by PeakingAroundtheCorner » Tue 06 May 2008, 11:41:18
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CarlinsDarlin', 'T')anada,
I remember daddy telling about how gas went from 40 cents to 70 cents "overnight." I don't know if it was literally overnight, but in his mind, at least, it was fast. I was a kid in the 70's - don't remember anything about the economics.
Of course I do remember things like the fact that we didn't have AC (nobody did) and we slept at night with the windows open. It was the mid-80's before everyone had air conditioning. We didn't get new clothes at the beginning of the school year. We got them at Christmas. Everyone had a garden. We had 3 TV channels on a TV you got up to change. We lived with hand-me-downs and make-do's and it was normal. Not a hardship. Everyone lived like we did.
I think the adjustment this time around will be much more difficult for those who have grown up with a false sense of credit-fueled affluency. My poor nephew who is turning 21 this September is having a REALLY hard time taking this all in. He's slowly coming to realize that everything he grew up with will be much different as he gets older. Just wait till the masses in general come to the same conclusion.
Kathy
I'm prolly a little older than you because I clearly remember the oil embargo and the chaos it caused.
As for the rest of your post, dead on as a description of life for the just-above-broke segment of society in the '70s. Amazing how things have changed re: TVs, etc.