Do you ever wish you came of age in a different era?

[absyntheNsugar]

I do - wish I was a teenager in the 70's. The music was great, coke wasn't dangerous and no such thing as HIV. Gas was below $1 a gallon, and the GTO ruled the highway. Disco was bad, but then again you could always pop in a Yes or Zeppelin album. FM still played good music, and AM radio wasn't full of Nazis.

Oh, and wasn't everyone having wild sex?

[LanternWaste]

1. 30's and 40's

This'll sound weird, but sometimes I wish I had grown up during the Depression and fought in the War. But, all in all the early eighties weren't too bad to be a teen, either. :)

[bigwillq]

2. Late 60's throught the 70's

I wanted to go to Woodstock and grow up in the turmoil of the MLK and RFK shootings as well as Vietnam although I wouldn't have wanted to go to war myself. I think I would've OD'ed though.


Question: Why wasn't coke dangerous? Is it really that much stronger/purer now?

[texastoast]

3. Yes.

I wish I was born in North America in 1400.

[Beaker]

15. what type of native american would you like to have been?

I would liked to have been either in the upper northwest, hawaii, or upper minnesota.

i would have definitely preferred a peaceful tribal society.

[texastoast]

31. It's hard to say

Truth be told, I probably would have liked the nomadic lifestyle, the excitement of the hunt, and the magic dances of the Sioux. I love the energy in a good tipi.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

4. A time of no consequences.

Doesn't exist any more, does it?
As for me, being gay in the 70's sucked (way too unaccepted and underground for most of the country). I prefer today.
However, I agree with the radio part. FM radio was so much better and less homogenized then. DJs would actually play a whole album on the air. Much more interesting.
Also I hope to never see Harvest Gold, Avacado Green and Brown combined again for the rest of my life.

[absyntheNsugar]

11. Although, it has been noted

That you could *get away* with being gay and have everyone none the wiser.

Cases in point: The Village People and Queen. Suburban America had no idea they weren't straight.


But I wasn't there so go figure. To quote Paul Simon, everything looks better in black and white...

[Whitacre D_WI]

5. No.

I yam what I yam, and that's all what I yam.

6. nope

born in 1956.

These times right now are pretty interesting also I'd say to all of you that are in your teens and twenties coming of age.

Pay attention, you'll be glad you did.

I think things are very cyclical. Coming from an artist's background, I really see this.

for example, in literature
New York School grew from the Beats, the Beats heavily influenced by Whitman and Blake and French Surrealsim, which came from Dada which came from Jarry and pataphysics. Direct intertwined lineages

in music, Rage Against the Machine influenced by Public Enemy who were influenced by the Clash who were influenced by the Ramones and MC5 who were influenced by Sun Ra and the Sonics

just for starters

By the way, some of the 70s were great, some of it completely sucked.

[catzies]

7. This teenager of the 70s doesn't remember it being all that great

until 1977 when punk debuted.

Oh, and the drinking age was 18 so I was barhopping at 16.

Oh, and finding bales washed up on the beaches of Key Biscayne.

And Rockie Horror at midnight (I know, it never stopped).

So I guess you've got a point about the 70s.

[POed_Ex_Repub]

8. 70's.... 2070's that is...

Think of the video games... *drooling*

[chelsea0011]

9. 1770's

You can't grow up around the Boston area and not wonder if you would have been a follower of Samuel Adams or a British Loyalist.

[geniph]

10. The late 70s sucked in many ways

the music was AWFUL. Sure, there was good music being made - the Allman Brothers, Jimmy Buffett, etc. - but everything being played on the radio was the likes of Bad Company or, worse, disco (I was a death before disco kinda girl). I went to my - ack! - 20-year reunion a few years back and they played music from our graduation year - 1977 - and it was HORRIBLE. I didn't regain my interest in popular music until I started hearing this great stuff coming out of England and New York City - the Clash, Blondie, the Ramones, and that wasn't for a couple more years.

Movies were good, but who had any money to go to them? We had a Democratic president, but everyone treated him like shit. There were gas lines and embargos and "stagflation."

Coke wasn't considered dangerous, but it was EXPENSIVE. It was for rich people. Since the War On (some) Drugs, it's only gotten cheaper and more available. Go figure.

