Photo Credit: © Can Stock Photo Inc. / gstockstudio
In the late 1960s and early 1970s Scholastic Books distributed four-page “newspapers” for kids. I was 10 in 1970 and recall being struck by a corner article that had a photo of a futuristic car that looked like a torpedo. The headline was in that “mod” ‘70s typeface: “Face the ‘70s!” I tried to imagine my Aunt Jenny getting into that torpedo car. It would take a couple sticks of butter to grease her up well enough to squeeze her in. I also remember T-shirts from back then with printing, “Archie Bunker for President.” I didn’t understand the sarcasm then and wondered if he was really qualified to take that office. Some of the things he said on TV caused my parents to send me off to bed early so I couldn’t hear him. Such a man didn’t seem very presidential to me.
Then there was that whole Peter Max cartoon thing, drawn like the Beatle’s Yellow Submarine characters. What was I supposed to see in that? The guy who sold pop and chips at the softball field on Friday nights told me that, unless I was “buzzing,” I would never get it. Now I was really lost. I had no idea how to properly buzz and anyway how could making such a noise cause anything to be different? Man, was that guy stupid.
Lacking Direction
Things like flower power, Richard Nixon, Woodstock, muscle cars, and college campus protests were on the news every night, but as the ‘70s waned, leisure suits, disco dancing, men wearing hairspray (LOTS of hairspray), and fuel economy were all the rage. Scratch that—the rage had let up, and a lot of stuff that used to matter suddenly didn’t matter anymore. This was a kinder, gentler nation, but many Americans were lost, rudderless, and incredibly apathetic.