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.

[stevieray]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

Foosball was fun. It's a lot more fun if you get really good at it. Neighbor has a million dollar tournament table and actually won tournaments. Me, I was meh at best.

Steve Smith?

I used to play @ Odyssey Foosball Hall on Blue Ridge. Friend and I won 3rd out of 25 teams. We were 14 &12 respectively. Pissed off quite a few adults. I also played at the Tornado Foosball Hall up off of Hillcrest and Red Bridge Rd. I was underage, but with a notarized slip from your parents, they'd let you in to play. some really fantastic players...Fast forward to the early nineties to a rock bar in Denver, and I'm beating the crap out of Jani Lane from Warrant(RIP) with his pregnant, fine as wine wife bobby Brown looking on.


Super fun, still love to play

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by |Zach|

You were the person I had in mind when I wrote this that I am pretty sure was in the exact same era.

I remember AOL and Prodigy as well as dial up BBS connecting at 28.8k.

Lots of computer games especially Sierra games with King's Quest and Space Quest.

Lots of fond memories there. Some good music in the early and mid 90's

My dad was a computer science teacher for decades, so we had a computer for as long back as I can remember... with a dot matrix printer and computer games that existed on 5+ floppy disks.

Police Quest was another Sierra game... Wasteland... I remember a really old school baseball game that had some kind of wheel that you had to use to enter a password (the original combat against pirating, physical decoder rings).

I was born in '80 and the one thing I'd say I really missed out on were the concerts of some of the old school 90s bands.... Lollapalooza at Longview Lake in '95 was one of my first concerts ever with Metallica and Soundgarden and several others.

What I'd give to be a few years older and see Metallica touring with GNR in '92 or to see Nirvana live, or Billy Corgan 30 years younger (granted, I've seen Smashing Pumpkins several times now).

[stevieray]

MonkeyWard, JC Penney, Sears and a host of others mass produced mini bikes.

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by stevieray

Steve Smith?

I used to play @ Odyssey Foosball Hall on Blue Ridge. Friend and I won 3rd out of 25 teams. We were 14 &12 respectively. Pissed off quite a few adults. I also played at the Tornado Foosball Hall up off of Hillcrest and Red Bridge Rd. I was underage, but with a notarized slip from your parents, they'd let you in to play. some really fantastic players...Fast forward to the early nineties to a rock bar in Denver, and I'm beating the crap out of Jani Lane from Warrant(RIP) with his pregnant, fine as wine wife bobby Brown looking on.


Super fun, still love to play

I get in an occasional game but I still suck.

[srvy]

Originally Posted by stevieray

MonkeyWard, JC Penney, Sears and a host of others mass produced mini bikes.

My Dad bought one from the JC Whitney catalog. Was a kit if I remember right. Had a 5 hp Clinton 4 stroke. We would take it on camping trips. What a blast but I remember always having to replace the clutch. It had a governor on it and was the first thing to go. It would really fly. Oh yeah no helmet wasn't even a thought.

[IowaHawkeyeChief]

Originally Posted by stevieray

MonkeyWard, JC Penney, Sears and a host of others mass produced mini bikes.

lot of friends had these and the chain guard would never last and the chain ate a bunch of kids jeans and crashed them,.

[srvy]

Who remembers Katz Drug stores? There were many all over the country. Does anyone remember they sold their own beer? Premium Katz beer the Dads would sit on the front porch shoot the breeze and drink Katz. We had a Katz on Armour and Swift in NKC also the cool one near Main and Westport Rd.

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Crazy to think how long beer has existed and it's basically sucked for the vast majority of that time.... not sure I know anyone who loves a domestic light lager, it just gets the job done if you can tolerate drinking 30 of them.

Think of Boulevard's most basic beers... Pale Ale is significantly better than any light lager bullshit out there, and it's only been around since 1989 or so..... and it's not even THAT good.

Even though I lived in Kansas and could legally buy 3.2 beer at 18, I got an older family member to buy me bourbon* because..., crap beer. (Or maybe it was to be cool. Or maybe both.)

