Man, me too. I've been thinking a lot about the 70's lately as I watch my kids grow up. Just comparing their first 11 years to my first 11 years. Growing up in Bellaire before all the McMansions took over. waking up every other Saturday morning and waiting for my dad to show up (I was a child of divorce) so he could take me for the weekend and go to a Rockets, Astros or Oilers game, depending on the season. Or to go see Star Wars for the 100th time at the Meyerland theatre Riding our bikes over to Don's Record Shop so we could try and find the latest KISS album or a 45 single of the Houston Oiler fight song My mom dropping us off at either Evergreen Park pool or the City of Bellaire pool for the day. Both are still there and surprisingly haven't changed that much Luv Ya Blue. My Earl Campbell posters, Earl Campbell Pony shoes, Earl Campbell jersey and of course my Earl Campbell lunchbox/thermos Living across the street from what's now called the Ware Family Park. Riding bikes in the empty parking garages at Elm and Jaquet. Walking home from Cunningham Elementary every day and stopping at the 7 Eleven to buy football cards and praying to get just one Oiler My kids have so much more than I did when I was their age but I wonder if they really appreciate it. 40 years from now, will they have such vivid memories of their childhood like I do now? Or has technology pretty much ruined that for them?
I feel like homes from the 70s and 80s were much more cozy than they are now. I don't know if it's the carpeting, furnishings, or wood paneled walls, but the way homes were set up back then were soooo comfortable. Modern fixtures, flooring, and furnishing styles are clean, crisp, and look very nice, they just don't seem to carry that same cozy home feeling like back in the day. As an example, the living room in this house from Gremlins (1984) is what I am talking about.
The 90’s is not far enough back in time. We already had cell phones and computers at that point. You need to go back before cable tv and 24 hour news. Before the political radio crap and social media. How did we survive without all these modern things? It wasn’t very hard and the family spent a lot more time together. Look at people now, everybody staring at their phone all day.
That's awesome. Bellaire was a great little town back in the 70's before all the development and McMansions moved in. My childhood house is one of the few on my block still standing from that era.
I think kids remember useless random stuff from childhood regardless of experience because their passage of time is proportional to the total time they've remembered. Ten mins to a ten year old is a bigger experience than ten mins to a forty year old. It's why some random thing you say or do sticks on them more than you remembering that moment yourself. A lot of the simplicity is still there. We just pressure each other to catch up and not get left behind. Future affordability and the fear of not surpassing your parents successes is real, but I think so much is heaped upon kids that they react in their own ways. Some don't get enough attention while others get too much and have a structured and bounded childhood. We're kinda reaching a tipping point in the next ten years where machines will constantly and repeatedly produce the work of geniuses. This lost innocence and simplicity... is it real? Or does the next wave brush off any bumps along the road and hit the ground running?
Wind through the keyhole is fantastic. As good as Wizard in Glass. Wish he would do more young gunslinger stories
Young People Have No Idea What We Used to Do After Work. Let Me Regale You. “I never knew what time it was, so I was constantly buying watches and losing them.” https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/06/life-before-cell-phones-internet-after-work.html
I am reading people claiming that the 90's was the peak of the USA. This is funny because in the 90's everyone felt that the 90's were the downturn of the USA- that the 50's through the 80's were the peak. In the 90's there were a lot of kids that struggled getting jobs, and education started getting expensive. There was a lot of violent crime - heroin and crack cocaine were still a big problem. There were less cameras, so it was pretty easy to get away doing some terrible things (thank God I never got caught). Also in the 90's, gay people were treated poorly and in the closet. It was fair game on women, black people and Mexicans. Having said all of that - I will admit that the 90's is my favorite decade looking back. I really think that 9-11 is what changed the USA. We lost a degree of innocence. We changed our foreign policy, our politics became more extreme and the media began a form of panic that still exists to this day. If I could change anything - it would be the 9/11 attacks - I knew two people in the towers. One lived and the other one didn't. The friend that lived said how badly the NYC police and firefighters screwed up - and how security at the Towers cost thousands of people to die. My friend ended up dying from lung cancer at 45..... they didn't smoke, you tell me why they died - I know what her family thinks she died of.
