feel blessed to have seen Grease on the big screen. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were amazing.

Of course, the highlight of my movie watching experiences during the seventies was seeing Star Wars. “May the force be with you.” 

Nadia Comăneci is a Romanian Olympic gold medalist who, at the age of 14, became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 in the Olympic games during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

Future California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wins the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding title 1970 – 1975.

I remember Muhammad Ali being the Heavyweight Champion of the World.

FARRAH FAWCETT

I remember listening to 8-track tapes.

I remember listening to vinyl records.

I remember disco music. I remember Donna Summer. I remember the Bee Gees.

I remember ABBA and KC and the Sunshine Band.

I remember the Bay City Rollers.

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT!

I remember “The Ballroom Blitz” by the British rock band The Sweet.

I remember Manfred Mann's Earth Band cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded By The Light.”

THE BEATLES SPLIT UP

ELVIS DIES

I remember playing board games.

We read encyclopedias and looked through the JC Penney and Sears catalogs.

“Breaker 1-9. Do you copy?”

“That's a big 10-4 good buddy, it's time to put the hammer down.”

I didn't really bemoan the end of a decade. I was happy to enter junior high. It did feel like I entered a new phase of life though in the 80s. I didn't get toys for Christmas any more. I was too old to be playing with toys but it was kind of depressing getting something “practical” for Christmas like a sweater or a photo album. I didn't care much for most of the cartoons that were on in the 1980s. And, perhaps I was getting too old for them too. I didn't get to go with Mom to town as often and walk through the dime store. Increasingly, I had to stay and help on the farm. 

 As I grew older I took on more responsibilities at home on the farm. More responsibilities came at school too. By the time I was an eighth-grader we no longer had any recess. Not a single recess. We had a short break for lunch and then it was right back to class. But, junior high meant team sports which I was excited about. I was ready to wrestle on a team not just at occasional kids' tournaments.

Getting older isn't always easy. It's not always an easy transition. But, getting older also meant having the chance to be a high school wrestling champion, getting to drive, being able to see R-rated movies, go on dates, and possibly have S-E-X. So, it seemed like an okay trade. 

I turned thirteen and therefore became a teenager during the summer of 1980. I would begin junior high in the fall. The new decade had already begun months earlier with little fanfare at least for the sixth-grader I was. I didn't yet realize what changes the decade of the eighties would bring for me and the world - new presidents, new music, hormonal changes. Even though a new decade with new hope and promise had begun I believe that at some level I knew I would always fondly remember the seventies as a really groovy time.