Experiences from the 70's

Since I unfortunatly missed the 70's I just wanted to hear some stories and or experiences from the 70's. Good/Bad, legal/illegal, Best/Worst memories, anything that you remember. (Which in some cases may not be too much, ha ha )

 

My worst memory of the 70's were those dang Tough Skin Jeans from Sears that my Mom made me wear. They were plaid. Oh yeth and I just can't forget the apple green, polyester,bell bottomed, pant suit with the rainbow elastic waist band and arm bands. Oh yeth..those were the days.

 

Ha Ha, I know the style was completely different, I love most of the clothes, like the dresses and stuff, but I would of killed my parents if they dressed me in that apple green rainbow suit. I was a child in the 80's so even some of the pictures of me when I was kid I wonder what were my parents thinking when they put that outfit on me. Then again my parents grew up in the late 60's and 70's so they probable weren't thinking....

 

I remember the good bad and ugly of it. My fondest memories are of Golden Gate Park in the late 60's. 67 to be presice. It was the summer of love and all the big bands where shinning in all their glory. Hippie Hill was radiating rainbow clolors of light and the brilliant colors of the hippie dress was whrilling and swerilling like a giant kolidascope of one motion. The love and the laughter will never be matched. The brotherhood was total and undaunting. We were all of one mind one great spirit. It was the times.

 

Hey VWHippie,
If I still had that suit I'd frame it. LOL. Yeah I'm with ya on the parents weren't right in the 60's and 70's. Shameless made me think of Oregon when she started talking about visiting places. We went to Oregon for six months. I had never seen anything like it. Was at the height of John Denver's career. I remember hearing him being played non-stop on the radio. My parents bought my brother one of his albums for Christmas. I cried when they made me go to Oregon and I cried harder when they made me leave.
We lived in a small town named Phoenix. Right outside of Medford. What an awesome experience. Would love to go back there one day.

 

Hey hippietoad I had an apple green pant suit also....polyester with a halter top. Man I loved that outfit!

I remember making a lot of my own clothes. I use to use bandanas as halter tops and I remember cutting my jeans apart and adding print material to make a long jean skirt.

In '68 I spent the summer traveling around Canada. It was a magical time. I remember meeting some guy that spoke French, and the only thing he could say in English was "you are so beautiful" and "do you want to take a walk on the beach?"

 

In 1968 u were 12 or is your age wrong. A well rounded 12 year old then i might add. I too am 48.

 

HIGH there and welcome to the 70s.

I lived, loved and played hard in the 70s. Although I did not make it to Max Yasgars farm for Woodstock, it was Woodstock that completley changed my life.If I had been a few years older, I would have been there. When I saw the movie, I was all the way in to the hippy way of peace, love, sprit and heart.

This exact week, 33 years ago in Big Bear California, I was with some of my best friend, I had not yet found the enlightenment of mind expanding drugs.
My friend were doing LSD 25, Orange sunshine, the best and purest acid I have ever done of the 4 or 5000 trip I took. I had not even smoked pot yet, so hard drugs led to Marijuana HA, HA.

I had to beg them to give me some. They were having such a good time. My friend did not presher me into useing, it was my choice.

Well, not to ramble, we tripped all night, went to sleep and I woke up still trippin. FAROUT MAN.

Happy nude year to ya

 

That's right I was 12 in '68. My mother died that Feb. and I went with my brother and his family camping up through Canada all summer. I spent a lot of time finding myself that summer and I grew up fast. I decided that life was too short to waste doing things that didn't matter to me or that I didn't enjoy.

 

I remember Mr. Natural....wasn't he an underground comic character?

 

1st, wow, 12 yrears old on the road (sorry about your mom )I guess I had meet the young while on my hippy travels. Sounds like a real trip.

Yes, Mr Natural was a Comic strip, books etc. Also, it was paper acid with Mr. Natural pics on it. Good stuff back then.

So what's your story now. I am in TX, moving back to Portland OR next Tuesday, Where do you call home now.

