1976 -- seems like yesterday, yet as far from many recent college students as WWII was to me. Let's just say, the shadows of WWII always seemed huge to me and my peers, but the actual event seemed like ancient history. Such is the limitation of human perspective, lessened over the years until it hardly matters anymore. History becomes easier to understand, more pertinent, over the typical human lifetime, but to what end?
1976. Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" (1974) was everywhere; the band supported Democrat Jimmy Carter for president against the last Republican moderate, Gerald Ford. Led Zeppelin was everywhere, too, though I doubt that band gave a rat's ass about any election.
Most of my teachers in North Carolina hated Richard Nixon in 1976 and were still pissed off about the Vietnam War and Ford's presidential pardon in the wake of Watergate. They were energized and excited about the election and inspired a lot of student interest in current affairs, the world. I was lucky to have teachers who were graduate students at Duke and UNC, engaged and cool, very worldly. Dr. Bishop (aka Ruth Cunningham) had lived in India, even though she was born in South Carolina! Anything seemed possible . . . and just about anything still seems possible, and man am I glad to be alive. You betcha.
Even though we're in tough econonomic times, life is even more incredibly interesting and exciting than we ever could have imagined it would be in 1976 . . .
Today's Rune: Signals.
6 comments:
I remember 1976. I started it off living in a tent outside of Key West, came back to Detroit in March, just in time for one of the truly great ice storms, was committed to a psychiatric hospital, walked away from it after 4 days of rest and spent the rest of the year between Canada and the south west.
Needless to report, politics and culture were not on my radar at the time.
Uh oh. You know, I actually remember most of this. Man, I can't be getting that old
I have a collection of items from that year. Maybe someday they will be worth something. It was also the year we bought 30 acres,sans mule and hoped to build a home and get out of the city.
1976 seems like it was in a different universe, doesn't it?
I remember that everybody seemed to be trying really hard to feel good. The sixties were fading away and we were licking our wounds from the Vietnam.
I used to think that the music really sucked back then, but in retrospect, a lot of great music came from that era. X, Blondie, Elvis Costello, the Clash, the Ramones and a bunch of others were releasing or about to release the music I'd come to love.
Ah, 1976. I turned 18, graduated,could LEGALLY drink,and voted in my first election. And bellowed out "Sweet Home Ala-pena", whenever possible!
I voted for Carter, worked for the Detroit Medical Center as a messenger, sophmore year of college, glad to see Nixon's pardoner not elected, even though he was a Michigan son. Jimmy was and still is honest, What the country needed after the Nixon BS.
Took a picture with Jimmy and wife at Detroit Blitz build 2005
Habitat for Humanity. Please tell me those were not his peanuts!!!
MW
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