One of the biggest differences between now and the 70’s is that back then nobody was in a social network, unless you counted school, home and church.
The whole idea of everybody walking around with a phone in their pocket was as sci-fi to us as moving spoons with your mind. Having a phone that was a combination typewriter, camera, and computer would have been too ‘far out’ (another 70’s phrase) for us to comprehend.
But today, every kid walks around with their head bent down typing away with their thumbs. I think that we should call the kids born in the 90’s “Generation Thumbs”, because they use their thumbs to crank out messages. Our basic thumb messages were “Thumbs Up” (good), “Thumbs Down” (bad), and “Thumbs Sideways” (give me a ride and I hope you are not a criminal).
Kids think it is funny when one of us (old people) just can’t get understand the concept of the camera phone that you can type on and look at the internet. When we were coming up, Computers took up entire buildings if not city blocks.
We were the test monkeys for the computerized tests that determined your future. You had to use a number 2 pencil because a number 1 pencil was just not good enough. Shut up! Fill in the bubble that represents the right answer, but do not have a smudge outside of the bubble. This would cause the computer to explode. I always use my deficient bubble filling out skills to explain my SAT score.
There was band back in the 70’s called Bread and it was your 1.0 soft rock band. They had a ton of hit records back then, most not making a lot of sense like “Baby, I’m A Want You” and “If”. I’m convinced a lot of 33-39 year old people are alive today due to the Providence of God and David Gates singing “If a picture paints a thousand words then why can’t I paint you?”
Their most hilarious song was “Diary”. Pardon me while I write in brackets for my younger readers. [ A diary was a journal people used to keep to write down their innermost thoughts. Now we call it a "blog".] “Diary” was about this guy who finds a girl’s diary “underneath a tree and started reading about me”. The song meanders along about how great this was until he got to the part where he realized she wasn’t writing about him.
Young people today would have no idea what that would be like. They announce their relationships on Facebook. If “Diary” came out today it would be called “iPhone”and you would hear: “I found your iPhone underneath the tree where you were texting about me”
One thing that does bother me is how superior young people think they are when it comes to texting.
Back in the 70’s, you still had to learn how to write a letter and communicate a response with properly spelled words. Even the hippie teachers taught it.(‘Hey Man, I know it is Fascist, but like, we got to know what you mean, you know”?) Now you just write in a way that you think Prince would like.
A friend of mine wrote a text to her son one day. It took her almost an hour to complete it. It went like this:
Taylor Tyler
4545 Bonnie Meadow Road
Mayretta, GA 30065
Dearest Taylor,
I would like to take this opportunity to express to you my joy as to having a son as brilliant as you. People stop me in the store to tell me what a great young man you have become and soon look forward to voting for you for President.
Please be advised that we are having dinner as a family this evening and we were wondering if you would be in attendance? Dinner will be served around seven. May we set a place for you?
Again, you are a great son and your father and I pray hour long prayers of thanksgiving that you are our child.
Sincerely,
Your Mother
This was Taylor’s response:
Thnx. No. L8er.-T
Friday, May 28, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Really Wierd
This is a separate blog site from HUMOR ME and it is about The Seventies, particularly my experience in the Seventies and how things have/have not changed.
The blog has its origin in a phone call with a high school buddy who I haven’t seen in at least 28 years. He was talking about our high school experience and he used a phrase that all of us Wheeler High School people use when describing something outside the norm: It was really weird.
The 70’s were a really weird time. Everything that happened in the 60’s seemed to bottomed out in the 70’s and we just had to deal with it.
On top of that, Wheeler High School experienced an explosion of growth because of ‘Yankees’ moving into the east part of Cobb County. So there we were, a bunch of Southerners having to deal with all of these Northerners whose parents all seemed like they made a lot more money than ours did.
This population explosion caused Wheeler to be on split sessions: the upper classmen went in the morning and the under classmen went in the afternoon. It was really weird.
I’m going to be commenting on everything I can remember about that time: music,movies,sports,and of course, growing up. It's not going to be a weekly blog, at least, I'm not planning on it to be. Just when the mood strikes me. But believe me, I will keep on truckin.
Now about the name: I was looking at one of my old yearbooks and noticed that the word "weird" was misspelled by several classmates ("Alan, although you're ugly and wierd, you're a nice guy and I hope I never see you again, but if I do, I hope you have that money you owe me. P.S: You smell"). Then I noticed on our alumni website some of the alumni would misspell "weird" in their postings. ("It has been really wierd being the only member of the class of '78 that has great-great grandchildren, but I can explain..."). I came to this conclusion: Wheeler High School students of the 70's cannot spell "weird".
