Back Down Memory Lane

WOOOOP!  WOOOOOP!  I am a 1970's baby! *cue the disco, soul & funk music*  Some of my fondest life memories so far on my journey are of my early childhood in the 70's.  Things were so…simple then and folks just seemed...happier, you know?  Maybe it was my childhood naiveté but life felt peaceful, easy and promising. If you ask me, those of us that grew up in the 70's just had it g o o d!  And I can prove it, too! 

'Member those?!?!?

We were some of the last kids parents allowed to play freely outside, up the street and around the block until the "street lights came on."  Snacks were HELLA cheap with single scoops of ice cream for 10 cents at the local Thrifty's (Southern California reference) and Grab Bags and Chili Cheese Fritos for less than a dollar from the ice cream truck!  The clothes were DY-NO-MITE...bell bottom jeans, platform shoes, terry cloth rompers, jumpsuits, overalls and ponchos. Knee high socks?!?  Please!!  And even though television actually went OFF in the middle of the night (the network would play The National Anthem and it would be fuzzy until morning), the television shows were the bet!  Young & The Restless, Little House on the Prairie, Sesame Street, Gilligan's Island, Looney Tunes, The Dukes of Hazzard, General Hospital, Brady Bunch, Tom & Jerry, SOUUUUUULLLLLL Train, Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids, Charlie's Angels, Scooby-Doo, Good Times, Wonder Woman, Eight Is Enough, The Electric Company, Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, Welcome Back Kotter, What's Happening and The Flintstones to name a few. *pausing to catch my breath*

The 70's were a time when kids and grown folks could actually enjoy the same music without somebody's Mama shoo'ing all the kids into the back room while the grown ups listened to their music (unless it was that Millie Jackson).  From Earth Wind and Fire (the absolutest best band EVER) to the Commodores, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Parliament, the mighty, mighty O'Jays, Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Rose Royce, Kool & The Gang, Marvin Gaye (…like, politically conscious party on down Marvin Gaye…not the super sexy kinda sorta probably was high red light music Marvin Gaye) we could all get down wit' the get down!  Together!

So!  In honor of all the 70's babies, come with me...if you will, on a stroll down the street of any kid that came of age in the 70's in the 'hood (or had 'hood cousins they visited on the weekend or in the summer) and remember... 

• Waking up to your Mama cleaning house with Earth, Wind & Fire, Al Green or Isley Brothers albums playing on the record player (and no jumping around or you will make the record skip & scratch it)
• Strawberry incense wafting through the air
• Roller skates with yarn pom poms or those loud ass strap on Steely Wheelies
• Viewfinders
• Polaroid Cameras (fanning them back & forth in a rush to see the picture)
• 8 track tape desks
• Being awakened out of your sleep in the middle of the night to, "Do that new dance for your Mama, baby…" for your mother and her friends
• E'rythang orange all over your home decor 
• Rotary phones
• Jean culottes and gaucho pants
• That game called, "Perfection" that ended up with all the shapes popping up and scaring the crap out of you just when you though you were going to win
• The smell of Pinesol
• Tide or Joy dishwashing liquid in your bath (Mr. Bubble when your Mama could afford it) 
• TV dinners that you had to cook…in the oven...with that sweet, gooey chocolate cake dessert we couldn't wait to eat
• Saving washers and dryers at the wash house for your Mama on Saturdays
• Pushing the grocery cart 7 blocks through the 'hood back home with the plastic laundry baskets and Hefty trash bags in the grocery cart filled with alllll your family's clothes
• Delicates drying outside on hangers smelling like Woolite
• Cigarettes in ashtrays littered throughout your home. Kool 100's were my mother's choice *sigh*
• Banana seat bikes with plastic tassels on the handle bars

  

  "My Mama said I can't let nobody ride my bike!"

• Smell of fish frying in the cast iron skillet on the stove Friday nights
• Watching my mother peel potatoes with quick flicks of her wrist  WITHOUT a potato peeler and then cut them perfectly to make french fries.  That was a skill back then!
• Large Crisco cans on the stove filled with cooking oil we used again and again
• Those wicker plate holder things used to hold paper plates piled with good that we sat on tv trays in front of the television
• Girls wearing french braids with beads and foil adorning every single braid & boys sporting shags on their little brown heads 
• Peeking around the corner and giggling behind my hand as I watched my mother slow dance with the man she thought she loved-that month-late at night in my living room when I was supposed to be sound asleep  
• "Getting wet" in somebody's grandmama's front yard with her water hose and laying on our backs on the sidewalk to let the sun dry us off until were were dusty ashy
• Enduring the ritual of getting my hair washed, greased and styled before a stocking cap…a literal cap made of my mother's stockings…tied to my head with a shoestring under my neck before bed

Yeah, I'm a 70's baby!  Picking my afro and getting my boogie on in front of the television while watching the SOUUUUULLLLL TRAINNNNNN Line!  Party on, everybody!  Party.  On.  Click on this link, enjoy yourself & be happy!  1970's Soul Train Line