70's Remembrances

Remembering the 1970's. . .

Subject:  Remembering the 70`s 7/1/2002
I was working as a nurse @ Glens Falls hospital Glens Falls N.Y. I met my husband there through a nurse I worked with. Her husband and my future husband were in a band together! I loved the music of the 70`s! James Taylor, Judy Collins, Carol King. Doobie Bros etc. My husband won my heart seranading me with his guitar! We weren`t too far from Saratoga Performing ArtsCenter where I saw live concerts featuring Judy Collins & James Taylor. The seventies, with long hair, my brothers was almost as long as mine! At my wedding the groomsmen`s hair was as long as some of the bridesmaids! Granny dresses were in! I have great memories of the seventies! Our first car as a new family was a 1973 red vega!
- Patty StevensJenks
Subject:  Living thru the 70`s 7/8/2002
My first marriage took place while I was at Iowa State University. We moved to Ithaca, NY so my husband could attend Ithaca College and I could go to Cornell. Living in the largest counter-culture community in the United States (even larger than Berkeley, believe it or not), I lived through pot smoking nights, Spoti-Otie weekends, love-ins and open and casual sex wherever we went. I tried not to drop my jaw in amazement and simply breezed by these activities as if I didn`t notice. Flower power was in full swing. However, the music of the 80`s was captivating. I dated a musician (sax player) and came to know all the local musicians; we usually copped front row tickets to the Grateful Dead, Earth, Wind and Fire, Tower of Power, etc. Life was easier then; no mortgage, no taxes, simple and cheap foods, happy with Thunderbird wine, or cheap beer, We even fixed our own cars. Found the greatest joy in just being together with friends, not needing much else than a frisbee, salt potatoes, a bonfire. I still do that stuff today. Anyone want to challenge me to target frisbee???
- Laurie Kelly
Subject:  Jazz and jobs 7/8/2002
As with Laurie and Patty, bands were a big part of my life during the early 70s college days. My husband (Ken) had a van and worked for a band as a roadie. [Ken could qulaify for a full-fleged hippie.. I was more on the edge with just a baby toe stuck in] Ken stored the band equipment in the van and set up for all the concerts. For 2 years, I spent a lot of time in high schools gyms and bars. We both went to school at Clarkson and stayed and got our Masters. Ken just retired after 30 years of teaching in the same school district... so we moved to Wilson in 1971 and haven`t left. Wilson is near Niagara Falls on Lake Ontario. We had a 30ft sailboat and spent weekends sailing to toronto and summers sailing the 1000 islands. During the 70s I was working as an engineer... breaking down barriers for women.. not a strident feminist but quitely insisting that I was qualified for the jobs even though I was a woman. I worked in one plant that hadn`t had a woman since WWII. [There was quite an uproar because managment now insisted that the men use the bathroom rather than just pissing against a wall!] Career was important and I didn`t want to quit and have children. My mother carried a picture of our boat in her wallet and whined for grandchildren... In 1979 I had my daughter Cameo. and 18 months later I had Brooke. So that`s the 70s for me....
- Kathy Mazoway
Subject:  A Working Class Hippie is Something to Be 7/9/2002
Woodstock wasn`t technically the 70`s but it set the tone. My Woodstock story won`t fit here, let`s just say I still have the remains of a blue jean jacket with burn holes in it from Gerry Komrowski`s car engine catching on fire. After graduating from SU in `72 I got married in a fever and headed West to form a commune with Ed Hamm and some of his Army buddies stationed in Colorado Springs. We were supposed to go to Oregon after they got discharged. The new wife and I traveled there in a broken down car my uncle gave me the day before we left (planning?) Those guys were too zonked to do anything. I somehow wound up working inside NORAD Cheyenne Mountain missile defense center with a temporary secret clearance - it took the FBI 6 months to catch up to me with their investigation. My boss`s hair was standing on end as he read the FBI report - but he thought I was OK , so I stayed. I had the rest of the 70`s to adjust to the reality of going to work every day. Colorado Springs in the early 70`s was heavenly. Too good to be true - the work ran out. The last half of the 70`s was a bad time. In `76 I moved to California. "Steinbeck country" - the Salinas valley, a miserable shithole of a place, where the wind blows all the time, where society is divided between Mexican field workers and coke-snorting Swiss-Italian landowners, where I absolutely hated my job, and where my marriage fell apart. I gave the rock & roll thing a pathetic final attempt with a couple of Mexican guys in various garages. We actually got one gig in a bowling alley but they told us to shut up after the first set. Double digit inflation, gas lines, Jimmy Carter, disco fever. A perfect ending.
