Tag: 97x the future of rock and roll

23 things only a child of the 70s will know

by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, the girl with the inner purple hair

I was talking to a friend the other day about Star Wars.

All he knew was the remake.

For him, Greedo shot first and Han was just defending himself.

WRONG!!!! That’s not the way it ORIGINALLY went down.

The conversation reminded me that cultural differences can span just a few years.

The first time I realized this I was in my first summer of college working at a fast food joint. During a heated debate, I piped up “Jane, you ignorant slut.” You would have thought I had actually meant to insult one of the girls in the room, despite the fact I was only talking to boys.

Another time, a friend of mine and I went to our first U2 concert. It was the Rattle and Hum tour and we were in floor seats at Rupp Arena in Lexington, KY. As was their tradition, U2 played Beatles music during the warm up. My friend and I were having the time of our lives singing the hits, when the girls in front of us asked us who the warm up music was.

“It’s the Beatles… you know? John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison?” we said.

This was about the time that George Harrison had a hit single “I’ve got my mind set on you” on the charts.

Stellar lyrics there, “I’ve got my mind set on you” repeated about seven million times. A little less thrilling than “Norwegian Wood” if you ask me.

“Oh! My! God!” the girls shrieked. “George Harrison was in a band? We have GOT to check them out.”

I’d never felt so old.

And that was 30 years ago.

Later, as the oldest woman (at the ripe old age of 28) working at a local ISP (remember ISPs?), I was talking to one of the teen-ish guys working there who was excited to be seeing Star Wars in the movie theater for the first time during its re-release in the 90s. I didn’t get his excitement. I saw it in the movie theaters when I was 12… I think I sprouted my first grey hairs that day.

There are just some things a child of the 70s, knows that others just can’t begin to understand…

First things first…

  1. Han shot firsthan shot first
  2. Time travel required the Libyans
  3. Barney was the devilBarney+731895
  4. The coolest alternative music came from the British Isles and Athens, Georgia and was best heard on “97X… BAM! The future of Rock and Roll”
  5. Fonzie should never have jumped that shark. And no one cared whether or not Joanie loved Chachi

    Seriously, who water skis in a leather jacket????
    Seriously, who water skis in a leather jacket????
  6. Rutger Hauer was the most badass, scariest villain ever
  7. Rocks make good petsOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
  8. Mainstream rap started in new wave/punk rock with the insane tracks of Debbie Harry
  9. Conversations were just more intense when you stepped around the corner and wrapped yourself in the phone cord
  10. Hours spent in front of the radio with your tape recorder making a mix tape meant true love
  11. Bionics just can’t beat the Alien Bigfoot Alliance. And by the way, that cave was just damn scarythe-six-million-dollar-man-Bigfoot
  12. Before he was Joe Cool, Snoopy was a World War II flying ace
  13. Blue M&Ms used to be tanOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
  14. Video games meant more when they cost one of your hard earned quarters
  15. Musicians just sang, actors just acted and everyone left politics to the politicians
  16. School lunches of pizza, corn and fruit with boxed milk were the bomb!pizza
  17. McGee always made Dr. Banner angry, cars could talk and Southern Sheriffs were always stupid. Oh, and no one ever got sued for portraying anyone as stupidrosco(1)
  18. Trapper Keepers and a new lunch box were necessary elements of going back to school.
  19. Peter Gabriel, Robert Palmer, Bob Geldhof, Phil Collins and George Harrison were in bands. Some made it big with solo careers, I hear.
  20. A car horn that played Dixie was THE cool thing to have
  21. Recipes came in cook books and on hand written note cards, snide remarks were made to one person at a time and comments on news stories required letters to the editor
  22. Weekday afternoons meant the Brady Bunch, Thunderbirds, and Gilligan’s Island reruns. Friday nights meant videos. Saturday mornings meant cartoons. And summer days meant being outside until Mom turned on the porch lights.gilligan
  23. Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Bosom Buddies and Facts of Life/Return of the Killer Tomato were all proof that embarrassing career moves CAN be overcome.

My kids will never understand. Half of the people that I talk to everyday will never understand. But those of us who grew up on less than 10 television stations, Saturday Night Live, and a life without DVDs, OnDemand or email will get it.

And seriously, let’s get one thing straight.

Han definitely shot first.

Copyright (c) Liz Carey 2015