Living That Seventies Show
The other night, my son came around asking for relics from the Seventies. He was looking for tie-dyed shirts and bell bottom pants, records, the kinds of things he had seen on That Seventies Show.
What did I still have from way back then? I’d outgrown my Earth shoes in more ways than one. In the basement, I did have a vintage polyester pants suit my mother handed down to me in 1987 to wear to special events. Did he want to see my first pair of wire-rimmed glasses? I started rummaging through things to see what I could find, listing events as I went to help him get a history lesson out of his quest.
“Don’t forget the Vietnam War,” my husband called out as I began reciting.
“Do you want to see a poem about the war?” I asked Guy. “I have some poems.”
“No, thanks,” he said politely. “That’s okay.”
Foraging for something a little more exciting, I found a black and white photograph of me with my three brothers, all of us attired in Seventies clothes, the hair on the boys a little shaggy and my hair long, parted in the middle just like Donna’s on TV. Then I remembered an old diary, an authentic primary source, and pulled it out.
"We tryed [sic] out for parts in Antigone today. I wish I was louder when I’m doing something like that. I must’ve been terrible!”
I probably was, but I was worse when I got the part of Eurydice and the messenger forgot to tell me Haemon had killed himself so it didn’t really make a lot of sense to the students in the audience when I committed suicide in despair.
“I went to the library and got three books on Oscar Wilde.”
Well, there wasn’t a lot of excitement there, except for some secrets I wasn’t ready to share. Then I spotted an old recording my brother Charles made in 1971 of our classic family radio show, WXYZ. Now that was a relic! I put it on and turned the volume up high.
“Ask me any questions,” I said to my son. “I can explain things.”
Throughout the recording was witty banter from Charles, the main deejay, who touched on miscellaneous events in the news as the rest of us played different roles. An interview with a forgetful old lady, played by yours truly, gave insight into a new food tax and adolescent humor. My favorite segment was when John and I did a hilarious parody of a shampoo commercial for “Protein 24,” a take-off which ended with an appeal in a voice I had at 15: “Now, girls, don’t sing the frizzy blues.”
We were funny, I had to admit, flip-flopping from slapstick to satire and back again. Between scratchy performances of Paul McCartney’s “Lovely Linda” and Blood, Sweat and Tears with “And When I Die,” albeit from 1969, we sounded so clever, if I do say so myself. Maybe a little too clever for a sixth grader’s ears?
“He’s not drunk!” I noted when Graeme, 11, started hiccupping. “He’s just pretending to be an inebriated deejay, an incongruity that would never happen in real life. Incongruity is an element of humor.”
“I know, Mom,” my son said.
“That’s satire!” I called when John, 16, started a campaign ad for George Wallace while I played “America” on the piano. “You know, satire, it means he was really criticizing white supremacy, not promoting it. George Wallace was a famous racist who ran for president.”
“I know, Mom,” my son said.
When John started mocking people who wanted to shut down “hippy radio stations,” joking about fire-bombing hippy establishments in a manner no high school student would be free to do today, neither on air nor in print, I had to interrupt again.
“He doesn’t mean that,” I yelled over the melodious voice of this forensics team member who would join the Navy one day soon. “It’s a farce, you know, he’s making fun of people who hate hippies. Some people didn’t like hippies or their music back then."
“I know, Mom,” my son said.
When the radio show stopped, Charles at 14 having succeeded in recording a great night of family fun, my son started singing Don McLean’s “American Pie.”
“Where did you learn that?” I asked him, amazed he could sing a song that kept us mystified for months in 1971. That Seventies Show. I remember where I was the first time I heard “American Pie,” Piggly Wiggly. I saw him live, too, you know, Don McLean. I was there, in person, a member of the original cast of the Seventies. He broke a string at Township Auditorium and kept playing.
I have a good memory. When I have grandchildren, I’ll still be able to reminisce for hours about popular culture before I call in Grandpa to talk about the Vietnam War.
