I Miss The 70's.

 

I Loved  the 70's. I was a kid then and I had a happy childhood( other than the being molested by a relative part from age 4-12 but I somehow managed to keep that"separate") and it was a great time to grow up and to be a kid and I really miss it. We had lots of freedom then and it was safe and I even remember wandering around the big city (Toronto) on my own at age 4-5, either walking or hopping on the streetcar and walking far to school and back all on my own,too and no one thought anything of it; it was just the way it was back then and I was what they called a Latch-Key Child  too where my mother worked and I was just left home alone and wore the key around my neck on a chain and let myself in and out and over all those year only twice was there a possible danger: once (I think I would have been around 9) walking home from a school a creepy man was following me and I was keenly aware of it so I took another way home, the complicated way thru my friend Billy's big estate with the orchard and the winding roads and I was able to lose him and the other time I was home alone and someone loudly pounding and banging on the door demanding I let them in saying It's me! It's me!  but never properly identifying themselves but I never opened the door and they eventually went away but to a kid home all alone it was pretty scary. We didn't have the same concern about kidnappings, perverts, pedophiles and such back then though like today. It did exist but  nowhere near like today and back then kids went outside to play right after school until it got dark at night and once the street lights came on that was your sign to go home.

We also had a TV just like the one here and I still remember it too. It was in 1976 we got it when I was 9 years old. It cost 1000$ which was alot of $$$$ back then! We had photos and a Blue Mountain Pottery vase on top of it as well. We also had a white shag carpet that I accidently caught part on fire once when I tripped and fell while carrying a lit candle and had to cover with a chair and my mother never noticed(I just told her I decided to "redecorate" one day when she was at work) and I remember we had the trendy 70's decor at the time too with the furniture a mixure of brown and gold brocade, with lamps orange, avocado green and yellow and orange curtains. We also had a lamp that went from the floor to the ceiling and of course beanbag chairs and the big stereo that looked like a big wooden box.

I also remember my aunt had this exact same tree topper on her Christmas tree where the star would normally go and she had all hand-blown European glass ornaments on a real tree every year and we'd always go visit them over Christmas(and summer) and I'd have fun with my cousins and they lived out in the country, plus for 6 weeks every summer from age 6-12 I also went to camp, which are also highlights and happy memories of my childhood and I loved my school from grade K-6 as well and have fond memories of it, and the bullying didn't start until grade 7. I was happy up to age 12 and then at 13 is when everything went to shit and the depression also started, the same time the bullying started and happiness as I knew it (as well as the best part of my life) was over and life would never be the same agin. I would go on to have happy moments but not be happy and happiness would elude me, and there's a big difference.

I remember having a Christmas card like this, with the glitter on it as well as corsages and decorations.

I had a few of these Avon  perfume pins as well: I had the 3 bunnies, the dog,the scarecrow, and the gingerbread man. I also remember having one shaped and scented like an orange that was a necklace on a string. We always got so many things from Avon  and I remember my mother buying most of her Christmas gifts for all of the relatives from there spending hundreds of $$$$ and the representative saying that she was her best customer. She would always get all the cool kids' stuff for me too and I was always so excited waiting for the order to come in and every day when she'd come home from work I'd run up to her and ask excitedly if it came in yet. I still remember.

Farrah Fawcett from Charlie's Angels. She was the  pin-up girl of the 70's and every guy wanted to be with her and every girl wanted to be her she was just so beautiful and everyone copied her famo0us "feathered" hairstyle, and it was the hairstyle of the 70's just as the Princess Di haircut was the style of the 80's and everyone had a poster of her up on their bedroom wall. I used to watch the show Charlie's Angels (Kate was my fave.) and collected the trading cards and my friends and I at camp would trade and swap them. After school I also used to watch What's Happening! which was my fave. TV show and the 70's ( and 80's) had the best TV sitcoms of all-time. They just don't make them like that anymore. I also used to watch All In The Family, Welcome Back Kotter, Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days, Good Times, The Bionic Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Mork & Mindy, The Carol Burnett Show, etc. I can also remember my mother watching movies and I would lay on the couch and end up falling asleep.

I also had these, a red pair and a blue pair. I wore them all summer( when I wasn't going around barefoot, that is) esp. at the cottage when I was 4-5 years old I have great memories of, esp. swimming in the lake or mucking around in the creek in the clay, swinging on the tire swing, catching frogs and toads, being at the beach, and the time we got caught in a rare summer hailstorm and that time I saw a bear!

This is one of my fave. all-times amusement rides; the Tilt-a-Whirl! This one and the Zipper  are the ones I've always love best ( and still do but now I can't stand long enough to line up or else I faint standing too long) and figured out if everyone leans to the one side at just the right time you can really make it spin round and round but that one time my cousin had a cast on his arm( and he's really fat too and at the time I was this tiny, skinny, scrawny little thing) and he kept leaning on me and crushing me and I could hardly breathe! I also fondly remember going to the "Ex" (the CNE) several times every summer and it was always the highlight of my summer.

We also had these Tupperware  bowls and my fave. was the pink bowl and the pink cup that came with it and I can still remember when we lived with my aunt when I was in Kindergarten that she purposely(just to be mean) would never let me have the pink ones because she knew  it was my fave. and when she'd set out the dishes on the table for meals she's never give me the pink ones and when I'd switch it so I'd get it she'd always switch it back and even when my cousins would get the pink one( and they're all boys and don't even like  or want pink) and trade and give  it to me she'd get mad and make them take it back. She was always so mean to me and treated me like a little slave too and I never could figure out why she hated me so much and always picked on me. Maybe she just didn't like girls or maybe she just didn't like me? No matter how hard I tried to please her though nothing was ever good enough and I always got yelled at, put down,hassled, etc. so I quickly just learned to try to avoid her and stay out of her way. My mother really liked her though ad I could never figure out why; she was such a mean old witch.

This is the city I grew up in and left at age 17 to move to L.A. It was nice at the time but too expensive to live in anymore and my old neighbourhood isn't the same anymore and has now become "ghetto" but I have good memories of what it was like living there in the 70's and 80's before it changed, when it used to be a nice place to live. I still miss the city though and I miss our old house, which of all the places I've lived( 13 or so during my life) is the one place that most feels like my Home.

Christmas in the 70's. It was a magical time and I remember always visitng my 2 aunts and their families and other cousins and my grandparents and sometimes another aunt and uncle. I remember too one time I was doubting Santa and my older cousin said she saw the reindeer hoof prints on the roof and then I figured it must have be true(because she wouldn't lie, afterall), although it never occurred to me at the time what a 13 YR old would even be doing  up on the roof to see them in the first place...

We also had the Christmas garland exactly like this draped across the ceiling, also a 70's thing. My cousins all had it too. You can't find it anywhere anymore, it's a thing of the past. I'm so grateful for the 70's ( and for the 80's too) as those were the happiest times in my life and all I have now are the memories to look back on and smile.