What I remember about the 70's

The 1970's were my formative years. As time goes on those days seem to disappear into the distance. The world changes, technology, attitudes, even people seem different today, at least superficially. Looking back now, those days are as foriegn and odd as the 1950's were to my parents.

My earliest memories were from about 1972, I used to get up and watch the 5 AM farm report and wait for cartoons to come on. Captain Kangaroo was my favorite show. The Captain kicked ass. I remember all the famous folks in the beginning of the show that would say "good morning captain" We only had 5 channels and some of them were fuzzy. I would have to hold the rabbit ears with one hand and stand on one foot if I wanted to see something clearly.

Back then, running errands was a big deal. Once a week the whole family would get in the car and drive to the Bank of America and do all of our transactions for the week. Back then I would deposit a quarter or 50 cents into my savings and write it in my bank book. They always gave me a piece of candy. My parents would cash their checks and pull money out for the week. There were very few ways to get cash outside of banking hours unless you wanted to cash a check at the grocery store.

Speaking of grocery stores, I remember them being much smaller, five or six isles that you could see over. They seemed to have everything we needed and if they didn't we did without.

Back then twenty bucks got you about 4 bag of groceries. I usually got a giant oatmeal cookie from the lady at the bakery counter . She just gave it to me and trusted my mother would pay her the dime before we left.

Cars were also a lot different. Bench seats, with the seat belts forever lost in the crevices. Nobody thought twice about kids crawling all over the car unrestrained. Cars were also huge back then, with tons of room to stretch out. There was only an AM radio and one speaker in the dash. To me it sounded great. The smell of exhaust mixed the breeze that came in the little triangle vent window was almost better than air conditioning.

People dressed weird in the 70's. Lots of polyester, big hair for both sexes and everyone wore plaid or paisley. Looking back at old photos I wasn't dressed too badly, except maybe the green toughskin jeans and my couderoy vest.

Back then, things were simpler and people much friendlier. It was no big deal for a complete stranger to walk up and start a conversation. There were no Ipods, Cell phones, Blackberries or other gadgets for people to lose themselves into.

I remember, it wasn't uncommon to pick up stranded motorists or pull off the side of the road to help someone with car trouble. It was no big deal. Sometimes several people would stop and try to diagnose the problem or offer to help in some way.

In public, profanity was seldom heard. People had a lot more respect than to curse indiscriminately around women and children. There were lots of unwritten, unspoken rules that everyone seemed to live by. People didn't need fear to make them act right.

It's probably just me, but I remember the grass being greener, the sky bluer and whatever the temperature was outside was just fine for whatever season it was.
People talk about the good old days. I guess the 70's were like that for me.