Felicia Mitchell First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 23 July 2003, p. A4-A5. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2003.
What did I still have from way back then? I’d outgrown my Earth shoes in more ways than one. In the basement, I did have a vintage polyester pants suit my mother handed down to me in 1987 to wear to special events. Did he want to see my first pair of wire-rimmed glasses? I started rummaging through things to see what I could find, listing events as I went to help him get a history lesson out of his quest.
“Don’t forget the Vietnam War,” my husband called out as I began reciting.
“Do you want to see a poem about the war?” I asked Guy. “I have some poems.”
“No, thanks,” he said politely. “That’s okay.”
Foraging for something a little more exciting, I found a black and white photograph of me with my three brothers, all of us attired in Seventies clothes, the hair on the boys a little shaggy and my hair long, parted in the middle just like Donna’s on TV. Then I remembered an old diary, an authentic primary source, and pulled it out.
"We tryed [sic] out for parts in Antigone today. I wish I was louder when I’m doing something like that. I must’ve been terrible!”
I probably was, but I was worse when I got the part of Eurydice and the messenger forgot to tell me Haemon had killed himself so it didn’t really make a lot of sense to the students in the audience when I committed suicide in despair.
“I went to the library and got three books on Oscar Wilde.”
Well, there wasn’t a lot of excitement there, except for some secrets I wasn’t ready to share. Then I spotted an old recording my brother Charles made in 1971 of our classic family radio show, WXYZ. Now that was a relic! I put it on and turned the volume up high.
“Ask me any questions,” I said to my son. “I can explain things.”
Throughout the recording was witty banter from Charles, the main deejay, who touched on miscellaneous events in the news as the rest of us played different roles. An interview with a forgetful old lady, played by yours truly, gave insight into a new food tax and adolescent humor. My favorite segment was when John and I did a hilarious parody of a shampoo commercial for “Protein 24,” a take-off which ended with an appeal in a voice I had at 15: “Now, girls, don’t sing the frizzy blues.”
We were funny, I had to admit, flip-flopping from slapstick to satire and back again. Between scratchy performances of Paul McCartney’s “Lovely Linda” and Blood, Sweat and Tears with “And When I Die,” albeit from 1969, we sounded so clever, if I do say so myself. Maybe a little too clever for a sixth grader’s ears?
“He’s not drunk!” I noted when Graeme, 11, started hiccupping. “He’s just pretending to be an inebriated deejay, an incongruity that would never happen in real life. Incongruity is an element of humor.”
“I know, Mom,” my son said.
“That’s satire!” I called when John, 16, started a campaign ad for George Wallace while I played “America” on the piano. “You know, satire, it means he was really criticizing white supremacy, not promoting it. George Wallace was a famous racist who ran for president.”
“I know, Mom,” my son said.
When John started mocking people who wanted to shut down “hippy radio stations,” joking about fire-bombing hippy establishments in a manner no high school student would be free to do today, neither on air nor in print, I had to interrupt again.
“He doesn’t mean that,” I yelled over the melodious voice of this forensics team member who would join the Navy one day soon. “It’s a farce, you know, he’s making fun of people who hate hippies. Some people didn’t like hippies or their music back then."
“I know, Mom,” my son said.
When the radio show stopped, Charles at 14 having succeeded in recording a great night of family fun, my son started singing Don McLean’s “American Pie.”
“Where did you learn that?” I asked him, amazed he could sing a song that kept us mystified for months in 1971. That Seventies Show. I remember where I was the first time I heard “American Pie,” Piggly Wiggly. I saw him live, too, you know, Don McLean. I was there, in person, a member of the original cast of the Seventies. He broke a string at Township Auditorium and kept playing.
I have a good memory. When I have grandchildren, I’ll still be able to reminisce for hours about popular culture before I call in Grandpa to talk about the Vietnam War.
Felicia Mitchell First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 23 July 2003, p. A4-A5. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2003.
posted by Felicia Mitchell | 8:27 AM
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