 

Hey John,
Sounds like alot of fun. I always wish things in the world today could turn around and be like how they were in the late 60's and 70's. I know I'm just dreaming and it will never happen. But I just can't stand how the world is today. You guys were very lucky. I'm sure you never realized how lucky you were at the time but I bet you do now. Sometimes I think I don't even want kids because of how the world is today.

 

I loved the clothes of the 70's - I graduated with my R.N. in 1972 in B.C. Most of my salary went back into the commune I lived in. I wore uniforms at work and homemade etc the rest of the time. We got our stuff at the Salvation Army and Goodwill and then made everything new with quilting and tie-dying and batik etc. They were gorgeous and comfortable and unique.

We assisted draft-dodgers, helped people through Amnesty International, raised money for Greenpeace - all of these organizations were quite young and the authorities were really paranoid - And we were so happy to be law-breakers. I don't remember ever being more proud than when we found out our phone was tapped. Mort Sahl, a comedian and "radical", used to say if you wanted to know if your phone was tapped, just don't pay your phone bill. We didn't and they didn't cut us off - we didn't pay for almost a year!

I never did any active public demonstrating - I was raised Quaker and felt that chaining myself to a fence only offended the poor guy who had to try to unchain me. We opted for something called Silent Witness.

But I was a great subversive At work, I was just an ordinary nurse, taking orders, doing my job - but after hours, I got to be totally radical (by gentle Canadian standards), helped print an underground newspaper and smuggle people and support the Greenpeace protestors etc.

All in all, the 70's were good for me. I was young, cocky, confident. By the late 70's, I was working in a trauma unit near San Francisco. Volunteered with spinal cord injuries and did a lot of assistance with Vietnam vets. But, even then, I didn't have a true sense of association.

Then AIDS hit in the early 80's - knocked me right off my happy perch - the 80's were a whole other wake-up call for me. 13,000 people at least died in S.F. in the 80's, in a health care system that wasn't well supported by state or fed governments. At that point, my politics got way more left and way more radical....but that's another story.

Aanii

 

Mosaic,
So glad I wasn't the only one...Now I'm wishing my parents had taken a photo of me in it. Maybe I'll have to break out the photo album and post some of me clothes !!

 

Aanii, what an interesting life you have led. You can be proud of the work you have acomplished! What are you up to today?

People said the same thing back in the 60's and 70's. It is easy to look back and think that the world was better then, but at the time we didn't think there was anything good about the world. If felt like world war III was begining and we were distroying Nature at such a pace that we wouldn't live to see 1984! I remember my best friend telling me she didn't ever want to have kids because she didn't want to bring children into this messed up world. And you know what she never did have any.

So John, your on the road to Oregon? I've never been to Portland but I've heard it is a beautiful part of the country. What takes you back?
I live in a little lakeside town in Ohio, just across Lake Erie from Canada. I've been busy living the life of a starving artist, raising kids, and taking care of animals for the last 25 years. My daughter and her ol'man are trying to organize a peacefest (music festival) for this summer, but things aren't what they use to be and they keep running into snags from local govt. and big buisness interests. I guess in some ways things really were easier back in the 70's.

 

That made me laugh! I went to Italy when I was 14 and the guys all knew to call me "Fascist!" and then "Will you marry me?" which I found soooo funny. And "Do you have a cigarette for me?"

 

Depends which part of Italy you've been...

Anyway,Peace folks !

 

I'm in awe of all you have done! It took a lot of optimism to help people and fight the system to do it! Especially in the 80's!

I too tend to focus on my little piece of turf. It is too depressing and too difficult to take on major politics these days. I guess in some ways that is why I had kids. To raise them to fight the good fight, always question authority, and aways to love and care for others. I'd like to think that I've succeeded in that and have made a difference in this world in some small way.

TARABELLE, I'm glad you found that humorous. It still brings a smile to my lips when I think of it... young men!

Thanks Galahad for sharing that picture. Puts things in perspective.

 

:H Does anyone remember Vancouver in the summer of '70? And a guy living there named "Arlo" (looked like Arlo Guthrie)? Or Toronto the same summer (Janis Joplin Peace Train, Rochedale College, Phil Ochs playing all over the place)??