You didn’t miss all that much. Hippies, national malaise, stagflation, the Oil Shock. “Modern” “art”. Bell bottom trousers. Kent State, Watergate, impeachment. A grinding recession, 16% APR mortgage rates. The fall of South Vietnam. Love canal, Jim Jones, Three Mile Island and Iranian hostages. Corduroy three piece suits and chukka boots.
Disco.
It wasn’t all bad though. Along with disco there was also some really good music.
Oh, yeah. Your humble scribe was 15 when this album came out. Although not as yet graced with the critical skills he would later develop, he could nevertheless tell it was going to be a great musical oeuvre. Knew just by looking at the cover.
Precocious, that way.
I miss the 70’s……….
Life was good and sex was safe. (Or so we thought).
And I could wear a leisure suit and go to Ted Nugent concerts.
You’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you.
One of the lost joys of the LP age – album covers and artwork (plus real liner notes). CDs and dinky MP3/iPod images just don’t hack it…
-SJS
Yes 70’s Album Covers indeed.
Ughh, Disco… IMO, quite possibly the worst thing that’s happened to music… other than rap of course.
Jim C
Well, the 70s may have had 16 percent interest rates, but the early our first house in late 1980 was at 13.5 percent. It went up to 18 percent before dropping back down to 13.5 again when we were leaving Corpus Christi in mid-1983, during the oil industry downturn, too.
A $57K house, payments of $800/month, and we only paid off $5 of principal the first year. I was astounded at how little we actually owned of our house what with how much of our money they got. Husband was a LT then and a T-28 flight instructor; I was a stay-at-home mom of 2, one a newborn, and just turned 24.
Yikes — that was trip via the way-back machine. Time sure does fly when you finally try to grow up.
Well, d’oh! Obviously a horndog like you, destined to be a Naval Aviator, would notice that, right off.
You’ll get yours, though. The Male Pattern Baldness comes earlier to those with Extra Androgens, and (sorry) now is when you need to start welcoming the dreaded Digital Prostate Exam.
Hey, TANSTAAFL, right? You had the fun, now comes the bill.
JTG, The good Cap’n has written extensively, on this blog about DPX, try looking up his post’s on Flight Physicals.
Ah, yep, Unk, I’m aware of that, have been reading his writings since they were only on his previous site, I just think it’s funny in a kinda schadenfreudistisch kinda way.
M’self, I’ve noticed a bit of a diminution in the flow, lately, and being older than 50, prolly ought to steel self to approach the dreaded Urologist, and bid him to pleease be gentle.
Well, I have a pre deployment physical coming up my self, so I feel your pain.
The era of the LIVE Album. Many good music venues, day-long, multi-band concerts. Zepplin, Skynyrd, Frampton, Eagles et al. That’s what I remember, how, I’ll never know.
LEX:
Not a Bad example of a fine album cover (that says so much about the music).
Being just a tad older than you, and thus having a broader view of the world of Album Covers, I’ll propose that you go back to the 60’s to the 1965 Herb Alpert “Whipped Cream & Other Delights” album for something that really ‘inspired’ a lot of male-type people. Really. Those were some fine days and the music was alright, too.
Hey — I had that album! And I’m just four years older’n poor old Lex.
Yeah, Z-grams and polyester were Navy staples.The 70s were perfectly forgetable!
SJS-
You can still buy vinyl, and it still comes with artwork. Like my latest purchase (not my pic).
Lex -
Outstanding work.
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass: Whipped Cream and other Delights.
My fav shoes then were chukka boots…. One of the best [few] parts of the 70’s were the corner record stores with vinyl in fruit crates. Those of us with more time than money to spend could peruse the crates and look longingly at the album covers–er, art work, yes. The cover ART, that was it.
We were eVolved, maaaan.
Or whatever the codeword for young, clueless and predictable was then.
Trust me that’s NOT…I repeat NOT a picture of Carley Simon on the album cover…as some here might know…the not so fair Carley is best appreciated aurally not visually.
RE the 70’s, as one who lived through this decade… married, had kids, bought a house(s), went to law school, strove to succeed, and yes generally prosperd…the 70s were an exciting time…only in retrospect have the 70s become the butt of endless and tiresome put-downs and jokes… our contemporary “Dark Ages”… it’s fortunate for us that like the real Dark Ages folks… we just didn’t know it at the time. Best
Heck, the 70s gave us Dark Side of the Moon. The decade can be forgiven for just about everything else.
I agree that the ’70s weren’t that bad, but I believe that is Ms. Carly Simon on the cover.
The ’70s. I was there from 14 to 24. It su@ked. Like Earth Shoes. The ’80s- THAT was a good decade.
