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.

[WilliamTheIrish]

Yea, in a real small town I could believe that several folks had gun racks and .22’s. Or maybe a .20g in the rack. But in the mid 70’s in my part of the world, that was an invitation to lose your window and your gun and ammo.

And then face an ass kicking from a dad and mom.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Just so weird to me. I grew up in WESTERN IOWA. Hick central. Nobody had any gun racks in their vehicle. Very few even had trucks. Maybe one or two had gun racks I guess but perhaps the Fast and the Furious changed that. Alot of rice burners as they call it. I used to have a 98 Honda Prelude in high school. Got me laid many a times.

Huh. Japanese cars were not popular at my HS back in the early-mid '80s. They existed, but not in great numbers. American brands dominated.

Of course, most of us bought our own cars/trucks; only a few had parents willing to pay for a new car for the kids. So you had to buy something with just a couple-three thousand bucks or whatever. Back then, a used Chevy/Ford/Ram truck was maybe $3-$4000 max? I think you could get a new truck for about $12,000?

But old '70s trucks were cheap, so were the parts, and working on them was pretty straightforward.


And gun racks were practically a factory option. Some cheap Mossy pump or whatever in the bottom rack, and usually some kind of lever gun in the top. Rich people might have a bolt gun in the top rack.

I remember one of my best friends getting a mini-14 from his dad as a X-mas gift, and the rest of us being very impressed with it the first time he pulled into the Senior parking lot with that thing hanging there in the top rack.

[Demonpenz]

Stringfellow hawk was shooting people at Texas from the clock tower

[Enid Borden]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

Of course, most of us bought our own cars/trucks; only a few had parents willing to pay for a new car for the kids. So you had to buy something with just a couple-three thousand bucks or whatever. Back then, a used Chevy/Ford/Ram truck was maybe $3-$4000 max? I think you could get a new truck for about $12,000?

Yugos went for around $2k. We went on a test drive in one and it went as bad as you'd expect. It was clearly a hunk of junk, felt like it was barely held together and would fall apart if you went too fast through a dip. Very little horsepower. We didn't buy.

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

Huh. Japanese cars were not popular at my HS back in the early-mid '80s. They existed, but not in great numbers. American brands dominated.

Of course, most of us bought our own cars/trucks; only a few had parents willing to pay for a new car for the kids. So you had to buy something with just a couple-three thousand bucks or whatever. Back then, a used Chevy/Ford/Ram truck was maybe $3-$4000 max? I think you could get a new truck for about $12,000?

But old '70s trucks were cheap, so were the parts, and working on them was pretty straightforward.


And gun racks were practically a factory option. Some cheap Mossy pump or whatever in the bottom rack, and usually some kind of lever gun in the top. Rich people might have a bolt gun in the top rack.

I remember one of my best friends getting a mini-14 from his dad as a X-mas gift, and the rest of us being very impressed with it the first time he pulled into the Senior parking lot with that thing hanging there in the top rack.

I imagine. Just pointing out the differences. I grew up in late 90s/very early 2000s

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by WilliamTheIrish

Yea, in a real small town I could believe that several folks had gun racks and .22’s. Or maybe a .20g in the rack. But in the mid 70’s in my part of the world, that was an invitation to lose your window and your gun and ammo.

And then face an ass kicking from a dad and mom.

My town was about 4,000 people and it was common place. Then again some of the real bumpkins had the drive your tractor to school/ride your horse day. Early 2000s

Trucks were still the vehicle of choice but fast n furious made every other queer out there buy a ricer and put a fart can on it

[WilliamTheIrish]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

HS school pop when I was in HS was about 450 I think? Tulsa was around 200k, iirc, so big enough.

HS student parking lot was probably around 40% pickups? More than half had the obligatory shotgun/rifle rack in the back window. At the time, I probably thought that those racks were a factory option I saw so many of them. Probably the same at every HS in town. Not one school shooting, not one incident of a kid threatening to go get his gun out of his truck, etc.


On any given summer weekend in Tulsa back in the '80s HS kids from the surrounding towns, as far away as Parsons KS, would show up in town in their pickups complete with shotgun/rifle racks. Hundreds, if not thousands, of trucks with guns would flood into town, filled with HS/college-age kids, and then leave without a shooting incident, not even an accidental one, like "gun fall off rack and somehow fires by itself."

I know this is all from memory but breaking down your numbers:

Approximately 450 students:

40% of the parking lot was pickups. So, depending on size of individual classes of freshmen/Sophomores who didn’t drive (in my decade- your decade may have had more FR/SO drivers) then you probably had 100 student vehicles in the lot. And of those vehicles, about 40% of those drove trucks. So 40 trucks. 40:gun racks. 40 guns of some sort.

Percentage seems a touch high, but it’s Tulsa. So, that could be true. What was your high school decade?

