Growing Up in the 70's
Teenagers today are missing out on a lot of things that people my age took for granted when we were that age. I was in high school in the 1970's (graduated in 1977). I grew up in a small town of maybe 3500 people, there were only about 5000 in the county I lived in so there really wasn't much to do. Plus, it seemed like everyone knew everyone else. As a kid, if you got into some mischief it's a good chance that sooner or later your parents would find out about it.
My original thought came to me when a friend of mine was looking for an antique car. The thought that I had was of dating in a car with a front bench seat. A guy could pick up his girlfriend, after going inside to talk to her mom and dad for a few minutes. For first dates some girl's fathers would feel the need to be cleaning a shotgun when the new date arrived, just to make a point. An old friend of mine told the story of the first time he picked up the lady that eventually became his wife. Her father made it clear that her curfew was at 11 pm, pressing home the fact with the statement "Kid, I have a shotgun and a shovel and nobody will ever miss you". A bit of a strong statement but it got the point across.
A guy was expected to be a gentlemen then and would always open the passenger side door for his girlfriend before getting inside himself. Of course, not being restrained by seat belts then, as soon as your were out of sight the girlfriend would slide over to sit closer to you as you drove. Dates were simple in that small town, usually dinner and maybe a movie. We actually had a walk-in theater and a drive-in theater in my small town. Near the end of the date you could find a nice quiet place to park the car and get to know each other a little better. Talking, yep, that's what we did, we talked. I hope you picked up the sarcasm in that last sentence.
Cell phones and the internet didn't exist then so when you were with family or a group of friends, that's who you talked to. There was no texting or being preoccupied with Facebook or twitter. Families actually sat down at a table for dinner together and talked to each other. I don't know how many times I have been in a restaurant with a family of four sitting nearby and they don't talk to each other the whole meal. They spend the evening with their face stuck in a cell phone oblivious to everyone around.
There was no online bullying because there was no online. Bullying was done person to person and face to face. Eventually the person being bullied had enough and stood up to the bully in a discussion that often ended up in a fight. Win or loose, the person being bullied gained respect just because they were willing to stand up for themselves. Of course most of these "discussions" took place at school, many times resulting in a trip to the principle's office where often both parties would often receive a paddling and sometimes a few days of suspension. With my parents, that usually wasn't the end of it. Being in trouble at school also meant you were in trouble at home too. It used to be called discipline, I think the word has been banished from use at schools today.
Guns were proudly displayed in the rear windows of pickup trucks, even on school grounds or at shopping malls. This was mainly during hunting season and often a two piece fishing rod would replace the gun during the summer months. Today schools and malls are gun free zones and are far less safe than they were then. Mass shootings didn't exist or were extremely rare. Maybe that's because there were no established areas where there would be a large group of unarmed potential victims.
Things were certainly different then. Whether they were better or not is debatable, but they were certainly different. Standing up for yourself was expected for a young person growing into adulthood. Knowing that there were consequences for your actions made a difference. Respect for others was reinforced by parents, the school, and the community. Even though it may be debatable which time period was better to grow up in, I'm glad I grew up in the 70's.
Thank you for this post! I don't know why, but it felt like you story was about 50's. I have always imagined 70's a bit different, with hippies and everything. Again, thank you, please share more thoughts! :)
Most of us had longer hair in the 70's but were far from being hippies.
Great memories! Especially about the "talks" in the car...lol... We could talk about the cruising strip in Elkhart, but that's for another day...lol...
I will go out on a limb and say that things were definitely better back then, and even far better the generation before ours. The radical feminists, cultural Marxists, "higher criticism" set, professional psycho babblers, LBGTWRSJVUs, had not yet taken over and diluted the "ties that bind."
We had our disagreements, sure. But never about whether Communism was better than capitalism, or unassimilables made better immigrants than people who came here ready and willing to contribute, or what your genitalia said about your gender, or whether God should be worshiped or not, or whether the flag and The Bible should be respected or not.
These were simpler days. Simply better. We were a country, not a hodgepodge of hyphenated "Americans."
Yep, in those days if you were confused about your gender you looked in your pants to know for sure.
LOL... Which was largely un-necessary because we gave boy toys to little boys and v.v. AND, we didn't have change agents in pre-school talking about "gender options" to our four-year-olds.
And we used naughty words like He, She, Her Him. Why, because you are either a He or She or a Her or Him.
Never in my life would I have thought there could be confusion over male and female. Seemed like one of the most basic facts if life.
OK, help me out....I got some of the LBGTWRSJVUs but am darn curious about the rest of it.
Ahh, yes, the 70's. I was there. And remember most if it (lol)
Weren't we cool. Still breaking new ground from the stifling 50's and not quite as off the mainstream of the 60's.
Each example you have is so on spot. And since we have to resign ourselves this is the direction our society is going, I will just sit back and hope we don't lose all of our thinking power, as we just ask Siri, forget how to smile, just use a Smiley Face, won't need writing instruments, just type abbreviations and memes. Don't ask anyone about a phone number, they don't know it....they just push a button on their phone.
Where we lost the individual responsibility is beyond me but is definitely a bad trend.
When archeologists uncover us in 1000 years they will wonder how we went from a sophisticated language back to hieroglyphics, from huge libraries to snipits on computers, from patriotism to individualism, from industrious to lazy.
I know I mentioned this but my daughter and soon to be Ex are texting this out! Have yet to sit in same room and talk. Disgusting. Not working either as this situation requires emotion, which they haven't quite got perfected on your phone.
And I would choose the 50's as my generation. The Leave it to Beaver speed seems about right looking back. Family, life, community, friends, status quo, individuals were responsible for themselves, people were willing to help those who helped themselves (not give everything to everybody), you could laugh and joke freely without the Politically Correct police converging on you. Boring and steady but reliable way of life.
I go to visit my father in the nursing home and we talk some but mostly sit and watch Andy Griffith sherriffing Mayberry, the Waltons, the Rifleman, and occasionally a Wagon Train episode. Not sure when I would pick, but you're right that we are headed down hill.