I miss the 1970s so much

The music and my parents being young.

Me being young and my parents being alive.

the creeping, imperceptible aids, op

Eldergay here. I started college in 1970 and those four years attending a very liberal university had a profound affect on this uptight closeted Catholic kid from the lily white suburbs. The cliche of tie-dyed, bell bottomed, longhaired hippies smoking dope and practicing "free love" and "flower power" while listening to the Stones, Elton, Neil Young, Marvin Gaye, Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, etc was my reality. Social activism, especially anti war / anti Nixon protests, became commonplace and considered acceptable, not subversive. Coming out as a gay man in that environment was pretty much a non-event because no one cared. Attitudes about sex (straight, gay, bi or group) were changing rapidly and who you slept with - or how many you slept with - was a non-issue. (I lost count by my junior year.) Re-entering the real world four years later was an adjustment but by then social mores in the general populace had begun to change.

The movie Almost Famous captures the early 70's perfectly.

^Totally agree. That movie does

Earth tones in every room in the house (except the bathrooms)

Star Wars, actual newspapers, three TV networks, the advent of video games. Oh, and the annual Sears, JC Penney and Montgomery Wards Christmas catalogs.

[quote]Earth tones in every room in the house (except the bathrooms)

Depends on whether you flushed or not.

Shtudio 54. I had the besht time!

Ennui.

We had actually considered the thread title as an alternate name for Datalounge. We ultimately killed it because we thought it would bring in too many heteros.

But it does succinctly sum up most of what is posted on here.

I know what you mean, OP.

Kids playing outdoors, no electronic devices or social media, affordable housing, FANTASTIC movies and music, feathered hair and muscle cars.

Ignored mental health issues in children. I was just being “moody and difficult “.

Maybe it was the great music

Like this

And this

But NOT this

I wasn't around in the 1970s (barely), so I guess I can't technically miss ANYTHING. But I watched so much 1970s (and 50s and 60s) TV in reruns, I grew to love them. Now I watch it as confort content, when my anxiety flares. So I'm grateful for all of the great television the decade gave us.

Hmmm, maybe not so much if you were British.

We had power cuts, 3-day working week and lots of IRA bombs. Also, uncollected rubbish (garbage) and the dead weren't buried/cremated. Unemployment and inflation were both rapidly rising.

I don't look back on my early childhood with much pleasure, even though we weren't troubled by most of the problems.

R19, I'm with you. I didn't grow up in this time, but it seemed like such a great time for art and it's one of my favorite decades of TV, film, and theatre. I think AIDS took a lot of the great creators and tastemakers away and we've never quite recovered.

r4: exactly, to a T, me.

Not a heck of a lot, OP. I liked the music and did have a swell of bicentennial pride in '76, but other than that, I hated the decade. The 80s too. I blossomed in the 90s as I feel a lot of us did.

Childhood road trips in the faux wood paneled station wagon stopping at roadside gas and souvenir shops (Stuckey's). Loved spending nights in those roadside motor court motels went my father got too tired to drive at night.

People were skinny. The fattest kid in our class was merely plumpish.

The Star Spangled Banner playing when the T.V. channels signed off at 2:00 a.m. Then snow or those colored bars on the screen. Spooky in a cool way.

Oh, yeah, and no parents around!

123456789101112 Now illegal crt according to rhonda KEEP JAMMING FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS

^^^ there’s rainbows in there too OMG RHONDA IS TRIGGERED

70s commercials seemed so cool and happy

[quote]The Star Spangled Banner playing when the T.V. channels signed off at 2:00 a.m. Then snow or those colored bars on the screen. Spooky in a cool way.

Perfectly captured in Polergeist.

I want to grow up in the 70s

Still loving Christmas, playing outside and riding bikes, pinball machines, drive-in movie theaters, Saturday morning television, prizes in cereal boxes, cool toys that made you think, flea markets where I could buy a ton of comic books for $1, kitschy amusement parks and tourist traps, going to the local convenience store and being able to buy candy for a quarter, metal lunchboxes, the fabulousity of the ABC TV movie....