EDIT: megatron’s decade was the 80’s.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I imagine. Just pointing out the differences. I grew up in late 90s/very early 2000s

Yeah, I get it. I do remember that gun racks seemed to just disappear in the mid-90s, I think?

And I guess theft in the parking lots became a real thing, because around '96 or '97 I went back to visit with an old teacher of mine, and I had to make an appt. just to get on campus (when i was going there weren't any gates), and they had some kind of cameras posted all around the parking lots.


They still had a clay shooting team though, so you could still bring guns to school at that time.

[Rain Man]

When I was in high school, Japanese cars didn't exist. Or at least, they didn't exist in a practical sense where I lived. There were no dealers within a hundred miles of anything other than the American brands.

There were a few Datsuns around. One family had a ... Datsun B210? And a guy had a 240Z. Those were local oddities. And then in college, an astoundingly well-built girl that I sat next to in freshman chemistry had one of those tiny early Civics. But other than those I never really saw anything but American stuff. At some point a BMW showed up, and it was one of those hideously ugly early ones so I mostly just cringed when I saw it.

[WilliamTheIrish]

Originally Posted by Pablo

My town was about 4,000 people and it was common place. Then again some of the real bumpkins had the drive your tractor to school/ride your horse day. Early 2000s

Trucks were still the vehicle of choice but fast n furious made every other queer out there buy a ricer and put a fart can on it

Under 5k I can believe it.

[alpha_omega]

TG&Y and Venture (Venture had a top shelf snack bar with hot dogs and icees).

[WilliamTheIrish]

Going to the junkyard and snagging parts for your minibike or go-cart.

The junkyard. Absolute great times. Finding that wiring harness for the 1974 AMC Hornet was like striking a vein of gold.

[Dartgod]

Originally Posted by frozenchief

Royals were actually pretty good. I remember Brett chasing .400 in 1980. Every day you’d go to school and talk about what Brett did the night before and whether he’d end the season above .400. The bitterness of the loss to the Phillies in 1980.

And Kansas City had two papers a day, the Times in the morning and the Star in the evening. We'd pour over the box scores in the morning to see how the Royals did overnight, especially when they were on a west coast swing.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by WilliamTheIrish

I know this is all from memory but breaking down your numbers:

Approximately 450 students:

40% of the parking lot was pickups. So, depending on size of individual classes of freshmen/Sophomores who didn’t drive (in my decade- your decade may have had more FR/SO drivers) then you probably had 100 student vehicles in the lot. And of those vehicles, about 40% of those drove trucks. So 40 trucks. 40:gun racks. 40 guns of some sort.

Percentage seems a touch high, but it’s Tulsa. So, that could be true. What was your high school decade?

Probably closer to 130 student cars, i think. But yeah, probably around 40 pickups in the student lots? Another dozen or so in the teachers' lot? That's just a pure guess though. Only cars I really remember the teachers driving was Mr. Kreickhaus' microbus and Ms. Allen's 1959 or whatever Volkswagen bug, because it was all painted up with flowers (giant daisy right in the middle of the hood) and a pink peace symbol on the roof.

Graduated in 1986.

But not every single truck had a gun rack in it. A lot did. But not every single one. Some kids didn't own their own guns. Knew plenty of kids that came from poorer homes, and their guns were really their dad's/uncle's guns, so they weren't allowed to just drive around with them. Or they had parents that just didn't want their kids driving around with them in the back window. If I had to close my eyes and guess, we're talking somewhere between a couple dozen to 30 gun racks.

But a lot of kids were farmer/rancher kids back then, which might be why so many gun racks. My best friend as a Frosh/soph was a fourth gen rancher kid; learned to drive my first vehicle on his ranch. Crappy Ram something, with no windows at all, only had 2nd gear, no reverse, and didn't turn left for some reason i don't remember anymore.

i drove my dad's pos 1977(1976?) Ford Country Squire for a year, complete with the rad wood trim/paneling all around and the flip-up headlights doors (like little garage doors) then bought a used Camaro (bitchin' Camaro), so never had the pleasure of owning a gun rack, and also why i have no idea how they ended up in all those trucks.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

When I was in high school, Japanese cars didn't exist. Or at least, they didn't exist in a practical sense where I lived. There were no dealers within a hundred miles of anything other than the American brands.

There were a few Datsuns around. One family had a ... Datsun B210? And a guy had a 240Z. Those were local oddities. And then in college, an astoundingly well-built girl that I sat next to in freshman chemistry had one of those tiny early Civics. But other than those I never really saw anything but American stuff. At some point a BMW showed up, and it was one of those hideously ugly early ones so I mostly just cringed when I saw it.

Lol, Datsun. B210 no less. One of my best friends from 3rd grade to HS drove a kind of bronzy colored one in HS. I drove it once; yeesh. Great memories, thx.