- Richard Lavallee
Subject:  an interesting 10 years 7/10/2002
I spent some time in the Air Force as a weapons control systems mechanic on F4s. Got married, had two sons, got divorced, got married, had a beautiful daughter, got divorced, manged a McDonald`s and a Kentucky Fried Chicken and while taking accounting courses at night found the job of my dreams. I met a supervisory air traffic controller at Hancock who was putting together an exam. Took it, scored well and became an air traffic controller at Binghamton, NY. Greatest job in the world, just one big video game. In a quirk of faith I had applied to Quonset Approach in Rhode Island for a computer job, but forgot to sign my application. By the time I got it back, I had met my future wife, one of the few woman air traffic controllers at the time. She hated me at first, her being a nice, catholic italian girl and me a twice divorced "ladies` man", but I never signed my application and we`ve now been married a little over 21 years. Of course, Ron fired us, but that wasn`t until the 80`s and much more interesting things happened then. I can say with little understatement that my life has been interesting, never a dull moment. But I`ll save that for some other time.
- Pete Young
Subject:  Bell Buttoms 7/10/2002
I graduated from Wilkes University in 1972 and had football on the brain. I had a try-out with the New York Jets in 1972, got cut and played that season for their minor league team. In 1973, I was playing for the Buffalo Bills until I ruptured a hamstring muscle. In 1974, I played with the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League. I sat on the bench....where it was safe. During my spare time I was teaching school and lifting weights...constantly. I got up to over 250+ pounds. Finally, I had enough physical and psychological damage to leave playing for good. I then taught and was head football coach at Corcoran Highschool in Syracuse. In 1976, I moved to Arizona, lived in an adobe house with my grandmother, and worked on a race car crew for my Uncle Bill, who was an Indy race car driver.....talk about being a duck out of water! I finally returned to Syracuse and ended the decade finding Valerie (my wife of 18 years), starting a real job for the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, and losing 40 pounds. I also got rid of my bell buttoms.
- Bill Hanbury
Subject:  The 70`s 7/12/2002
At midnight on December 31, 1969 I witnessed my largest fireworks display ever as the 70’s started. The only problem was that the pyrotechnics were supplied by the US Military and I was in that garden spot of the Orient half way around the world that much of our generation either participated in or protested against. I returned from Vietnam at the end of May 1970 some three weeks after Kent State and the changes seemed like I had been gone a lifetime. After being discharged from the Army in early 1971 I returned to college at SUNY Oswego later graduating from Syracuse. Also in 1971 I got married to Carol and after 31 years we are still together. In the mid 70’s we had two children John and Kathleen who are now out of college and both live in Arlington Virginia. The things I don’t like to remember about the 70’s are bell bottoms, platform shoes and it goes without saying DISCO other than that it wasn’t a bad decade. I am also proud to say that I never owned a leisure suit.
- Bob Triggs
Subject:  Finding another world outside NY 7/12/2002