Don't forget John Cassavettes movies

I miss TV signing off. End already. Goodnight!

Everyone can be thankful for the existence of an era when musicians could actually play instruments skillfully, here is an example. Click track and auto tune free zone.

R24 EXACTLY my childhood. Long road trips, Stuckey's pecan logs, overnights at South of the Border, great music on the radio, mom and dad young and adventurous (sigh).

life before the 'Reagan 80's" and the dreck that it brought forth.

The perverse fascination of seeing ladies with hair curlers at the supermarket.

(My mother wouldn't have been caught dead doing that.)

No autotune

My Mother was 29 in 1970, still fit and adventurous at 82. She gained some sort of spark back after the death of my Father 20 years ago.

They had a really happy marriage, but he stifled her somehow? She's never wanted to date again and is more likely to say fuck off than no way.

That first time you hear the birds that begin singing right before dawn and you realize, fuck, you've been up all night, and maybe cocaine isn't as harmless as Brian told you it was and I wonder if he's still awake and maybe I can get just a little more and fuck I need to be in Woodland Hills by 9 but I bet if Brian's still awake and got some I could drive there and get some and do just a little more and still get to Woodland Hills in time wait is there just a little more in the folded magazine page fuck now that's just dust but maybe I'll call Brian now....

Hope. I miss having hope.

Quaaludes

I wasn't born till the 1980s, but looking back on the 1970s and imagining what I'd feel like as a gay guy back then, it fills me with dread.

I'm not saying I shout from the rooftops that I'm gay, but it must have been horrible to live in a time where open discrimination and hate was common and knowing nothing would be done about it if it happened to you.

R43 It must have been horrible.

R44 No exactly.

lol, r37, and what r31 said.

Especially Christmas.

The early 70s was the apex, and the last of, downtown, stand alone, department stores.

Go ahead, laugh in derision : My 60s and 70s childhood was spent in Milwaukee.

Nothing would thrill us more than when Mom and Dad bundled us up in our winter coats, mittens and hats a couple of times during the holidays, piling us into the station wagon with the big backseat and ultra-dangerous, facing-the-back-windshield mini-couch to take us downtown to see Wisconsin Ave. lit up with holiday lights.

Boston Store, Gimbels, you name 'em, all lit up in the corniest, gaudiest, kitschiest displays known to humankind, but to our little, dazzled eyes, they were magic.

Our parents were working class, but those were the days when parents, whose education ended at a high school diploma, could get low-skilled, high paying union job at a manufacturing plant.

That kind of jobs economy is gone, and it ain't never coming back, but it was glorious while it lasted.

Men in tight jeans.

[QUOTE] R37 The perverse fascination of seeing ladies with hair curlers at the supermarket. (My mother wouldn't have been caught dead doing that.)

My friend who was a hairdresser at the time said that 'Ladies were perming/curling three hairs and a nit (head louse)'.

The ability to speak freely without constant fear of being cancelled.

R49 "homo" "faggot" "queer" "diesel dyke" "fairy" "maricon" "sissy" ... yep, the 70s freedom of speech was so much fun.

All the crazy toys, like Twist of Lemon (or Lemon Twist?) which one wore around the ankle and jumped over it as it swept around.

And Big Wheels, my Jane West cowgirl action figure with all the wee Western accessories, playing all the various forms of tag in the cul-de-sac until dark.

R50 One could argue there was more sexual freedom and even acceptance in the 70’s. With 600 anti-LGBT state laws in various states of approval I think I’d endure a slur or two instead of the subversive hatred we’re experiencing right now.

The music.

The 70s for me were high school and college. I don't miss the person I was. Poor, socially inept, ADD, bullied the first two years in hight school, and desperate to be "normal." I wasted my college education because I had no direction, no one to guide me (my father died when I was seven), and no mental health help that I really needed. During that time, I learned to suppress every humiliating memory in order to survive. That included being bisexual/gay. There's only one person I'm in touch with from college. I was a total immature mess. Then I graduated college and I didn't get a real job until 1981. Yes, I lived at home with my mother until I got that job.