While I’m at it, let’s review some other words and phrases from Wheeler circa ’76.
“Gah”: This is the way we swore back then. “Gah” could became a seven syllable word when spoken correctly. Many times it was “Oh Ge-ah”. It took me years to realize we were saying “God”. [One time me and some church friends of mine were playing softball with Dr. Ralph Swearngin, the current head of the Georgia High School Association. Ralph hit a huge drive into right field. My brother was playing right field and watched the ball sail over his head. My brother said, “Gah”. It was a word that always seemed to be appropriate}
“All get Out”: When something was fun, it was as fun as “all get out”. I don’t know where “get out” was, but it must have been fun.
“Rip Off”: This is a familiar term to everyone. I remember the first time I ever heard the term. I heard this kid say, “Man, what a rip off” and from that day in 1972, I heard “rip off” for years. Sometimes we’d shorted it to say, “Man what a rip”. It meant getting gypped or cheated.
“Home made Sin”: If a young lady of the opposite sex did not appeal to you, you said she was as “ugly as home made Sin” because everyone knows store bought sin looks much better. You didn’t hear much of this after the Northern Invasion except when a few of us natives were sitting around (of course, we were no prizes either, but that’s another story).
“Cool”: We used this word everyday. It is one of the few that has made it.
“Turkey”: If someone was acting stupid, we called that person a “turkey”. If we wanted to sound “cool” we called that person a “Jive Turkey” because a skinny black kid on TV said it.
I’m sure there will be some other phrases or terms I’ll have to stop and explain, but I hope you will enjoy my thoughts on the decade that saw me go from elementary school to college.
The blog has its origin in a phone call with a high school buddy who I haven’t seen in at least 28 years. He was talking about our high school experience and he used a phrase that all of us Wheeler High School people use when describing something outside the norm: It was really weird.
The 70’s were a really weird time. Everything that happened in the 60’s seemed to bottomed out in the 70’s and we just had to deal with it.
On top of that, Wheeler High School experienced an explosion of growth because of ‘Yankees’ moving into the east part of Cobb County. So there we were, a bunch of Southerners having to deal with all of these Northerners whose parents all seemed like they made a lot more money than ours did.
This population explosion caused Wheeler to be on split sessions: the upper classmen went in the morning and the under classmen went in the afternoon. It was really weird.
I’m going to be commenting on everything I can remember about that time: music,movies,sports,and of course, growing up. It's not going to be a weekly blog, at least, I'm not planning on it to be. Just when the mood strikes me. But believe me, I will keep on truckin.
Now about the name: I was looking at one of my old yearbooks and noticed that the word "weird" was misspelled by several classmates ("Alan, although you're ugly and wierd, you're a nice guy and I hope I never see you again, but if I do, I hope you have that money you owe me. P.S: You smell"). Then I noticed on our alumni website some of the alumni would misspell "weird" in their postings. ("It has been really wierd being the only member of the class of '78 that has great-great grandchildren, but I can explain..."). I came to this conclusion: Wheeler High School students of the 70's cannot spell "weird".
While I’m at it, let’s review some other words and phrases from Wheeler circa ’76.
“Gah”: This is the way we swore back then. “Gah” could became a seven syllable word when spoken correctly. Many times it was “Oh Ge-ah”. It took me years to realize we were saying “God”. [One time me and some church friends of mine were playing softball with Dr. Ralph Swearngin, the current head of the Georgia High School Association. Ralph hit a huge drive into right field. My brother was playing right field and watched the ball sail over his head. My brother said, “Gah”. It was a word that always seemed to be appropriate}
“All get Out”: When something was fun, it was as fun as “all get out”. I don’t know where “get out” was, but it must have been fun.
“Rip Off”: This is a familiar term to everyone. I remember the first time I ever heard the term. I heard this kid say, “Man, what a rip off” and from that day in 1972, I heard “rip off” for years. Sometimes we’d shorted it to say, “Man what a rip”. It meant getting gypped or cheated.
“Home made Sin”: If a young lady of the opposite sex did not appeal to you, you said she was as “ugly as home made Sin” because everyone knows store bought sin looks much better. You didn’t hear much of this after the Northern Invasion except when a few of us natives were sitting around (of course, we were no prizes either, but that’s another story).
“Cool”: We used this word everyday. It is one of the few that has made it.
“Turkey”: If someone was acting stupid, we called that person a “turkey”. If we wanted to sound “cool” we called that person a “Jive Turkey” because a skinny black kid on TV said it.
I’m sure there will be some other phrases or terms I’ll have to stop and explain, but I hope you will enjoy my thoughts on the decade that saw me go from elementary school to college.
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