Why were the 70s such a tacky decade?

[jamespowers]

As for the Seventies, I don't think they really began psychologically until the resignation of Nixon. And I think they ended, psychologically, with the release of the Iranian hostages. Even more than the inauguration of Reagan -- which happened on the same day -- when the hostages were released it felt like the curtain on that particular act had come down, even though we now know it was really just the end of a prologue.

I think it's common to define eras by the memories of people looking back on how the world looked to them as kids -- but I think the flaw in that is a focus on superficialities like style and popular music, or on how the world looked in just their own particular bubble of it. Sometimes this is useful, but I think we learn more by looking at what was driving the adults of any particular period.

Thank God that curtain came down too. :doh: Gas lines, energy crisis, lousy hippie music, ugly clothes, ugly appliances, ugly carpet---well just a completely tacky time. It was disgusting.

 

[Stearmen]

It is strange, that like a lot of you, I am fascinated by the 30s and 40s, especially, the aircraft of that time period. But it was also the bloodiest two decades in human history, over 100,000,000 people were killed! Yet, the best decade of my life was flying those old airplanes over the friendly skies. Rose colored glasses make life tolerable!

 

[LizzieMaine]

You could go even further and point out that the twentieth century taken as a whole is the bloodiest span in human history. Peace and prosperity was not the worldwide status quo at any point in the 20th Century. It was always very much the exception.

And yet every one of us here is a product of that century.

 

[Harp]

I can't stand it if eras aren't separated into exactly equal decades that I can give simple names to!
I don't want my peas and corn to even touch...

"the drama of our time is the coming of all men into one fate."---Robert Duncan

...and that M109 mentioned in another thread was privately owned? :eusa_doh:

 

[scottyrocks]

Great things during the 1970s? Sports. Our footballers were not the pansy's they are now they played hard and took hard knocks.

I can't speak on your footballers, but it has been discovered (or admitted to) fairly recently here that sports injuries have always been with us. No random American football player of the GE was too much tougher than any random AF player of today. But today medical science has a greater understanding of the long term effects of concussions, for instance, whereas in the past, it was, 'Be a man - walk it off!' That was just pride piled on top of ignorance.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I can't speak on your footballers, but it has been discovered (or admitted to) fairly recently here that sports injuries have always been with us. No random American football player of the GE was too much tougher than any random AF player of today. But today medical science has a greater understanding of the long term effects of concussions, for instance, whereas in the past, it was, 'Be a man - walk it off!' That was just pride piled on top of ignorance.

I agree with both of you, as I've seen the effects of concussions (and aging) with a few coworkers.
One is a former foot ball player in High School, and a boxer in college/in the service.
As he gets older, he gets REALLY forgetful, and this isn't Alzheimers either...
The second part of my agreement, is the state of the Premier League in the UK.
Yep, I watched a Manchester United game from last week (had it on DVR) and saw a guy get brushed in the eye by another players hand, while he was attempting to steal the ball. The brushee as it were, went down as if hit by a bus! Really???? They pay you how many millions and you can't take a near poke to the eye? In the 70's it wasn't so much about money (for our football or theirs), it was about the game. Sure money was important, but the driving force was pride in your abilities, and in your team (or club).

 

[LizzieMaine]

THere are those who will argue that the arrival of space-age-plastic helmets was what turned American football into the mess that it is today. Put those gigantic monstrosities into leather helmets again and I bet you'll see a lot fewer concussions, because they'll be a lot more careful about what they do with their heads.

I don't know much about football, but I do know a great deal about baseball -- and I'll swear on the bones of Walter O'Malley that the game, at the major league level, has *always* been first and foremost about money. A hundred years ago, about the only hope a poor boy from the sticks had of avoiding a life in the mines or the textile mills was baseball -- and he scrabbled for every cent he could get. Baseball was filthy with corruption during the teens as a result of the penury of the owners and the stupid gullibility of the semi-literate hicks who made up the majority of the team rosters -- games were being thrown, gamblers were making money hand over fist, players were on the take, and Americans were fast losing faith in the whole stinking mess.

I have a lot of complaints about the modern game, but I can't begrudge the players the money they make today. They're in show business, and they're as entitled to the big bucks as whatever big hunk of brainless cheese currently popular in Hollywood is entitled to those bucks.

 

[Harp]

I have a lot of complaints about the modern game, but I can't begrudge the players the money they make today. They're in show business....

The game may have evolved beyond rhyme and reason in Keynesian economic terms, though to what base effect is arguable
yet domestic talent for the diamond has lessened revealing an interesting facet in economic and human terms to major league baseball.

And the pitcher's mound should not have been lowered.
And Pete Rose should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. :eusa_clap

 

[LizzieMaine]

And Pete Rose should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. :eusa_clap

Buck Weaver first.

 

[Harp]

Buck Weaver first.