Every American generation has had a life-changing, culture-altering event for over the last ~200 years. 9/11 for Gen-X. COVID for Millennials and Zoomers. Vietnam war and the civil upheaval in the 1960s and 70s for Boomers, Pear Harbor for 'Greatest' gen, Depression for their parents, etc. I think you can go back to the industrial revolution, then the American revolution, Civil War, etc. Before that life moved slowly and people were content with the same crap generation after generation: Farm, ****, die. 1990's were fun, but I can't say they were the best for me. The past 20 years of my life were tops for me, married an awesome person, had awesome kids and an actual gratifying career opposed to jobs. Nothing tops that.
I think people are too busy trying to shove these issues into "generations" and trying to see which generation had it worse/worst. It's more like every 10-15 years, there's some crazy event that happens you can look at. For example, threat of nuclear war, oil crisis where you could only pump gas on MWF if your license plate ended in a certain number, heroin/crack epidemic, oil industry collapse/layoffs, etc. can all be shoved into the 70's and 80's. You had a financial collapse in '08 and you had a stock market/tech collapse in the early 2000's, etc. along with 9/11. Every generation has stuff go wrong - no generation is different. The World War generations, though, that was some crap ... they may have had it worse than anybody. Being thrown into a war, worried about an invasion, worried about nuclear weapons, losing brothers, fathers, with mothers and sisters off doing factory work, etc. All kinds of lives and futures of families as well as future families changed.
The bicycle was such an important part of growing up in the 70's and 80's. We rode to the city pool or to the baseball or basketball court to play whichever we wanted to play on any given day.
Deciding factor between eras seems to be the technology factor. On how disruptive or advanced it is. I find it wild how we forcefully integrate ourselves into technology. Rather than just using it as a tool. We control the tools, not tools control us. If you want to read paperback, do it. We're not "obligated" to do it digitally. Thats what I credit 80s/90s with. We had JUST enough tech to enhance our human ability. Rather than total dependence on it. Kind of my 'jetpacks & hoverboards' theory. Those were promoted gadgets because they heighten your human experience, but still requires your physical handling for engagement. Rather than a driverless vessel taking you somewhere, not tapping into your senses. Its accepting a little bit of risk, I guess. That said, I dont miss 90s as much as I thought. I dont know if its dopamine sensors now, just that I like products & services more on demand, rather than a bunch of work for it. I dont need encyclopedia instead of Wikipedia that bad
@fadeaway, I think @B-Bob gave some great advice. Get a Kindle or another e-reader (I prefer the Kindle). This is coming from an avid reader who refused to buy an e-reader until the novels of George R. R. Martin ( Game of Thrones, etc.) became so long and heavy in hardcover that I literally couldn't hold them up to read. Got a Kindle, after trying the Nook from Barnes and Noble and not liking it, and discovered that I loved the damn thing. The screen is a decent size and well lit from subtle LEDs coming from multiple directions, the "print" very sharp and easy on the eyes, the pages a breeze to "turn." They hold a few hundred books, likely more, they're rechargeable and a charge lasts a few weeks. The topper is that the books are significantly cheaper, even best sellers. True, I get them through Amazon, but you don't have to. I still have hundreds of novels and non-fiction on bookshelves at home, and take one down to reread from time to time. Some are from the late 1950's that I managed to hang on to, science fiction from the Science Fiction Book Club, "Join and get 5 Novels for a Dollar!" I ruthlessly joined and quit several times. Anyway, reading has always been one of my greatest pleasures and I'm lucky to be a very fast reader. Glad you rediscovered it.
Thanks for the recommendation. I actually have a Kindle. For me personally, though, it is not so much about the delivery method but rather making the choice to read vs. diddle around on the phone. Almost done Wind Through the Keyhole now. I binged-read about 50% of it the other night and it was a great time. Looking forward to picking up some more novels after I finish now that I've got the itch back.