On one hand, I had a lot of fun. I also had an awful time.

R50 At least people were expressive. They could say things without having to worry about losing their livelihoods. You knew where you stood with them unlike now where they keep things inside so you always have to wonder.

R30, that link was groovy! One thing that really strikes me about those commercials is how naturally pretty--even beautiful--the women were; such a contast to the eyebrow-stenciled, lip-lined, sausage-curled hussies who are held up as pretty today.

Yes R54 white men felt free to hold forth and vent about anyone and anything without fear of reprisal.

My parents being young, the way that time seemed endless, the way distractions were few. The meadows full of butterflies, bugs and caterpillars that fascinated me as a kid, the sky full of birds. A firm separation between adults and children, no need to pander to either, being left alone to explore the world and run around with friends when we were little. The smell of the ubiquitous Tussilago in spring, all along the rivers.

R47...you beat me to it.

Born in 1963...

What all other posters have written is true. I'd just add that there was greater commonality in popular entertainment. I can remember the great miniseries on television like "Roots." Or sports. The network news. Carol Burnett on Saturday nights...all the other variety shows...talk shows like Merry Griffin, Mike Douglas, Dinah Shore...Cable changed it only a bit in the 80s and 90s. The internet and social media ruined it.

How were the 80s bad?

I'm sorry but I liked the 80s

R13- I wasn’t that fond of feathered hair. I always preferred the long straight early 1970’s Marcia Brady type of hair.

R59 Reagan, crack, AIDS, death to Disco, and the war on drugs

R62- I agree, the 1980's

SUCKED in every way.

Saturday Night Live was actually funny

Jimmy Carter. I was very young when he was president, but he had a wonderful aura, and my parents liked him so I did too.

Natural beauty - girls with long, healthy hair, not much makeup, guys with shaggy hair and thin, natural bodies

Vinyl records with fascinating covers

The true golden era of American cinema

R64- Girls like this

GAY Brady and his lover ca. 1973

I miss that no one was a " victim" then.

The Women's Movement and Gay Pride.

Even in my tiny hometown in PA Dutch country, I was involved in both. My friends were college students I'd met riding my bicycle to N.O.W. (National Organization for Women) meetings, and they took me to marches in Philly and Pittsburgh and D.C. in their VWs. They lovingly called me their "little mascot." What an education that was for a naive 14-year-old girl! My high school was surprisingly liberal and I was given time off from school to go to two different N.O.W. conventions and strangely enough, my parents just seemed glad to have me out of their hair. Looking back, I can hardly blame them.

It was all so new then! The "liberation" movements, the heavy political discussions, the excitement of working for a better future -- whoever said "hope" above was exactly right. There was hope then. The young Boomer protesters had forced the old guard to end the war in Vietnam, and we young people coming right behind them had no place to go but up.

Of course, me not knowing what to do after high school and wanting to meet other lesbians, I went into the Army in 1977, and it was all downhill for me for the rest of the 70s. Still, I'll never forget that time.

R65 lesbian hair ironers

The paneling ! It’s the future!

Don't want to type lots of words, but I miss the whole fucking decade. That was the only time in my life that I would like to go back to and spend a week (at least).

People were more laid back and that changed during the 80's. I blame Reagan.

Such a wonderful creative fun time when people weren’t obsessed with money - just fun, good movies, sex, good music. Simpler time - but without the uptight ness and rules of the 50s/60s. I was just a kid and then became a teenager in the God awful, AIDS-plagued, disco-hating, Republican 80s. My whole young adulthood was about trying to live like I was in the 70s - which I did in 1990s NYC. The house music club scene was neo-disco and with HIV awareness and condoms, there was some increase in sex fun. But capitalism became brutal and making a living and money trumped everything - so never as free and fun as the 70s.

Food tasted better. I’m not sure if it was better quality or my tastebuds weren’t dead sacs on my tongue.