Pot was cheap, but it was lousy, too - harsh stuff that made you cough and gag. When the Colombian first came in, everyone switched to that, and it was so soporific it made people into virtual zombies.

The clothes were so ugly that the memory gives me hives. Platform shoes and polyester. Barf!

The drinking age here was 21, so the big thing to do was to drive to Idaho, where it was 19. Whee, Idaho bars! What fun! :eyes:

The sex part was okay, but options for birth control were pretty limited. While sex didn't kill you, people were starting to get herpes and a lot of folks were busy passing chlamydia, gonorrhea, and crabs around. On the plus side, the protesters hadn't really started targeting Planned Parenthood yet, so you could go get a GYN exam without running a f***ing gauntlet of loons convinced you were slaughtering fetuses.

[absyntheNsugar]

12. Personally I LOVED the fashions

Hiphuggers, bell bottoms, women wearing mens shirts tied in a knot right above the midriff....

Personally I hated 80's fashions (with the exception of Dolfin Shorts)...and I worry with all this prudish FCC crap we're going to go back to less revealing clothes...

[geniph]

32. The hiphuggers and bell-bottoms were early 70s

by the late 70s, everyone was wearing Gloria Vanderbilt-type jeans - skin-tight to the ankle and so high-waisted they practically came to the chin. That style looks so horrible on me, I can't even look at pictures from those days.

The hairstyles were the ugliest ever invented. EVER.

[SmileyBoy]

13. I mostly grew up in the 80's-90's, so I don't feel TOO alienated. BUT...

...my brother's age group is different. My GOD, you'd be surprised at the differences between those born in 1982 and those born in 1989. You really would, folks. My brother's "sub-generation" is a lot different. For example, the kid wouldn't know grunge music if it bit him in the ass. All those kids know in life is their MP3s, Their poseur bling-bling, their CDs, and their DVDs. He never understood that in our family, we didn't even use a remote control until I was in Junior High. That's right, until I was 12 or so, I walked up to change the channel jut like all the other Baby Boomers.

I asked him one day, "Hey bro, do you know what a record is???" He said it was an accomplishment you break or a recording of history. He didn't know that a record was also a musical device. He said "What do you mean, how do you PLAY a record???" I felt SOOOOO sorry for him, but I LAUGHED SOOOO hard. I asked him what city the grunge scene originally came from, and he said "New York???" I was LMAO as well. I asked him if he knew who Boyz II Men (the ORIGINAL black corporate boy band) were, and he jut gave me a blank stare.

I guess sometimes we all feel alienated from other generations. Depends on who you talk to.

[absyntheNsugar]

17. Definitely - you probably have more in common with my gen

than you do his...

In fact the Gen X-ers have much more in common with the Boomers than even Gen Y.

We never had X
We grew up (as did you) under the spectre of the cold war
We suffered under Reagan
We had vinyl records, listened to guitar rock and didnt have remote controls (we didn't have one until I was 7)
We never had computers until we were in college

I could go on....and I could go on about how Gen X has always felt as if they were living in the shadow of the boomers...

[SmileyBoy]

30. My age group is the first children of the Baby Boomers.

These children were born from 1975-1984, according to a book excerpt I read recently. I'm assuming that would be the next in line after your age group.

While we were all kids in the 80's and we mostly understood its attributes, we really didn't start maturing until the 90's. We feel the alienation from the Boomers and from Gen-X sometimes too, but not nearly as much. But like I said, even those sub-groups can be very different.

I'm guessing that the generation after mine are grade-school kids by now. Think about this: I was a preschool teacher's aide when I was in the 11th grade (HS Junior). I was teaching those same kids back then. These kids are now in the 3rd and 4th grade. My god, how time flies.

[geniph]

33. Even some of the Boomers are alienated from the other Boomers

those of us born in the tail end of the Baby Boom actually have our own generation name - we're Generation Jones, and a lot of us identify more with Gen-X'ers than our elder siblings. There's a lot of late-edition Boomers like myself who threw themselves wholeheartedly into a punk-new wave type lifestyle in the mid-80s, when we were in our early to mid-20s, so that music resonates more with us than the music that was popular when we were in high school.

[Beaker]

14. probably 10-15 years earlier than i did...

i was born in 1961.

either that or living as a native american plains dweller at least 100 years before the crackers showed up.

