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oh and the family drama around TV continued for decades even after i moved out and got married and had my own house. now i refused to own or buy a TV set but when i got married the husband (now ex-) brought a TV set into the marriage. Well, due to the considerable TV trauma growing up---every holiday meal in front of the TV set so my dad could watch sports, no talking rule, and lots of rage and yelling if the wrong team was losing---i decided even as a kid that there would be no meals in front of the TV for me. We would actually sit as a family and look at each other and (gasp) what a concept maybe talk to each other. hubby was fine with that. the visiting parents and inlaws were not.
well that didn't go over at all. first holiday they visited us newlyweds in our new home, of course they were glued to the TV set watching sports, i said dinner's ready and turned off the set. of course much yelling and screaming ensued from not only my dad but from the brother and mom as well "how dare you treat your father like that." I just sat down to eat my meal. i have never and will never date someone who watches sports on TV and that has kept my life much more peaceful than it was growing up.
i remember even as a kid before i moved out, implementing for myself my no meals in front of the TV. i must have been about 14 or so, when i realized i actually had choices and timidly began to exercise my own choices (i say timidly because the constant tone growing up for me was fear and hypervigilance and quivering under the ever-present hair-trigger explosive rage of my father.) anyway it was yet another holiday meal in front of the TV set, the dad of course in his easy chair throne and the minions us crowded sitting on the floor at a very low table that was excruciatingly uncomfortable to sit at, and of course the no talking rule for everyone, the big concession was if the right team was winning, that there could be conversation during the commercials only, but the talking could be ONLY about the game itself, the teams, the players, no other topics allowed.
anyway it occurred to me like a light bulb going off over my head in the cartoons, it occurred to me that i could go eat my meal somewhere else. I quietly stood up, quietly picked up my plate, and quietly walked into the next room which was the dining room and i sat down at yes the dining table (what a concept, eating at the dining table for a holiday meal, or any meal for that matter) to eat my holiday meal.
And all hell broke loose. my mother stomping in fiercely whispering through clenched jaws and gritted teeth, "how dare you leave the family dinner" "do you know how disrespectful you are being" "you can't do this, you come back to the table right now" "we are a family and we eat meals together you march yourself right back in and sit down with the rest of the family, missy" well i just kept sitting where i was calmly eating my meal and ignoring the pandemonium around me.
Yikes. That sounds awful, I can't blame you for never wanting to see another t.v. again.
Growing up, my family always ate holiday meals around the dining table. We would sometimes schedule around the games on t.v. to make sure that our holiday dinner wasn't conflicting with some sporting event that we wanted to watch.
My husband and I have handled it the same kind of way with our own kids. We all enjoy football games and on Thanksgiving we watch the games and I serve light appetizers before Thanksgiving dinner. During the actual dinner we sit at the table, say the blessing and enjoy our meal.
i moved to a new city a few years ago and was going to thrift stores to find some basic furniture for my empty apartment, since i tend to have very basic things and it is easier to move by just getting rid of it all and then going to the thrift store to furnish again. well i did not know my way around this new city so i copied a bunch of addresses down and was going to the different thrift stores. Turns out one of them is a "retro" furniture store. I walked in and the furniture was set up and arranged in full room set ups, so a shopper could walk through a fully furnished living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, a rec room. It was the most bizarre experience because one of the "living rooms" was like going back in time and walking through the house i grew up in. It had the couch, the tables, the knick knacks the stereo cabinet from honest to god my parents living room. it would be like putting all that stuff from the list we just looked at and having all those objects physically in front of you. yikes.
the prices were way out there too more like antique store prices than thrift store prices, so not the place for me to furnish my apartment. but wild to walk into that. probably in another 10 years they will be considered "antiques." no way would i want any of that in my own place, too much trauma associated with it. you couldn't pay me any amount of money to have any of that in my own place.
i moved to a new city a few years ago and was going to thrift stores to find some basic furniture for my empty apartment, since i tend to have very basic things and it is easier to move by just getting rid of it all and then going to the thrift store to furnish again. well i did not know my way around this new city so i copied a bunch of addresses down and was going to the different thrift stores. Turns out one of them is a "retro" furniture store. I walked in and the furniture was set up and arranged in full room set ups, so a shopper could walk through a fully furnished living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, a rec room. It was the most bizarre experience because one of the "living rooms" was like going back in time and walking through the house i grew up in. It had the couch, the tables, the knick knacks the stereo cabinet from honest to god my parents living room. it would be like putting all that stuff from the list we just looked at and having all those objects physically in front of you. yikes.
the prices were way out there too more like antique store prices than thrift store prices, so not the place for me to furnish my apartment. but wild to walk into that. probably in another 10 years they will be considered "antiques." no way would i want any of that in my own place, too much trauma associated with it. you couldn't pay me any amount of money to have any of that in my own place.