Husband has been driving me crazy with his “don’t-you-wish-you-were-21-again” meme. It used to be 18, but I reminded him he couldn’t drink if he were 18 now (he could in NY and NJ then). Now it’s 21 — go figure.
Anyway. I keep telling him no way and absolutely not. Why not, he asks? Because he may have been foot loose and fancy free then, but I wasn’t — I was a new mother and being left for our first deployment across the country from my folks at 21. Not fun times. No thank you very much. Do NOT want to go back to then, at all, ever.
(By the way, he’s 6 years older than I am — the 70s completely warped him forever and ever. I don’t know why he wants to be 21 again anyway — he’s still a big kid at heart and will NEVER grow up!)
Concur with GEO6 — the 70s su@ked very much.
So did the 80s.
Agree with Snake Eater @#18…the ’70s weren’t that bad at all. I, too, married at the end of the decade (‘78), bought my first house (also ‘78), and just generally had a smashing time. Even disco had its moments. I’m one of only sixteen people in the entire US of A who’ll own up to buying the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack; I played it to death, too.
But it was the mid-70s that were the best memory making times (for me). I did a two year stint as a member of a traveling USAF radar installation team based at Yokota AB; our “area of responsibility” stretched from Hawaii to Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, the PI, yadda, yadda, yadda. Lotsa TDYs, more good times than Carter
hashad Pills.I’m lucky I survived, come to think on it. But OMG, was it ever FUN!
BTW…I was knocked out by the Album Cover Album, which I bought in 1976 (or so) and still have. Somewhere. While googling for this image I gleaned that the book is up to its fifth edition, these days.
I still have all my old LP’s (and my vintage Ensign stereo system to play them on), including the previously mentioned Herb Albert albums, an uncensored Buckingham-Nicks and assorted others (250, more or less). Of course they have been relegated by SWWBO to the basement where we retire to revel in acoustic music of the truest since. Much to the puzzlement and bemusement of our offspring…
-SJS
The Seventies? What as that?
*bratty grin*
In all fairness, I’m not THAT young, though I was well under 10 years old when the decade concluded. But because we lived in farm country and didn’t have a TV, the popular culture of the time made little impression on me.
Eight track tapes, Gas lines, Inflation, 400.10 a month base pay.
Don’t miss it a bit!
I look at that cover and am reminded of Spinal Tap’s album “Smell The Glove”, which was unreleased due to the cover being sexist. Or was that sexy?
However, no one has mentioned the absolute worst part about the 70s:
Jimmah Carter and the defeatism he engendered.
PS, SJS — oh yeah WTR Ensign stereo systems, had one them at home too, and a post-Ranger deployment super-dooper one later on (you spent HOW much on that when we have one already??). And who could forget the undeniable yep-he’s-an-Ensign Ensign-mobile!
Hey FBL!
We regulars here REMEMBER that “bratty” grin as it is immortalized in the NTORC columns!
For the whole Carly Simon photo shoot go to:
http://www.normanseeff.com/
Click on “Photography” at the top of the page.
Click on “9″ at the bottom of the page.
Carly Simon photo shoots notwithstanding, gotta agree the 80’s were a much better decade.
Oh yes the 70’s, Much of it I spent Haze Grey and Underway on board the USS Sperry, AS12, NPTU Mare Island NSYD, and USS England CG22
a turnin’ and a burnin’
Shift colors, set the regular underway watch, ON deck condition 4 Watch section 1.
Sweepers Sweepers man your brooms, give…..
and so it went.
With some important exceptions, the music pretty much sucked
I timed it so well, I served under Nixon, Carter, and Ronnie. I was a Gonzo station before it was gonzo.
I’m just getting old.
Craig, Re your comment # 20 above, I stand corrected thanks…jesshh she sure didn’t age well. Best
PS, I’ve successfully supressed the whole Jimmy Carter thing…ergo my rose colored take on the 70’s.
Ya know, if jimma had stood up to the radicals in Iran, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
The 70’s had bad spots-so did the 90’s. However having come of age and entered the college during the 70’s I still look back on it fondly-especially if I could be in the 70’s knowing what I know now. Whoo Whoo!
Jimmy Carter wasn’t so great-he gave away the Panama Canal. There were gas lines-but gas was 49 cents a gallon (I was pumping that gas at that price working a job in high school…).
Disco was disco-but there was also some GREAT rock and roll created. That has yet to be duplicated, I might add.
The Navy was primarily a male organization-which I did then and still do now think was a good thing. People could go on liberty and have a good time without it being a crime. The BAC limit was where it should be at .10.
Cars were big and had big engines.