As beautifully stated above, I miss the time when my mom was young and still full of life. Drive-in restaurants and movie theaters. Penny candy and a surprisingly addictive toy called Knockers(Klackers). Knocker/Klackers were made of two, heavy acrylic balls attached to thin rope. Everyone would stop in their tracks to watch you knock your Klackers because you would inevitably hurt yourself(or someone else). If you didn't want someone around you would turn them on your target as a sort of nunchucks weapon.

Walking in the city (Atl) with my mother. She always dressed in cute summer dresses and she wore her hair just like Marlo Thomas in That Girl, which was the still the style for 30 something year old women. ( Men would nearly drive into the sidewalk looking at her) We walked all over Atlanta window shopping and always ended the afternoon at the Varsity. The city was so clean and safe then. You could hear music from the outdoor cafes. To Sir With Love is one song I remember hearing often. After lunch we walked back to her physicians office in midtown. She would hop on the exam table , cross her shapely legs, and rattle off a treasure trove of all the prescription medications she wanted. Like ordering dinner. Eskatrol, Valium, barbiturates. Uppers, downers, never frowners. Her doctor would just smile and say " Now slow down Miss Charlotte, I can only write so fast." I would just there quietly eating the candy bar he always had for me, silently wondering if it was normal to require enough medication to fill a pharmacy. Mothers Little Helper indeed. Green. All of the greenery. No ugly strip malls. No heavy traffic. I miss feeling safe and I so miss my mother. .

I miss entire decades where we were spared the ubiquitous proliferation of social media. I miss that fact that EVERYONE did not fee the need to share their EVERY thought, event etc.

Shit like (DL thread) would never have hit the airwaves, and we were all better for it.

R54 R67 All these "the 70s weren't 'woke' and so they were so much better!" sound pretty cringey-victim.

I miss the 70s and I wasn't even alive then. Wish I had a time machine.

The 1970's for me was definitely the GOOD OLD DAYS

I took an after school job at a tropical fish store, and spent my paychecks at Sam Goody and Spencer Gifts. I purchased blacklights, black velvet wall posters (ghost ship), incense, and vials essential oils. Hundreds of hours spent in my room listening to Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, and Patti Smith.

My parents hated my music, the rancid smelling aromatics, and me. Good times.

There were some materialistic minded parents in the 70s

My age... 15-25 ☹️

Not one thing.

Not even the prospect of looking forward to being a whiny nostalgic bitch a half century later.

I think it's nicer than today.

You could get laid every time you walked to the city on foot. Unfortunately love was harder to come by. Most gay men were not just closeted but actively homophobic.

R86- Get laid every time you walked to the city on foot-

ONLY if you were attractive. Noticeably attractive.

I'm assuming you were really good looking yourself at that time.

The sex. The feeling of freedom. It was in the air. I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and it was a great time to be young with hormones raging. I was luckier than most of my fronds. I survived it so there is that bittersweet shadow side to the sensuality/sexuality of the 70's that was AIDS. A good friend of mine who passed away form AIDS reminisced before passing that the 70's was one big party to which everyone was invited. It's true. It was a much more open and welcoming time. The shedding of uptight attitudes brought about an openness that I don't think we have regained. I'm not one to live in the past but I'm happy to have experienced such a dynamic era of social and sexual change first hand. I have a similar background to [R4] as far as education and journey it seems. Glad we made it through with fond memories.

Not true r87. People were not as hung up on looks back then. They weren't saving themselves for a ten and they didn't feel demeaned if they slept with a quasimodo.

Sex was a gift to share, not a neo-puritan "My body is a temple" shame vehicle.

^ And boy did I share it :)

I lived on the UWS and the Village during the '70s and, while maybe I didn't get laid every single time I left the house, sex certainly was plentiful. I was probably a 7. While there is truth to every post between r86 and this one, r86's claim that love was harder to find rings true to me.

I had no problem finding sex on the streets in 10023, 10003, 10014, and 10011. But when I fell in love with someone with whom I was perfectly, astonishingly, thrillingly compatible, sexually speaking, he could not fall back in love with me. Maybe it was his internal homophobia that was responsible. I've thought about that over the years.

