The old Geezers 70's and 80's Megathread

[BIG_DADDY]

The Suzzane Somers thread got me thinking about a conversation I was having with one of my friends about how awesome it was to be alive in the 70s and 80s. You try telling younger generations about it but it’s impossible. For starters testosterone levels were WAY, WAY higher back then. There were very few girly men like we have so many of today. Much higher levels of T and no cell phones had a huge impact on your social/sex life. Everybody was fing everybody and it was awesome. Nobody was up in your business. Everyone knew what they were and what bathroom to use. Fat people were few and far between. Teenage years were amazing. Cruising every Friday night with people bringing out all their bad rides and the girls all sexied up. Kegers every friggen weekend. The music was so much better too. Still remember going to Van Halen’s first tour. It didn’t cost anything to see those bands back then. As a young adult the party for me just continued as I went into health clubs. Once again everybody was doing everybody. The parties after we closed the club, just wow. When I moved to the bay area from Florida it just continued. I remember when the Exotic Erotic ball was a company function and we took 10 limos to the city filled with teenage girls in their sexiest lingerie. Can you imagine that happening today? Sadly that way of life ended with Anita Hill and the invention of the smart phone amongst other things. I will be forever grateful to god for being able to grow up during that time. I feel so bad for the kids coming up today, there’s just no comparison.

So what do you say old geezers, give me a walk down memory lane.

[Rasputin]

Get off my lawn

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by Lzen

Is that not how mass shootings are categorized?

It is also pretty disingenuous how the powers that be call a mass shooting a mass shooting even if it happens to be gang on gang and at night or when school is not in session just to make the numbers seem way worse.


Ok, I'll stop now before this gets thrown to DC.

He didn’t say no mass shootings. He said no school shootings.

[Graystoke]

I am biased, but I loved growing up in the 70's and 80's.
Such a simple time.
I'm going to list the top ten things about being a kid from that generation.

1. Parents didn't care what you did. As long as you weren't near the house, and the cops or neighbors didn't complain, it was all good. I don't think my folks ever came to one baseball game of mine and neither did the other parents. I am sure now they were home enjoying time away from us kids. Helicopter parents did not exist.
2. We played real games. We didn't have computer war simulators. Problem solved, lets play war outside. We climbed dangerous shit, made forts and often ****ed around and found out. Lessons learned everyday.
3. We fixed our own shit. If our bike got busted we went to Western Auto with our own paper route money, got the parts and fixed that shit. We did not fear tinkering with things.
4. Feelings??? WTF. The last thing I would ever do is talk to my parents about feelings. This is the correct way.
5. Everybody smoked! Including us! If we couldn't get the real cigs we substituted with candy cigs.
6. Our toys were dangerous as ****. Lawn Darts, Clackers and Shrinky Dinks. Our Toys were deadly.
7. They never cancelled school for weather. And that just meant the walk to school and the walk home would be an epic adventure. Snowballs, Hookie-bobbin..sweet Jesus it was fun.
8. Adults were allowed, and encouraged, to beat the shit out of you. Man you had to watch you P&Q's as there was an enforcer around every corner. I had more neighborhood Moms and Dads kick my ass then I care to remember.
9. Porn was printed and if you searched for it you could find it. Show that shit to your friends and the talk about touching boobs was simply exquisite.
10. Candy was real. It was big, it was tasty and it was cheap.

[AdolfOliverBush]

One other thing that was far better is the lack of a 24 hour news cycle. Way less news + no internet meant crazies were relatively uncommon. Now there are so many of them that being a nutjob is mainstream.

[tooge]

Riding our bikes everywhere. Playing games in the street or in back yards. Getting in a fight where it's one on one, and when it's over, it's over. School teachers teaching reading, writing, and arithmatic. Parents taking the side of the school when their kid is being a dipshit. Two genders and nobody dressed up like cats and dogs. Americana. Life was better then.

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

EVERY fricken weekend baby. The beer is better now though.

When you weren't sleeping you were socializing. Sooo different.

I probably would have been bored. As an introvert I've only ever been bored at a social function I don't want to be at or are virtually forced to go to.

[ChiTown]

Originally Posted by AdolfOliverBush

One other thing that was far better is the lack of a 24 hour news cycle. Way less news + no internet meant crazies were relatively uncommon. Now there are so many of them that being a nutjob is mainstream.