[MrScorpio]

16. I was a teen in the 70s

Yes, the music was really great. I'm still listening to it.

But... I never did drugs, I didn't have any sex, I drove very little, We owned Fords, I loved Disco, I loved Led Zep too, and in Detroit all the Nazis lived in the burbs.

I was a good guy back then, so young and innocent.

It was the 80's when I went hog wild.

[gryphon]

18. Definatly born in the wrong era!

But apparently, I'm totally weird here, since I'd want to have been born in 17th century Europe. Yay for farthingales and corsets! Though I suppose the 80's were as good a time as any to be a munchkin, what with slouch socks and big hair and some of the freakies toys ever.

Hi, by the way. I'm Gryphon, and I'm following my parents. *waves* They're here somewhere, too. ^^

[absyntheNsugar]

20. Welcome aboard!

The 80's sucked, btw. Trust me, I was there!

The only thing good about them was...well...ummmm...OK well NOTHING WAS GOOD ABOUT THEM!!!

[gryphon]

21. Thanks.

Meh, I was there, but I don't remember much. ^_^ Yay for drugs, er...medications.

Hey, are you a Doors fan, too? <3 <3 The American Poet <3 <3

[HEyHEY]

19. Late 60s late 50s

would have been sooo cooll

[MrSlayer]

22. I'm glad I came up in the 80's.

Never worried about HIV, the coke was still good, killer underground music scene, lots of wild sex. No regrets from me.

[SarahB]

23. Late 60's

For the music, sex (and little in the way of permanent diseases), and politics. (not much of a drug person)

[RFKHumphreyObama]

24. can’t complain of coming of age in the late 1990s-early 2000s period….

Before 9/11 it was a wonderful and enjoyable time to be alive and I loved every minute of it. Having said that I would also have liked to have come of age in the 1980s –I am very much into the 1980s-and to have been from Generation X rather than Generation Y (or whatever I am)

[Mr. Socko]

25. Nah. I like where I'm at now.

Back then, a lot of wars were going on, civil rights didn't exist, and the world seemed a lot stricter than it does today.

[kskiska]

26. Early 1800s

traveling around Europe with Lord Byron, Shelley, and his group. Those people were very radical, believing in free love, feminism, and wrote poems and political tracts that got them kicked out of England.

[grannylib]

27. I was a teenager in the 70s, and I used to wish I were about 10 years

older 'cos I thought that stuff all happened in the 60s!!! Yeah, there was still some of that going on (quite a lot, now that I think about it *lol*) Coke was dangerous but we didn't know it yet, and I couldn't afford it anyhow, so not a problem, hee hee. Radio was pretty good, especially Beaker Street from New Orleans, which we could pull in after 8pm...
and sorry to burst any bubbles, but wild sex with mutiple casual partners really truly is not all one might think; it's rather empty and sad...
But there was a lot of good weed and it was way cheaper than it is now, and the gas was indeed pretty cheap and we cruised a lot of miles on back country roads, just having fun...*sigh*

[Kickin_Donkey]

28. Not exactly sure what you mean by "coming of age" ...

but I'll take a stab.

Being a youngster in the '70s was cool. But going to college in the 1980s SUCKED!

I went to college from 1980 to 1985. Ronald Reagan was president. Prior to 1980, the younger generation was generally liberal and anti-establishment. Reagan changed that. It became acceptable for a 19-year-old to be a Republican. The students became very careerist and materialistic. The main style was preppie. Herpes and AIDS surfaced, which poured cold water on the sexual liberalism of the '70s. A new conservatism was making inroads into all aspects of society, of which we are now experiencing its zenith, or rather, nadir. That scum known as the Yuppie reared its ugly head in the early '80s. And we still had the nuclear threat hovering over our heads. I personally didn't like the music of that time either. Nothing much seemed to be going on in society; it was stagnant.

The early '80s was sort of a constipated era when the country was trying to recover from the tumultuous '70s, and it hadn't yet developed the edge and a new sort of social liberalism that flourished in the '90s.

Maybe the grass is always greener ... but I think it would have been a lot more fun to be in college 10 years earlier or 10 years later than when I was a university student.

[Fight_n_back]

29. Pschodelic London

or San Francisco from 64 on..Merry Pranksters and what not.