In any case, the 1970s were the time of my life. And miraculously, I survived it.

Dazed and Confused captures the vibe of the 70s perfectly

Almost Famous attempted to capture that same vibe, but the cast - Kate Hudson, Fairuza Balk, Jimmy Fallon, Anna Paquin, Bijou Phillips, Jason Lee, Patrick Fugit - just reek 2000s

I was born in 79 so wasn’t around for the most part, but I’ve found it really interesting reading people’s recollections and thoughts. Looking back I think I always tend to dismiss the 70’s for its horrible decor, hairstyles and fashion but it sounds like it was a great decade to be around.

Back in the 70s if you said the wrong thing to the wrong person, you didn't get cancelled. You just ended up in the river with a bullet in the back of the head, and no one cared.

Except that today it happens if someone imagines you cut them off in traffic, so at least the world of R95 was more personal.

The freedom of riding my bicycle all over my small hometown. Now I'm afraid of injury or pitbulls or crime or just looking stupid.

Much of my childhood was spent in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, NC. I loved the freedom of riding my 10 speed all over both towns. My friends and I enjoyed freedom that today's helicoptered kids could never understand. Childhood is supposed to be spent learning the skills and critical thinking to achieve independence from one's parents. Those days are sadly long gone. Now once you have kids, don't look for them to ever move out, or even do their own laundry. We had it good, boys!

I had hair, hope and a great ass. None of which survived the '80s.

I miss Anita Bryant!

I miss homosexuality being listed as a mental illness!

R97 isn't aware that there was more crime in the 70s than there is now.

Yup, r98.

Our parents kicked us out of the house, as soon as Saturday morning chores were done.

"Stay outside and play and we don't want to see you back here unless somebody is dead or bleeding!"

Then off we went, for hours.

Ice skating and sledding in the winter at the local park's frozen lagoon and hill (I'm amazed now remembering how we could spend hours out in the cold and not be bothered by it), and swimming in the Summer.

I know it's corny and cliche to write this, but I look back at the 70s with a lot of poignancy.

Those truly were simpler times.

Please, you guys weren't riding your bikes, you were sitting on your butts watching Maude and Wonder Woman

The same conservatives who think kids are "coddled" are the ones trying to limit what books kids can read or what they can learn about in schools. Weird.

I miss AM top 40 radio.

The 70s truly was the best and worst ("Last Game of the Season", aka "The Blind Man in the Bleachers") in pop music,

The Stylistics, Del Fonics, Jackson 5, The Osmonds (I was a secret Osmonds fan. You had to pick a side, The Jackson 5 or The Osmonds. I loved the Jackson 5 more, but still.)

I had a YUUUGE crushes on Michael Jackson, Michael Nesmith, David Cassidy.

Anyone have one of these babies? I still have mine packed away.

Country music that wasn’t about trucks and beer.

I'm a Reba fan, r107.

Hearing her version of "Why Can't He Be You", however, compared to Patsy Cline, only reminds me of what of singular, overwhelming gift that Cline's sound.

To me, when it comes to sheer, raw, talent, Cline has a place next to Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Aretha Franklin and Streisand.

I don’t miss the past. I recall it.

R82 -Thanks so much for posting that video!

it took 110 responses before somebody posted this?

[quote] Please, you guys weren't riding your bikes, you were sitting on your butts watching Maude and Wonder Woman

We WERE though. Although, yeah, it is a little hard to remember those days. Now, even leaving the damn house don't come easy.

I love that freedom comes up again and again and again in this thread. There was a sense, I think, that we were on a path to freedom that got cut short. Yes, part of that freedom, that sexual freedom in particular, led to the horrors of AIDS, but I think we abandoned too much freedom in our community. And of course the wider community went into a real panic, not just about us, but about the whole idea of real freedom, and fled to Nixon and Reagan to take it all back. We made a mistake, and I hope we correct that mistake sometime, hopefully in my lifetime.

Incidentally, whatever happened to Platonic Caveman? I think he had some of that spirit.