I was married in 1969 (we are still married..don`t ask me how..!!). We lived in East Syracuse, both working and going to school. Our 1st daughter was born in 1970, our 2nd daughter in 1972. Tim was an Air Force traffic controller, finished engineering school. We decided to move to Los Angeles, so in March 1973 off we drove, with our 2 girls, in our dark green chevelle !! What a culture shock....we lived in Manhattan Beach (home of the Beach Boys)..our neighbors where into sharing their wives ,snorting coke and growing various other "plants" on their patios. I was into taking care of my children,finishing school and playing tennis...Michael McDonald (yes the lead singer of the Doobie Bros. was our neighbor, so for a small town girl...I had an education really fast... We finally bought a house in Valencia, Ca (famous for oranges and California Institute of the Arts (owned by Disney and a training ground for animators). As the seventies ended, I graduated from college, had knee surgery (all those years of pounding on the tennis court) and off we headed to send the 80`s in Virginia, where Billy Welser, was my neighbor !!
- Karen Peach Carter
Subject:  It seems like a beginning 8/16/2002
I left the seminary in January 1969 and transferred to LeMoyne; hardly breaking out, but I had a great time and graduated in 1971. I met Barbara during my senior year in a musical called Braodway and the `60`s. I taugt for a year at CBA and went to Ohio State in fall 1972 for grad school. Barabara and I married in September 1973 (29 years in a few months), I finished my Masters in June `74 and took a job at Johns Hopkins in Admissions and Financial Aid. We came back to Syracuse and LeMoyne a year later for a job in residence life where we stayed for two years. I then enrolled at SU for my doctorate in Higher Education and spent he last three years of the decade doing coursework, qualifying exams and a dissertation proposal. Oh yeah, Brendan was born in March, 1980, so I guess he was the highlight at the end of the decade. As I look back, the decade was lots of work and school and getting a career started, but it was a lot a funa long the way! (We`ve since had two more sons, Sean in 1982 and Colin in 1986).
- Ned Harris
Subject:   6/20/2005
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Subject:   11/22/2009
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Subject:  My 1970`s 11/22/2009
Worried about my draft status from 1968 to 1972. I was one of the fortunate ones (in my humble opinion) to have a student deferment and then a high draft lottery number after my graduation from Penn State 1972. Three days after graduation I was on an iron ore freighter in the Great Lakes working for US Steel. At the end of the lake season in Oct 1972 I went to Europe with my red back pack and AE traveler`s checks. Did a figure "8" of Europe and N. Africa from Stockholm to Marrakesh. Traveled in a VW micro-bus that my friend T. Boylan bought from the Dutch post office. Although I went to Europe alone, I ran into, actually stumbled into T. Boylan in front of the AE office in Amsterdam where he was waiting to pick up the VW. We spoke about where he wanted to go and oddly enough it matched my itinerary perfectly! I might have the record for the longest single "hitched" ride. I figure over 5 thousand miles. Stayed there till Feb of 73. Not enough room to talk about our adventures in Europe. When back in the states I moved around from Ithaca, NY, to Tucson Az (wanted to see the Grand Canyon but did not have enough money for a round trip so I lived in Tucson). After not being able to find meaningful work in Tucson I moved back to the safety of my hometown of Pittsburgh where I worked for my father. That lasted 4 months until I could not take it anymore. I moved to Houston to work for the bro-in-law of T. Boylan inspecting pipe. That was the beginning of my current occupation as a metallurgist. From PSU to Houston = 6/72 to 6/74 In the 80`s I lived in Arlington Texas, NYC, and then Tulsa, OK where I stayed until 2007 when I returned to Houston to where I am now. From what I remember I had a great time in the 70`s except for Disco. Met a lot, and I mean a lot of great people (except for my time on the iron ore freighter, most of those tars were scary and very bigoted). Of course I wonder where most of them are now. Was a vegetarian, a follower of eastern mystics, rocker and roller, a devoted fan of Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren (and Utopia), Pink Floyd, ELO, The Cars and many, many more. There is a Fritz the Cat quote that is applicable but I do want to mangle it. Those who know, know. Was fortunate to have had great mentors that turned me into the mensch that I hope I am now. Had such a good time in the seventies (and eighties) that I did not marry until 1994 and then again in 2002. It has been a very strange but rewarding trip.
- Sheldon Rudin