Subic Bay and Cubi point were open.
Ships went on cruise in the Med. Nobody went to the Gulf.
So as far as I am concerned the 70’s had a lot to recommend it. So did the 80’s at least the first half…….
So Skippy- what was your first car in the 70s? Mine was a ‘75 Chevy Nova with a 350 V-8. Not bad at home but it sucked (literally) feeding it only 400 liters of ration couponed gas a month when I PCSed to Germany. Also- Disco was disco but THAT was where the babes were. At least at the O’Clubs I frequented.
I hate to admit it, but my first car (that I bought-not that my father let me drive..) was a 1970 Volkswagen Fastback….(with I hate to admit, and automatic transmission). I had gotten sick and tired of waiting for the bus out side Lesene Gate or walking to Dino’s and other locations (see SJS for directions…). So I took 600 dollars out of my savings and bought it from a guy who was graduating.
My father was furious! He was very afraid (with some justification as it turned out) that the maintenance and insurance costs of maintaining a 7 year old car would eat up my meager financial resources and keep me from my studies.
Had a few problems at first, but once I got those fixed-it was a good little car. Got me to and from Death Valley at Clemson more than a couple of times and it knew its way back across the Cooper River Bridge when I did not.
Now we did also take some “trunk leave” in a 76 Cadillac, but that is another story………..
After ‘72 I’d skip almost any (positive) citation re. cars in the 70’s, especially American. Yeah, we had the kick @ss Boss Mustang, but the 70’s also spawned that Pinto-based abortion that Iaccoca foisted on the world before he set off to Chrysler – and foisted this on us (“With Real Corrrrinthian Leather…”). Of course, while the American auto industry was busy imploding, This and this were hitting the streets. And with the arrival of the latter as the first real SJS-mobile (as an Ensign in ‘78), I’d have to say the 70’s ended with a bang, autmotively that is
-SJS
SJS- Yeah, the car quality wasn’t there for the most part, especially the interiors but your point about the Datsun 240Z as a high note for the decade is dead on. I recall a 130 mph ride in one (three of us aboard no less) between Wiesbaden and Frankfurt on the autobahn in something like 15 minutes. A dumb lieutenant thing. The light poles looked like a picket fence.
As far as your VW fastback go I recall that wasn’t a bad set of wheels at the time Skippy, and not to bad on gas either.
Man. Are we dated or what?
I prefer to think of it like vintage wine-better with age……….
At the risk of chiming into a testosterone-based conversation – the muscle cars of the 60s and 70s were the very best. My first was a ‘73 Cougar, convertible no less. V-8, 351 Cleveland custom engine. Thing purred like a lion and roared down the streets. It was a thing of beauty and still remains the fastest I’ve ever driven (125, racing my dad – he let me win as he was driving his 1967 Shelby GT500 and I didn’t have a prayer otherwise…). Grew up with the muscle cars and still love em.
As Skippy-San says – we are like fine wines GEO6. Getting better with age and far more appreciated. Nostalgia is a good thing, especially when seen thru the windshield of that ‘67 Shelby. May not have been my car, but it is the first car I ever drove…I’ve been ruined ever since.
Muscle, metal and engines that roar.
Kris,
Although I did have a glass of 25 year old $1200 bottle of Bordeaux back in April so I get yours and Skippy’s point.
Don’t know about testosterone being the basis of our digression on cars. More waxing nostalgic, as you put it, as it was more in line with the rite of passage of the first time having one’s own name on the DMV registration form.
As for vintage, I prefer to think of myself in terms of a 24 year oak cask aged single malt.
I still have my first car, a 1970 Old’s Cutlass
442,2 door hardtop,455 big block 4 bolt mains,Hurst 4speed,Dual exhaust Positrac rear end.
Burned through a brand new set of rubber in 3 days.
This car, when running, can get scratch in all 4 gears
I have been offered 8000.00 for it, as is (all stock,needing a compleat restoration).
I think I’ll hold on to it.
Skippy and SJS,
Did either of you happen to frequent Big John’s during your years in the Holy City? Still open, great burgers.
As for the Cooper River Bridge…the old ones are but a memory now. Their replacement, the Aurthur Ravenel jr Bridge, is a technoligical and visual wonder. Got a bike/pedestrian lane, and the main deck stands taller than either of the old bridges. They built her right over the top of the old spans. It was great to watch a project of that magnitude from start to finish.
Cheers.
Roachman:
Who can claim to have been in the Holy City for four years and NOT have eaten at Big John’s at least once. Ditto with the drive back over the Cooper on the old spans. Been a few years since I’ve been down there, but headed down that way next fall for my 30th
-SJS