I drank beer at bars, because that was what they served. Unless used a faked ID to go to a club.

*No longer drink bourbon. Drink rye.

[Rain Man]

A few random memories from my childhood, which was mostly in the 1970s.

1. My first phone number (family phone) used letters and numbers. It was something like SU5-1549.

2. My parents' pickup had only AM radio as the sound system.

3. Flat tires were not unusual. Tire technology in the modern world must have arisen from a UFO crash.

4. I walked alone to school and back in second grade, and was a latchkey kid by third grade.

5. Car bumpers were apparently designed to maim pedestrians. They were really hard and metal.

6. My first foray into the computer age was a red LED watch that you lit up by pushing a button. It was pretty awesome. I got it in maybe the 8th grade.

7. The first computer I ever saw was an Apple that my school's calculus teacher acquired for class. We had a little afterschool computer club where we learned to program it.

8. My first video game was an offbrand Pong game, but soon after that Space Invaders came available in the local Godfather's Pizza. I invested significant effort into mastering it.

9. My earliest memories of television were Three reruns and the Red Skelton Show. Then I discovered cartoons.

10. I remember going to see Dolly Parton in concert as a young child, when she was a local second banana to Porter Wagoner. It was at some relatively small theater in Joplin.

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by POND_OF_RED

These kids have it so hard today. They’ll never get laid. If only they had an app they could just swipe a finger to choose the girl of their liking.

And of course every girl they swipe immediately says yes?

I think one of the down sides of the apps is it makes it too weird to flirt with strangers anymore.

And for whatever reason, it seems teenagers/twenty somethings are having less sex than people used to.

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

A few random memories from my childhood, which was mostly in the 1970s.


4. I walked alone to school and back in second grade, and was a latchkey kid by third grade.

My elementary school was only a block and a half away. I'm sure I walked alone to first grade pretty much any weather. I think I even walked to kindergarten in good weather.

[backinblack]

Originally Posted by Frosty

Of course. Ranier and Olympia were the local beers when I was going up and my dad drank both at times. I have never been much of a beer drinker and I don't remember ever having either.

they still make Rainier shockingly, see it here in gas stations. I think it's owned by the same company that makes PBR, because it tastes about the same as PBR.

Haven't seen Olympia in many years though.

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by backinblack

they still make Rainier shockingly, see it here in gas stations. I think it's owned by the same company that makes PBR, because it tastes about the same as PBR.

Pabst owns them and contracts with Miller to brew the beer in California. No PNW ties anymore other than the name.

[excessive]

Hell yes, to it all. Grew up a tyke in the '60s and teen in the '70s. Back in the 60s Westerns ruled TV. Shows about Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett were the best: coon skin caps, long rifles, and Indians who still had a fighting chance.

My brother (I was too young) had a toy long rifle, just like Davey and Daniel. Same size and heft as the real thing, or at least it seemed to be to my 5 or 6 year old self. It used a powder cap to fire a cork ball. I was too young to aim and shoot it, but not too young to not be targeted by my brother.

Nerf wasn't yet a thing. That damn cork ball would raise a welt and leave a bruise. You'd hear a bang, see the smoke, and get stung like a wasp just attacked you. And you didn't go crying to Mommy, or you didn't get to play with the big boys.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by excessive

Hell yes, to it all. Grew up a tyke in the '60s and teen in the '70s. Back in the 60s Westerns ruled TV. Shows about Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett were the best: coon skin caps, long rifles, and Indians who still had a fighting chance.

My brother (I was too young) had a toy long rifle, just like Davey and Daniel. Same size and heft as the real thing, or at least it seemed to be to my 5 or 6 year old self. It used a powder cap to fire a cork ball. I was too young to aim and shoot it, but not too young to not be targeted by my brother.

I had the Davy Crokett coon skin cap and that rifle too. That cork ball would hurt like a mother ****er. Talk about putting an eye out. Different times.