Where were you in the 1970's? What do you remember from the decade that brought us white belts, leisure suits, and disco? Add your 70's remembrance here:

Subject: Remembering the 70`s	7/1/2002
I was working as a nurse @ Glens Falls hospital Glens Falls N.Y. I met my husband there through a nurse I worked with. Her husband and my future husband were in a band together! I loved the music of the 70`s! James Taylor, Judy Collins, Carol King. Doobie Bros etc. My husband won my heart seranading me with his guitar! We weren`t too far from Saratoga Performing ArtsCenter where I saw live concerts featuring Judy Collins & James Taylor. The seventies, with long hair, my brothers was almost as long as mine! At my wedding the groomsmen`s hair was as long as some of the bridesmaids! Granny dresses were in! I have great memories of the seventies! Our first car as a new family was a 1973 red vega!
-	Patty StevensJenks

Subject: Living thru the 70`s	7/8/2002
My first marriage took place while I was at Iowa State University. We moved to Ithaca, NY so my husband could attend Ithaca College and I could go to Cornell. Living in the largest counter-culture community in the United States (even larger than Berkeley, believe it or not), I lived through pot smoking nights, Spoti-Otie weekends, love-ins and open and casual sex wherever we went. I tried not to drop my jaw in amazement and simply breezed by these activities as if I didn`t notice. Flower power was in full swing. However, the music of the 80`s was captivating. I dated a musician (sax player) and came to know all the local musicians; we usually copped front row tickets to the Grateful Dead, Earth, Wind and Fire, Tower of Power, etc. Life was easier then; no mortgage, no taxes, simple and cheap foods, happy with Thunderbird wine, or cheap beer, We even fixed our own cars. Found the greatest joy in just being together with friends, not needing much else than a frisbee, salt potatoes, a bonfire. I still do that stuff today. Anyone want to challenge me to target frisbee???
-	Laurie Kelly

Subject: Jazz and jobs	7/8/2002
As with Laurie and Patty, bands were a big part of my life during the early 70s college days. My husband (Ken) had a van and worked for a band as a roadie. [Ken could qulaify for a full-fleged hippie.. I was more on the edge with just a baby toe stuck in] Ken stored the band equipment in the van and set up for all the concerts. For 2 years, I spent a lot of time in high schools gyms and bars. We both went to school at Clarkson and stayed and got our Masters. Ken just retired after 30 years of teaching in the same school district... so we moved to Wilson in 1971 and haven`t left. Wilson is near Niagara Falls on Lake Ontario. We had a 30ft sailboat and spent weekends sailing to toronto and summers sailing the 1000 islands. During the 70s I was working as an engineer... breaking down barriers for women.. not a strident feminist but quitely insisting that I was qualified for the jobs even though I was a woman. I worked in one plant that hadn`t had a woman since WWII. [There was quite an uproar because managment now insisted that the men use the bathroom rather than just pissing against a wall!] Career was important and I didn`t want to quit and have children. My mother carried a picture of our boat in her wallet and whined for grandchildren... In 1979 I had my daughter Cameo. and 18 months later I had Brooke. So that`s the 70s for me....
-	Kathy Mazoway

Subject: A Working Class Hippie is Something to Be	7/9/2002
Woodstock wasn`t technically the 70`s but it set the tone. My Woodstock story won`t fit here, let`s just say I still have the remains of a blue jean jacket with burn holes in it from Gerry Komrowski`s car engine catching on fire. After graduating from SU in `72 I got married in a fever and headed West to form a commune with Ed Hamm and some of his Army buddies stationed in Colorado Springs. We were supposed to go to Oregon after they got discharged. The new wife and I traveled there in a broken down car my uncle gave me the day before we left (planning?) Those guys were too zonked to do anything. I somehow wound up working inside NORAD Cheyenne Mountain missile defense center with a temporary secret clearance - it took the FBI 6 months to catch up to me with their investigation. My boss`s hair was standing on end as he read the FBI report - but he thought I was OK , so I stayed. I had the rest of the 70`s to adjust to the reality of going to work every day. Colorado Springs in the early 70`s was heavenly. Too good to be true - the work ran out. The last half of the 70`s was a bad time. In `76 I moved to California. "Steinbeck country" - the Salinas valley, a miserable shithole of a place, where the wind blows all the time, where society is divided between Mexican field workers and coke-snorting Swiss-Italian landowners, where I absolutely hated my job, and where my marriage fell apart. I gave the rock & roll thing a pathetic final attempt with a couple of Mexican guys in various garages. We actually got one gig in a bowling alley but they told us to shut up after the first set. Double digit inflation, gas lines, Jimmy Carter, disco fever. A perfect ending.
-	Richard Lavallee