The Nestea plunge commercials. One time my friend and I came home from church and decided to do the Nestea plunge in our backyard pool, in our Sunday best. My parents thought it was funny. I did it several more times over those years.

I thought the guy in this one was hot, as well.

Sleeping on my my parents’ bedroom floor in the summer because it was the only room with an air conditioner. Still remember how quiet and cool and safe it felt.

The smell of freshly cut grass and the rattling of ice in the adults’ cocktails as we swam unsupervised in backyard pools.

Men with pubic hair, lots of it. In my high school locker room, our pool's lifeguards not afraid to show a little of it above their speedos, and those early Playgirl centerfolds (pubes for days).

I couldn't resist...

But THAT'S the 70s spirit r117. No need to resist. Just do it, man.

It's funny op. I was born in the '80s. I felt like the 70s was a world away. I remember my mom showing this movie Alice's Restaurant. Some nostalgic childhood memories to her.

... It just made me think that people in that era were really old , different and weird. Obviously it was only 20-30 years away from the 90s -00s so it wasn't that different.

As I've gotten older. I've learned not to be so time-est.

Harold and Maude was weird to me too. Love story was weird. What's up Doc was weird. Shaggy Dog and Herby was weird.

Well, everybody is old, different, and weird after awhile. And not that long awhile. Part of the fun of getting old is watching all the new, hot things become old, different and weird.

And the worst response: I'll stay young and current! No, don't. Just ... don't.

In the summer, it meant endless days of playing. Roller skating, swimming, playing with the water sprinkler, watching the 3 pm movie on tv. I remember my brother and I loving mad magazine, Saturday morning cartoons, a train set . . . and always avoiding my volatile dad.

Everyone knows their precise worth now. Back then you could spot and make it with a beauty who had no idea how beautiful they were. You made it your job to let them know and they would be genuinely surprised. In a word, there was modesty.

[quote]Men in tight jeans

Where have you been for the past 20 years?

R114, you need to link to the actual site you want us to see, not your Google search.

Great music

Saturday morning cartoons

Cheap hot guys in disco clothes

Excellent Red Sox teams

1972 Olympics in Munich when Mark Spitz was the gold medal winning champion

The Poseidon Adventure

The Poopside Down Adventure

My parents big house filled with warm tones and security. Mom and Dad being happy in the prime of their lives. Young siblings, family parties, sailing and cycling.

Graduating from college and beginning my career in advertising for a large department store. Wood paneling, copywriters, layout artists, crazy art directors, a drama queen white-gloved manager (shades of Bette Davis's Baby Jane), lots of gay co-workers in a store full of dreams and wonders. Furniture, fashions, toy department, grand interior, over-the-top Christmas decorations, a huge central tree, and the excitement of a vibrant downtown. Fast cars and youth, nightclubs, parties, and lovers. Dreams and goals ahead of me, now memories of the past.

Mary, Rhoda, and Phyllis

[quote]R128 What do you miss about the 1970s?

My original face.

I was born in ‘62, so I was a kid for most of it, but I remember how isolated we were. I knew my town well, neighboring towns a little, and Boston which was 30 miles away, pretty well, but other cities were mostly a mystery. You’d have to do actual research to find out what a city like San Francisco was like, short of going there. The only things that really mattered were local. Everyone wasn’t a narcissist curating their social media accounts. Life really was simpler.

The thing is, it didn't feel isolated r131. Felt like riding my bike everywhere I felt like. I suspect kids feel much more isolated these days, and it's not like there is absolutely no reason. I get why parents are very nervous if the kid is gone for hours. But our parents weren't. It was nicer that way.

Cher, Tina Turner and Kate Smith singing in Beatles medley on the Cher show. Classic 70s...

I don’t really remember the 70s. I discovered marijuana in approximately 1972 and I don’t think the THC was ever out of my system until I quit everything and got sober in 1984. (The thing I heard was that THC remains in your system for 13 days and I NEVER went 13 days without getting high.)

