First thing that comes to mind when you think of the 1970s

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I wasn't born until 1970, so my main memory of that decade is being blissfully unaware of what a sharkpit the adult world is, especially if you have a mental disability of any kind (although i didn't know i had AS then).

That and shagpile carpets, plus power cuts during the energy crisis. They always served as a useful excuse for some family bonding over candles and board games.

I hated being a kid. I always wanted to be an adult.

i was made "unblissfully aware" of the world around me as a kid. I was bullied mercilessly (or so it seemed to me at the time; objectively, it really wasn't that bad).

I remember the 1973 OPEC oil embargo---when gas/petrol went up from about 35 to about 50 cents a gallon in the space of a few days.

The "WIN" button, bought out by President Gerald Ford ("Whip Inflation Now").

The whole Watergate thing. Within a US context, this probably separated the early 70s from the late 70s. The world seemed to change after the Nixon resignation. I actually watched him give his peace sign and get on the plane on TV.

Interesting. Was that in New York? My high school was very conservative, and typical 1970s fashions. Plaids and strips, big collar shirts, turtle neck sweaters. That type of stuff. There may have been a few trends that I have forgotten about, but definitely no punk. I only saw punks on TV. I do remember a few kids wearing some kinds of disco looking shirts. That was probably about as extreme as any fashion got.

M*A*S*H was 1972 ro 1983. So it was mostly 1970s.

Here is some typical 1970s fashion from my high school year book. Can you imagine how punks would have fit in?

By the end of the 1970s, 50 cents a gallon would have been an incredible bargain.

The music! Both of my parents graduated high school in the 70s. I grew up listening to their music and have a great appreciation for a lot of it (especially the groups with amazing harmonies!).

CBGB's

Am being purposely mysterious

But New York it wasn't Most of the adult men I knew had yellow fingers from smoking home-rolled cigarettes. I had yellow velour shorts that I wore to bits. Everything seemed yellow, brown and olive green.

This reminds me, somehow, of the movie "My Life as a Dog."

It took place in Sweden around 1959-1960.

Have you seen it?

No, but I've heard of it. I might see it at some point. Right now I'm reeling a bit from emotional stuff going on, and all I want to watch is fluff and action movies

I miss that time, though, at least the early eighties. I asked my mother whether life really was more simple then, or I'm just imagining that because I was a child. She said that actually life was a lot less complicated, not the least because they weren't bombarded with all kinds of ugly news that they couldn't do anything about, like today. There weren't a lot of things to buy, so people couldn't get their knickers in a twist about which smartphone to buy and suchlike.

I'm sorry you're going through the stuff you're going through. I wish i could help a little, somehow.

You'd be surprised. I remember the early 1980s as being a time of considerable turmoil, at least in the United States We had bad inflation in the United States. We also had a pretty bad recession in 1982. There was lots of rural and urban poverty, like there is now.

If anything, I find the times were similar then as they are now---except different in certain respects.

Yes, we had less material things----but materialism was rife. This was depicted in the movie "Wall Street," which came out in 1987.

This was a time when the drug "crack" started rearing its ugly head. This was also the time when people started getting mugged and killed just for their sneakers (what you might call "trainers"). AIDS began to be publicized then.

Perhaps, a kid growing up in the 1980s might have found the times simpler----because things weren't publicized as much then. We didn't have "instant news" like we have now. We didn't have this all-encompassing news coverage like we have now. It was easier to conceal the bad stuff then.

Back in the early 1980s, the economies of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were held up as models of efficiency and of liberal caring for people.

That time in my home country was a Social Democratic Garden of Eden, compared to now. There was hardly any poverty. Materialism hadn't arrived yet. Even if you had lots of money, there wasn't a lot you could spend it on, and conspicuous consumption would make anyone a laughing stock. Murders were practically nonexistent.

Outside the largest cities, not a lot of people knew about drugs. Every second farmer made his own moonshine, but that was it, and people simply didn't drink much.

The social consformism was brutal, though. I think people didn't kill themselves over drugs or poverty, but over gossip, certainly.

Just have a lot to think about. Redesigning my lifestyle, and the little aspie brain is not processing feelings quickly, so it's exhausting.

I knew a few people who actually wanted to move to Sweden because of the Social Democratic model.

Like you said, it was "Edenic" then.

Even today, when I speak to someone from the Scandinavian area, I always find them calm and even-tempered, yet willing to be open to you. They usually speak English very well, too. We, however, hardly ever are able to speak the Scandinavian languages.

1973 oil crisis

Early 70's: People sitting on stoops (stairs leading to up to the entrances to apartment buildings) listening to little transistor radios.

Late 70's: People sitting on these same stoops listening to giant "boom boxes."

Ford Pinto