Subject: an interesting 10 years	7/10/2002
I spent some time in the Air Force as a weapons control systems mechanic on F4s. Got married, had two sons, got divorced, got married, had a beautiful daughter, got divorced, manged a McDonald`s and a Kentucky Fried Chicken and while taking accounting courses at night found the job of my dreams. I met a supervisory air traffic controller at Hancock who was putting together an exam. Took it, scored well and became an air traffic controller at Binghamton, NY. Greatest job in the world, just one big video game. In a quirk of faith I had applied to Quonset Approach in Rhode Island for a computer job, but forgot to sign my application. By the time I got it back, I had met my future wife, one of the few woman air traffic controllers at the time. She hated me at first, her being a nice, catholic italian girl and me a twice divorced "ladies` man", but I never signed my application and we`ve now been married a little over 21 years. Of course, Ron fired us, but that wasn`t until the 80`s and much more interesting things happened then. I can say with little understatement that my life has been interesting, never a dull moment. But I`ll save that for some other time.
-	Pete Young

Subject: Bell Buttoms	7/10/2002
I graduated from Wilkes University in 1972 and had football on the brain. I had a try-out with the New York Jets in 1972, got cut and played that season for their minor league team. In 1973, I was playing for the Buffalo Bills until I ruptured a hamstring muscle. In 1974, I played with the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League. I sat on the bench....where it was safe. During my spare time I was teaching school and lifting weights...constantly. I got up to over 250+ pounds. Finally, I had enough physical and psychological damage to leave playing for good. I then taught and was head football coach at Corcoran Highschool in Syracuse. In 1976, I moved to Arizona, lived in an adobe house with my grandmother, and worked on a race car crew for my Uncle Bill, who was an Indy race car driver.....talk about being a duck out of water! I finally returned to Syracuse and ended the decade finding Valerie (my wife of 18 years), starting a real job for the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, and losing 40 pounds. I also got rid of my bell buttoms.
-	Bill Hanbury

Subject: The 70`s	7/12/2002
At midnight on December 31, 1969 I witnessed my largest fireworks display ever as the 70’s started. The only problem was that the pyrotechnics were supplied by the US Military and I was in that garden spot of the Orient half way around the world that much of our generation either participated in or protested against. I returned from Vietnam at the end of May 1970 some three weeks after Kent State and the changes seemed like I had been gone a lifetime. After being discharged from the Army in early 1971 I returned to college at SUNY Oswego later graduating from Syracuse. Also in 1971 I got married to Carol and after 31 years we are still together. In the mid 70’s we had two children John and Kathleen who are now out of college and both live in Arlington Virginia. The things I don’t like to remember about the 70’s are bell bottoms, platform shoes and it goes without saying DISCO other than that it wasn’t a bad decade. I am also proud to say that I never owned a leisure suit.
-	Bob Triggs