24-hour news cycles turned so many people into raging, blithering idiots that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

[TLO]

Originally Posted by tooge

Riding our bikes everywhere. Playing games in the street or in back yards. Getting in a fight where it's one on one, and when it's over, it's over. School teachers teaching reading, writing, and arithmatic. Parents taking the side of the school when their kid is being a dipshit. Two genders and nobody dressed up like cats and dogs. Americana. Life was better then.

Getting into brawls at little league games...

Those were the days.

[Rain Man]

Every generation has its good and bad elements.

Things that were better in the 1970s

Almost nobody was fat.
No social media.
Printed newspapers and magazines

Things that are better now

Picture threads on Chiefsplanet that would have blown my mind in the 1970s.
Word, Excel, and Powerpoint
Cool-looking cars

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by WilliamTheIrish

I do agree that the the obesity rate was much lower in that decade. Once companies discovered HFCS, the population got bigger.

When I was a kid in the 50s/60s, it was extremely rare, but now it seems like the norm.
I saw a recent statistic saying it is currently around 40%, but I think that is low.

IMO, two things are huge contributors too it.

1)Fast food is now the norm for a lot of people which is extremely high calorie and fat content. For us it was a very rare "treat" and the norm was home cooking.

2) Sedentary life styles, computer games, TV and the internet instead of outdoor activities.

BigDaddy mentions testosterone levels a couple of times and not to long ago I quoted a lab results study with mice that was repeated several times that always turned out the same.
The end results were females turned dominant and they ended up stopping the reproduction cycle and died out.
I ponder that we are on that path.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by TLO

Getting into brawls at little league games...

Those were the days.

At least you knew you were beating up another DUDE blind drunk at a kid's tball game! Nowadays you'd have to ask 'em their pronouns before you get sauced and assaulted them, or end up on a hate crime registry.

[crispystl]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

When I was a kid in the 50s/60s, it was extremely rare, but now it seems like the norm.
I saw a recent statistic saying it is currently around 40%, but I think that is low.

IMO, two things are huge contributors too it.

1)Fast food is now the norm for a lot of people which is extremely high calorie and fat content. For us it was a very rare "treat" and the norm was home cooking.

2) Sedentary life styles, computer games, TV and the internet instead of outdoor activities.

BigDaddy mentions testosterone levels a couple of times and not to long ago I quoted a lab results study with mice that was repeated several times that always turned out the same.
The end results were females turned dominant and they ended up stopping the reproduction cycle and died out.
I ponder that we are on that path.

I work at a very old college and they're proud of their tradition, so there's a myriad of old black and white photos in most buildings and it is mind blowing to see how few obese people there are in those photos. I mean its like 1 in 50.

[IowaHawkeyeChief]

Originally Posted by The Franchise

Pretty disingenuous to only show shootings with more than 4 deaths. A school shooting is a school shooting.

Disingenuous?... We are talking Mass indiscriminate school shootings, not target incidents of jilted lovers and individual disputes. However, if you look at the stats, those numbers are way up as well. We are talking Mass shootings of anyone in their way... It was great, we didn't have lock down active shooter drills in the 70's and 80's as it wasn't a problem, and it was never on anyone's mind. They didn't happen, despite fewer gun laws and kids bring guns to school in their cars.

[Rain Man]

Last year a longtime friend and I looked through our high school yearbook. There was a full-body shot of a fellow that we both remembered as being incredibly overweight, probably one of top-five fattest guys in our school of 1,000 kids. We were shocked to see the photo, because by today's standards he was probably average or maybe even less fat than average.

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by Pablo

You see when you've got such HIGH T it makes you lust over teenagers. You wouldn't understand it so go make a tick-tock about it!!

Must you always be a douche over everything? You and the Franchise, good lord. First of all I was a young back then myself. Secondly you couldn't even work unless you were at least 16. Most of the girls that went to this were 18-21. I imagine there might have been a few older and a 17 year old might have snuck in somewhere. I don't know I wasn't carding everyone. I don't think anyone really cared at that point. It was an 18 and up event because there was a lot of nudity. I don't remember anyone getting carded but damn I don't know, it was a long time ago.