Day 247 ~ The Spicy 70s & Me

I've been sitting here racking my brain for the past thirty minutes, in the hopes of being able to sum up this decade in a positive way.  But frankly, the only thing positive I can think of is the music!  

Let me start off by saying that this was the decade from hell!  Just as the decade unfolded, my life as I knew it...  simply disintegrated.

At the age of 8, my parent's marriage took a nose dive.  From my father's indiscretions with my mother's little sister and then the family maid; to my mother's brought on illnesses from depression (resulting from my father's cheating);  my mother's hospitalization for mental illnesses (now know it was Postpartum Depression which then brought on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder); my father leaving our family home after a serious car accident, only to move in with the future wife No. 2 (to this day I remember my father's phone call- yes phone call... telling me that he was in the hospital because of a car accident and that he was not coming back home);  my mother kidnaps my sister, brother and me and takes us to Peru (it was nine months before my father knew where we were);  I was sent to Buenos Aires, Argentina, given custody to my father's grandfather, and kept from my father for an additional year; the after returning to the US, my siblings and I were the focus of a three year long ugly custody battle between our parents; we moved so many times, that by the time I started high school in the fall of 1978, I had attended thirteen different schools; and at the end of the seventies I was sent to live in Peru (in my junior year in high school).  


I think I will put all that negative stuff in a balloon and let it go!  It's over!

Now, as I look back on the 70s (after having filled a balloon with all that 'hot air')... it gave us what we refer to today as being Classic Rock!  Among other great music artists!  From Elton John to Queen, Jackson 5, Fleetwood Mac, and Carlos Santana to name a few.  

When I did a quick search for musicians and bands, I was amazed by the names on the list.  I loved them all!  This is the best site I came across, check it out here.  In my opinion... a very good decade for music!

The 70s also took from us...with the break up of the Beatles and the death of Elvis  Boy, do I remember that day! ... as if it was yesterday.   

Let's not forget about disco.  Yes Disco!! Studio 54 in Manhattan, New York was disco to the 70s.  How about The Hustle?  ... the original line dance!  I can hustle with the best of them!! wink, wink  

The 70's also gave us bean bag chairs, roller derby, the game show Match Game, and although Laugh In started in 1967, the show is connected more to the 70's.  The 70s also gave us Archie Bunker and All in the Family, the Brady Bunch, Love Story, and who remembers School House Rock?  There was also Roots, Star Wars, and Charlie's Angels.  There was Watergate... and the Village People?  Y-M-C-A!  Let us not forget hot pants, bell bottom jeans and platform shoes!!

There were Swinging parties... where couples when arriving to "the party" would toss their keys into a bowl.  At the end of the evening everyone would gather around and the women would blindly pick out a set of keys, then leave with the owner of said keys.  Only the 70s!

My mood ring looked just like this one

OH! Who can forget streaking!!  It was everywhere!  During sporting events or in huge crowds you were sure to see one.  I did!  Yes.  It was mortifying!  LOL!!  I got over it though.  It was such a "fad" that Ray Stevens wrote a song about it in 1974, which reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 single charts.   

I can't forget to mention that the 70s also gave us mood rings, pet rocks, the Rubik's cube, sea monkeys, string art, and plenty of macrame plant hangers to choose from.  

The US was led by Nixon, Ford and Carter.  We also had major firsts... first Earth Day on April 22, 1970;  first Gay Pride parade on June 28, 1970; not to mention Roe vs Wade on January 22, 1973..  

People like Cesar Chavez, Shirley Chrisholm (first African-American woman elected to the US House of Representative and later ran for US Presidency in 1972), Patty Hearst, Jesse Jackson, George McGovern, Karen Silkwood, Dr. Benjamin Spock, George Wallace and Andrew Young, all made their own headlines in the 70s. 

Ahh the 70s.  The decade where reality and life itself, showed its true colors.  

Our lives are to be used and thus to be lived as fully as possible, and truly it seems that we are never so alive as when we concern ourselves with other people.    ~ Harry Chapin  (1942-1981)

For me, my awakening came when I was kidnapped.  ~ Patty Hearst 

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.  ~ Richard M. Nixon 

From the time I was a kid, I always knew something was going to happen to me. Didn't know exactly what.   ~ Elvis Presley

        

For more great info on the 70s click here and check this page out.  

Good night John boy.

Blessings to all!!

118 days to go...

PS... Sons, I love and miss you.  To the moon and stars above and back.  You are my sunshine(s).

Images courtesy of google images.   ©