Yeah, I've got to say that the decorating taste in the 70's was not something that I would want to repeat. It's fun looking at old pictures and a store like you mentioned above would be fun to go through.
But the olive green wall to wall carpeting, the mustard yellow and brown chairs and couches, the wall paneling, the pink and aqua sinks, toilets and tiles - I'm sure it was snazzy back then but that is not the look that I'm going for now.
Our parents decorated their houses and we can decorate our own homes.
I'm old enough to remember all of them, but I can't say I do. Maybe not everything was available where we lived or I just never saw them?
I sure don't remember a Zenith "automatic" TV channel changer, but then in my family I and my siblings were the channel changers. Whatever our dad wanted to watch on TV, he'd order one of us kids to change the channel to that program. So he never had to get up from his armchair.
Growing up in the 1960s, we weren't even allowed to change the channel that often because my mother said it would wear out the channel knob.
i moved to a new city a few years ago and was going to thrift stores to find some basic furniture for my empty apartment, since i tend to have very basic things and it is easier to move by just getting rid of it all and then going to the thrift store to furnish again. well i did not know my way around this new city so i copied a bunch of addresses down and was going to the different thrift stores. Turns out one of them is a "retro" furniture store. I walked in and the furniture was set up and arranged in full room set ups, so a shopper could walk through a fully furnished living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, a rec room. It was the most bizarre experience because one of the "living rooms" was like going back in time and walking through the house i grew up in. It had the couch, the tables, the knick knacks the stereo cabinet from honest to god my parents living room.
That sounds awesome! We have a few of those "antique" stores in my area. Stuff is usually way overpriced, but fun to look at. The ones here are all consignment shops, so each little booth has a different array of items. Some booths are specifically 1970s style items, always with the old Tupperware, burnt orange wall phone, humongous ashtrays, etc.
That list could grow a ton. I, personally would include MAD magazine and pinball machines. Not a national thing at all, but in Oklahoma we had Mistletoe Express which was around long before we had UPS or FedEx. We would see those trucks (plus the Cushman tricycle mail delivery vehicles) every day.
I just missed being a Boomer, myself, I am an old Gen Xer. Duck and cover, the Ed Sullivan show and sandwiches wrapped in wax paper were before my time.
Everything else I remember.
Middle-of-the-road Gen-X'er here, born during the Nixon administration. Likewise, I remember most of those items. But are they worth remembering? They're consumer-products, often of a low-end sort. They are not culturally significant, apart from maybe a room in a museum of American History, decorated to reflect one or another particular decade.
Instead I'd nominate some other items, or practices:
* Writing letters, in ink, in cursive. In particular, using those "par avion" international envelopes.
* Engineering drafting, using a drafting-board, specialized pencils, compass, and "French curves".
* Hitchhiking rides, or strangers pooling together for rides long-distance.
* A "computer" was a giant machine in a refrigerated room, operated by people in white coats.
* An international phone call cost more per-minute, than a fast-food hamburger.
Most of the above changed in the mid to late 80s, when my cohort of Gen-Xers was in high school or starting college.
Middle-of-the-road Gen-X'er here, born during the Nixon administration. Likewise, I remember most of those items. But are they worth remembering? They're consumer-products, often of a low-end sort. They are not culturally significant, apart from maybe a room in a museum of American History, decorated to reflect one or another particular decade.
Instead I'd nominate some other items, or practices:
* Writing letters, in ink, in cursive. In particular, using those "par avion" international envelopes.
* Engineering drafting, using a drafting-board, specialized pencils, compass, and "French curves".
* Hitchhiking rides, or strangers pooling together for rides long-distance.
* A "computer" was a giant machine in a refrigerated room, operated by people in white coats.
* An international phone call cost more per-minute, than a fast-food hamburger.
Most of the above changed in the mid to late 80s, when my cohort of Gen-Xers was in high school or starting college.
i learned graphic design using a t-square, drafting board, and triangles, and used that all through high school, college and my first few jobs.
the class ahead of me at university used the punch cards for computers, with the huge computers in a restricted access room. mine was the first class that actually sat at a keyboard for computer programming class.
hitchhiking is just plain dumb and dangerous no matter what age or generation.
also don't be such a snob about what is culturally significant. sheesh. get over yourself.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 09-24-2023 at 03:12 PM..
That list could grow a ton. I, personally would include MAD magazine and pinball machines. Not a national thing at all, but in Oklahoma we had Mistletoe Express which was around long before we had UPS or FedEx. We would see those trucks (plus the Cushman tricycle mail delivery vehicles) every day.
i remember the Bunny Bread truck (i grew up in the South), and my mom driving clear across town to get bread for 10 cents a loaf. And the commercial on TV with the professor in front of a blackboard with the Pi R squared equation saying "Pi aren't square. Pi R round. Bunny Bread are square."
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