Well, r134, this happened. Actually, a lot of this happened.

I'll try it again, R126.

Summers were hot...winters weren't too cold...but when it snowed we got off school..and u were just sent home...and there was a parent there to welcome u and take off ur damp clothes, make u soup and u watched an old movie on TV, probably a Betty Grable or Deanna Durbin( Judy and Doris Day films were given prime slots on weekends).

Not John Wayne r137? Oh, son. Oh look, here's a Tarzan movie. Hey, don't look so interested!

Never sure I understood the New York Times effect on man. The Washington Post effect on man was the collapse of Nixon. That was pretty dramatic.

Being able to shop in the downtown of just about any town in the country and it being a different experience from the other towns and villages.

The music was awesome and authentic.

“Oh zephyr winds which blow on high, lift me now so I can fly”.

“Electra awesome!”

Big cars.

[quote]Never sure I understood the New York Times effect on man.

Arts & Leisure thenadays...the Gay Sports Section.

[quote]Graduating from college and beginning my career in advertising for a large department store.

Which one? I did copywriting for Frederick & Nelson and Woodward & Lothrop. I was offered a job at Macy's I probably should have taken. But oh well!

We had Neil Diamond. Ain't gonna lie. Thank you for being you, Neil Diamond.

Sitting at the radio waiting for your school district to announce its closing for the day. Ours went alphabetically, and we knew we could anticipate our district would be closed when the neighboring districts were.

And of course this.

Lower standards of living, poorer healthcare and outcomes, cold war, various crisis e.g. fuel, synthetic fibres everywhere, synthetic food everywhere, appalling television with equally appalling representation, being called a four eyed homo at school and teachers tutting and saying don;t mock people for wearing glasses.

Otherwise, great time, anyway, enough of the rose tinted bullshit, let's be present.

Lots of drugs, sex and rock & roll. LOTS

[quote]R113: Incidentally, whatever happened to Platonic Caveman? I think he had some of that spirit.

What spirit? Oppositional defiance disorder/contrarianism? Besides, I don't think PC is that old; I think he was born in the 80s.

Sara Lee brownies and cupcakes in the freezer section.

R149, When did they stop offering the brownies?

Their frozen cheesecake is still around, as well as their carrot cake.

Everything was so much more affordable back then.

I haven’t seen them in many years. I’ve never seen their carrot cake in my area. There is still cheesecake.

as a 16 year old gay boy in a small midwestern town, this gave me hope to persist. Lying back on my bed, I must have studied this LP cover a thousand hours. I miss the hope and optimism that everything was getting better.

[quote] being called a four eyed homo at school and teachers tutting and saying don;t mock people for wearing glasses.

Well, since R146 had a rough time of it, let's all just hate the past and have no nostalgia about. Take off those rose-tinted glasses, people!!! 🙄🙄

Suppose It depends if you/your family were poor or not how you view a decade?

I remember spending summer's in Crete in the 1970's.

There was good and bad in every time, place, person, thing.

Nothing, really. I was 12 when they ended. I don't have much nostalgia for that period and I certainly don't want to be a small child again.

Why were schools closed in the 70s, R144?

#1, My mother being alive and healthy.

#2, All the unbridled and wild sex we had without worrying about anything worse than a case of the clap.

My low income summers were just as wonderful as yours. It must heavily suck to view every experience through a status lens, though.

R158, probably weather, i.e. snow and ice.

I had hair, hope and a great ass, none of which made it through the mid-80s.

Damn, r162. Did you literally work your ass off?

Face or ass - can't have both. One must fall.

Men with long hair.

The 12% mortgage rates? Or the 9.8% inflation rate?

R166 was that ACTUALLY a concern for you back in high school?

R167 when you are applying to college, and only then learn that your parents have no $ and are facing both foreclosure and bankruptcy..yes, it’s ACTUALLY a concern!

I missed AIDS, which is why I’m still alive.

^i went off to school—in winter quarter I actual hit an eviction notice from campus housing —my parents had not paid any bill. Luckily, UC gave out emergency Liam’s and I survived the year. By the time I got home in June, my parents had lost our house and were living in an apt—the filed for bankruptcy so after without a word to us kids.