Moe Berg 2nd, after Charlie Hustle. :eusa_clap

(...I know what you are thinking---Moe's batting average was affected by a knee injury)
and he had a cannon arm for Second Base thieves. :eusa_clap

 

[LizzieMaine]

Moe Berg 2nd, after Charlie Hustle. :eusa_clap

(...I know what you are thinking---Moe's batting average was affected by a knee injury)
and he had a cannon arm for Second Base thieves. :eusa_clap

Plus he deserves credit for batting .400 against Clifton Fadiman on "Information Please."

 

[Harp]

Plus he deserves credit for batting .400 against Clifton Fadiman on "Information Please."

And Moe could recite all of Poe's poetry. A Raven nevermore to be seen in the majors.

___________

Ted Williams story: When I was in law school I worked as an overnight convenience store attendant,
and the store owner had spent some years in Boston as a kid, and his mother took him to a Red Sox game once,
and departing the ballpark they encountered TW and another player leaving. His mom asked TW for an autograph
for her son, but TW declined, and she chewed TW's ass up one side and down another. Kinda ruined my admiration for TW.:eeek:

 

[LizzieMaine]

Mr. Ballgame was notorious for his disdain toward the fans -- some called him "The Splendid Spitter" because of his habit of expectorating in their direction when they were riding him. He didn't really mellow until long after he stopped playing -- he didn't tip his hat to a Boston crowd until his first trip to Fenway as the manager of the Senators in 1969.

Of course, Boston crowds are not known for being respectful, either. In the seventies, I used to watch idiot college boys in the bleachers throwing flashlight batteries at Reggie Smith, which treatment eventually led to his demand to be traded.

Bizarre Moe Berg story: there was a rumor floating around that he knew exactly what happened to the Hindenburg, and was somehow involved in making it happen. Supposedly he had confided this adventure to a man named Tim McAuliffe -- who was the supplier of uniforms to the Red Sox -- and McAuliffe went to his grave insisting Berg was serious when he told him the story. A lot of people in baseball were *afraid* of Moe Berg.

 

[HudsonHawk]

THere are those who will argue that the arrival of space-age-plastic helmets was what turned American football into the mess that it is today. Put those gigantic monstrosities into leather helmets again and I bet you'll see a lot fewer concussions, because they'll be a lot more careful about what they do with their heads.

I don't know much about football, but I do know a great deal about baseball -- and I'll swear on the bones of Walter O'Malley that the game, at the major league level, has *always* been first and foremost about money. A hundred years ago, about the only hope a poor boy from the sticks had of avoiding a life in the mines or the textile mills was baseball -- and he scrabbled for every cent he could get. Baseball was filthy with corruption during the teens as a result of the penury of the owners and the stupid gullibility of the semi-literate hicks who made up the majority of the team rosters -- games were being thrown, gamblers were making money hand over fist, players were on the take, and Americans were fast losing faith in the whole stinking mess.

I have a lot of complaints about the modern game, but I can't begrudge the players the money they make today. They're in show business, and they're as entitled to the big bucks as whatever big hunk of brainless cheese currently popular in Hollywood is entitled to those bucks.

Anyone who thinks professional baseball is about anything *other* than money is either woefully or willfully ignorant of it. It's ALWAYS been about the money. That's the reason for its existence. Mom and apple pie and fathers and sons playing catch make a nice portrait, but it's simply not reality, nor has it ever been.

 

[HudsonHawk]

And Pete Rose should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. :eusa_clap

Rose is a disgrace, and it'll be a dark, dark day in baseball if he ever gets into the HOF.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Buck Weaver first.

If there is one sympathetic character in the Black Sox scandal, it's the Ginger Kid.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Bizarre Moe Berg story: there was a rumor floating around that he knew exactly what happened to the Hindenburg, and was somehow involved in making it happen. Supposedly he had confided this adventure to a man named Tim McAuliffe -- who was the supplier of uniforms to the Red Sox -- and McAuliffe went to his grave insisting Berg was serious when he told him the story. A lot of people in baseball were *afraid* of Moe Berg.

He's also, to my knowledge, the only Major Leaguer to become a CIA operative after his playing days.

 

[Harp]

Rose is a disgrace, and it'll be a dark, dark day in baseball if he ever gets into the HOF.

"Let he who is without sin cast the first baseball."
-John 8:7 or words to that effect

 

[HudsonHawk]

"Let he who is without sin cast the first baseball."
-John 8:7 or words to that effect

I never bet on a baseball game in which I had duty to perform, so I'm ready to vote.

 

[Harp]

Bizarre Moe Berg story: there was a rumor floating around that he knew exactly what happened to the Hindenburg, and was somehow involved in making it happen. Supposedly he had confided this adventure to a man named Tim McAuliffe -- who was the supplier of uniforms to the Red Sox -- and McAuliffe went to his grave insisting Berg was serious when he told him the story. A lot of people in baseball were *afraid* of Moe Berg.

Berg certainly buried his talents and never lived as purposeful a life as he might otherwise have done.