Subject: Finding another world outside NY	7/12/2002
I was married in 1969 (we are still married..don`t ask me how..!!). We lived in East Syracuse, both working and going to school. Our 1st daughter was born in 1970, our 2nd daughter in 1972. Tim was an Air Force traffic controller, finished engineering school. We decided to move to Los Angeles, so in March 1973 off we drove, with our 2 girls, in our dark green chevelle !! What a culture shock....we lived in Manhattan Beach (home of the Beach Boys)..our neighbors where into sharing their wives ,snorting coke and growing various other "plants" on their patios. I was into taking care of my children,finishing school and playing tennis...Michael McDonald (yes the lead singer of the Doobie Bros. was our neighbor, so for a small town girl...I had an education really fast... We finally bought a house in Valencia, Ca (famous for oranges and California Institute of the Arts (owned by Disney and a training ground for animators). As the seventies ended, I graduated from college, had knee surgery (all those years of pounding on the tennis court) and off we headed to send the 80`s in Virginia, where Billy Welser, was my neighbor !!
-	Karen Peach Carter

Subject: It seems like a beginning	8/16/2002
I left the seminary in January 1969 and transferred to LeMoyne; hardly breaking out, but I had a great time and graduated in 1971. I met Barbara during my senior year in a musical called Braodway and the `60`s. I taugt for a year at CBA and went to Ohio State in fall 1972 for grad school. Barabara and I married in September 1973 (29 years in a few months), I finished my Masters in June `74 and took a job at Johns Hopkins in Admissions and Financial Aid. We came back to Syracuse and LeMoyne a year later for a job in residence life where we stayed for two years. I then enrolled at SU for my doctorate in Higher Education and spent he last three years of the decade doing coursework, qualifying exams and a dissertation proposal. Oh yeah, Brendan was born in March, 1980, so I guess he was the highlight at the end of the decade. As I look back, the decade was lots of work and school and getting a career started, but it was a lot a funa long the way! (We`ve since had two more sons, Sean in 1982 and Colin in 1986).
-	Ned Harris

Subject:	6/20/2005

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Subject:	11/22/2009

-	S

Subject: My 1970`s	11/22/2009
Worried about my draft status from 1968 to 1972. I was one of the fortunate ones (in my humble opinion) to have a student deferment and then a high draft lottery number after my graduation from Penn State 1972. Three days after graduation I was on an iron ore freighter in the Great Lakes working for US Steel. At the end of the lake season in Oct 1972 I went to Europe with my red back pack and AE traveler`s checks. Did a figure "8" of Europe and N. Africa from Stockholm to Marrakesh. Traveled in a VW micro-bus that my friend T. Boylan bought from the Dutch post office. Although I went to Europe alone, I ran into, actually stumbled into T. Boylan in front of the AE office in Amsterdam where he was waiting to pick up the VW. We spoke about where he wanted to go and oddly enough it matched my itinerary perfectly! I might have the record for the longest single "hitched" ride. I figure over 5 thousand miles. Stayed there till Feb of 73. Not enough room to talk about our adventures in Europe. When back in the states I moved around from Ithaca, NY, to Tucson Az (wanted to see the Grand Canyon but did not have enough money for a round trip so I lived in Tucson). After not being able to find meaningful work in Tucson I moved back to the safety of my hometown of Pittsburgh where I worked for my father. That lasted 4 months until I could not take it anymore. I moved to Houston to work for the bro-in-law of T. Boylan inspecting pipe. That was the beginning of my current occupation as a metallurgist. From PSU to Houston = 6/72 to 6/74 In the 80`s I lived in Arlington Texas, NYC, and then Tulsa, OK where I stayed until 2007 when I returned to Houston to where I am now. From what I remember I had a great time in the 70`s except for Disco. Met a lot, and I mean a lot of great people (except for my time on the iron ore freighter, most of those tars were scary and very bigoted). Of course I wonder where most of them are now. Was a vegetarian, a follower of eastern mystics, rocker and roller, a devoted fan of Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren (and Utopia), Pink Floyd, ELO, The Cars and many, many more. There is a Fritz the Cat quote that is applicable but I do want to mangle it. Those who know, know. Was fortunate to have had great mentors that turned me into the mensch that I hope I am now. Had such a good time in the seventies (and eighties) that I did not marry until 1994 and then again in 2002. It has been a very strange but rewarding trip.
-	Sheldon Rudin

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	70's Remembrance