Thursday, December 12, 2024

The old days (1970s)

Pop top

1. See the one on the left? That’s the one. You know what they would do after pulling off the tab? They’d throw it on the ground. Then, you’d ride your bike over it and get a flat or it would pierce your foot and you’d have to go get a tetanus shot from the doctor. It’s even immortalized in Jimmy Buffet’s song “Margaritaville”: “Stepped on a pop top/Blew out my flip flop”.

2. Kids were sent out to play with no supervision at all. We were only instructed to come home when the street lights turned on. We did incredibly intelligent things like bully weaker kids, smash glass bottles on the ground, and throw rocks at each others’ heads.

3. All the good cartoons were on Saturday morning only.

4. If you liked a movie, you had to pay to go see it in the theatre only. You couldn’t get it on home video at all. You pretty much had to wait a few years before they showed it on TV.

5. There were only 3 channels: CTV, CBC and KNRR. If you lived in the big city you might have a few extra UHF local channels. They mostly played reruns of Bonanza, I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Brady Bunch, Star Trek, and I Dream Of Jeannie.

6. If you got out of line in school you’d get your ass spanked by the gym coach who wielded something that looked like a ping pong paddle with holes in it for speed.

7. The speed limit on highways and interstates was 55 miles per hour (88.5 kph) and it took forever to get to grandma’s house…with no phones, no personal stereos, just sitting there. Parents would give young kids a tiny bit of alcohol mixed in with their juice so they would sleep.

8. The guy they would call the “fat kid” would only be a little husky by today’s standards.

9. Divorce was still kind of a taboo, in that “people would talk” about those who were divorced but it was pretty much commonplace by the end of the 70s and no big deal.

10. The Rock and Roll guys, the Disco guys, and the Country Music guys all hated each other. The Rock and Roll guys smoked dope, the Disco guys did coke and the Country Music guys drank Jack Daniels. The Disco guys got all the girls and the Rock and Roll guys got beat up by the Country Music guys.

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