Emergency loans*

SF & Bay Area in the 70s. Never in life did I think the pendulum would swing so far right. I was living Tales of the City as it was being written.

My friends of the 70s many of whom perished in the 80s and 90s from AIDS.

Also, the races mixing it up and grooving together. Funkadelic. Never in life did I think etc.

Playgirl offered the Village People a full-frontal spread. I was so eager for this to happen. Can you imagine the size of the bush of the guy on the right?

That was Mr. Hughes, or Glenn Hughes.

Glenn Hughes died of lung cancer at the age of 50. He was buried in his Village People leather clothes.

I was 17 when the 70s ended. I suspect that many of us had awful childhoods. I don’t miss anything.

Waiting to hear if school was cancelled due to snow — that really brings back memories. My district almost never cancelled.

What my district did have in the 70s was a bevy of energy saving weekends. Once a month or so (for a few years) school would be closed on Friday and Monday. I know the days were added in elsewhere, but it felt like a treat. I also vividly remember the orange stickers on every switch plate reminding us to conserve.

Pre-Caitlyn Bruce.

Post-Olga Nadia.

Small town Ohio, age 5-15. The film Now and Then perfectly captured the summer vibe for me in the early 70s.

I do not miss being a gayling in a tiny town as an adolescent, but in retrospect, there were good things. Everybody knew everybody, and I mean everybody. My dad would whistle at 9PM and no matter where we were in town, we heard it and went home (others had bells they rang, and kids knew whose bell was whose). AM radio ruled in our area; the FM channels were classical or boring. Plus, cars had only AM radios in them. We sat around on somebody's front porch with a radio. We rode our bicycles everywhere, played in the creek that ran alongside the village park, played baseball at the park in summer, basketball in the school's gymnasium in the winter. Lots of places to fish with your friends. In fall, corn left in the fields came in handy to throw at windows around Halloween. You soaped windows of people you didn't like. You paraffined windows of people you hated. But it was stifling. There was an out gay man in town (he owned a bar) and we were not allowed to make fun of him. But almost everybody we knew did. In may ways, an uninvolved third party might describe my childhood as idyllic and I would not disagree too vehemently.

By the time I left for college in 1982, gay cancer/GRID/AIDS was on the radar and I knew not to have sex with strangers if I wanted not to catch it. Reagan hit his stride. People started to come out, but only if they did not talk about it.

I saw the guy who played the original construction guy in The Village People on some show many years back, but long after the end of the original crew. What a disappointment. He was a big ol' lisping girl's blouse. Not a butch bone in his body.

R180- He was ALWAYS a big QUEEN 👸.

Many years ago on the old VH1 channel they showed a bunch of American Bandstand episodes from the mid to late 1970’s- one was an episode from about 1979 with the Village People- The construction guy addressed the audience before they started singing and he had such a gay voice such a lisp I was like oh my God see Tarzan in here Jane!

r53 not one thing you mentioned sounded fun. Sounded like you spent the decade alone, in your parent's basement, getting zero sex, but jerking yourself off till 1981. I guess I'm missing the fun part you mentioned.

R146- You are a bit confused. Our standard of living in the United States did not peak in the 1950s or the 1960s it peaked in the 1970s.

I, Claudius

Brideshead Revisited

And on, and so forth

[quote] the hope and optimism that everything was getting better

I’ll take care of that

R184- Brideshead Revisited is from the 1980's.

Duchess of Duke Street and the first few seasons of Dallas

I miss things being cleaner - like parking lots at a strip mall or anywhere, really.

Being sex-crazed and not worrying about death.

Smoking indoors.

Upstairs, Downstairs R184 I think was from the 70s ...

Oh dear R183, you appear to have a clear case of the US defaultism, I prescribe a passport to be used twice annually.

Real Amyl.

R190 You can still smoke indoors in most of the World. It's compulsory in some Countries, even where it's officially 'banned'.