Flashback

Our class was special and the years we spent at school were a unique time in history.
This page is dedicated to popular culture of the time. Go back in time with;
Music, TV, Movies, Sports, Fashion, Technology, Politics, Travel and more.

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Movies

The top-grossing films of 1974:

1. Blazing Saddles

2. Towering Inferno

3. The Trial of Billy Jack

4. Young Frankenstein

5. Earthquake

6. The Godfather Part II

7. Airport 1975

8. The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams

9. The Longest Yard

10. Murder on the Orient Express

Music

The top song from 1974 was "The Way We Were," performed by Barbara Streisand. 

Pop Hits from 1974 include:

• Piano Man - Billy Joel

• Bennie and the Jets - Elton John

• Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd

• Waterloo - ABBA

• Band on the Run - Paul McCartney & Wings

• Time in a Bottle - Jim Croce

• Takin' Care of Business - Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Television

The top-rated TV shows of 1974 - 1975 were:

1. All in the Family

2. Sandford and Son

3. Chico and the Man

4. The Jeffersons

5. M*A*S*H

6. Rhoda

7. Good Times

8. The Waltons

9. Maude

10. Hawaii Five-O

 

Sports

Some significant results in the world of sports for the year 1974:

• Australia Open won by Jimmy Connors and Evonne Goolagong

• Super Bowl held in Houston won by Miami

• Masters won by Gary Player

• French Open won by Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert

• US Open won by Hale Irwin

• FIFA World Cup won by Germany

• Cycling Tour de France won by Eddy Merckx

• US PGA won by Lee Trevino

• US Open won by Jimmy Connors and Billie Jean King

• Baseball World Series won by Oakland Athletics

US Politics

Some major political headlines for 1974:

• January 2 - Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum speed limit to 55 mph in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.

• January 4 - Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoened by the Senate Watergate Committee.

• February 28 - After seven years, the United States and Egypt re-establish diplomatic relations.

• March 1 - Watergate scandal: Seven are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.

• August 8 - President Richard Nixon announces his resignation, and is replaced with Gerald Ford.

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous information for 1974:

• The Rubik's Cube and Post it notes were invented.

• Skittles candies were first released.

• Stephen King releases his first novel, Carrie.

• The minimum wage in NY was increased from $1.85 to $2.00 per hour.

• A new house cost $34,900.

• A new car cost $4,441.

• A gallon of milk cost $1.39 and a dozen eggs costs $.58

• A gallon of gas was $.42

Technology in 1974

 

• We had no internet!  No personal computers.  Apple's first computer came out the next year in 1975.  The IBM PC appeard in 1981.  (We didn't get internet in our homes until the early 1990s.)

• No cell phones! (They didn't come to Central NY until 1985.)  Most of our homes had only one telephone, and most of those were still rotary dial.  It was typically in or near the kitchen, hanging on the wall.  (That's where the phrase "don't hang up!" came from.)  So we'd have to share that phone with everyone in the family, and privacy on a call was challenging unless you had a long cord so you could carry the handset around the corner through the hallway and into another room.  (No cordless phones yet either.)

• We could get an additional phone installed in the house, but there was a monthly charge for each additonal phone.

• Local calls were typically included in the monthly rate, but "long distance" calls (even to Utica or Rochester) were billed extra by the minute.  Long distance rates went down at night and on weekends, so we often waited to make those calls if we could.

• Most people's phone numbers were listed in our local phone book.  (Having an unlisted number was also an additional monthly charge.)  We could also dial 411, and a real person would answer and provide us with someone's number.

• In Erieville, phone lines were scarce and almost everyone had a "party line".  So you had to share your phone line with your neighbors and their families too!  When you needed to use the phone, you often found somebody else was already talking on the line.

• Handheld calculators were just starting to become available.  They were expensive, and did amazing things like add, subtract, multiply, divide, and square roots!

• For medical situations, we did have x-ray machines, but no CT scanners and certainly no MRIs.

• In our homes, we listened to music on vinyl records (33 LPs and 45s with 45-adapters) and in our cars (and homes) we played our 8-track tape cartridges.  Newer, more compact, modern cassette tapes were just starting to replace the 8-track technology.

• For photos, we used film cameras.  No digital cameras yet.  We would bring our roll of film to a drug store, cross our fingers, and wait a day or more for the prints to come back and see what we got.

• We did not yet have cable television in Cazenovia.  We could only receive a few channels over the air, from Syracuse and maybe Utica.  We didn't have VCRs yet, so we could only watch our favorite show when it was actually on the air.  No pausing the show for bathroom breaks...if you missed it, you missed it.

Travel in the 70s

Air Travel

• To book a flight, we would use our (wired) phone to call a travel agent or the airline's reservation department.  We did not have access to any of the great travel apps we have today.  Then a physical ticket was mailed to us, or we picked it up at the travel agent's office or the airport.

• There were smoking and non-smoking sections on the airplane!  Every seat had an ashtray built-in to the arm rest.

• Once we physically checked in for our flight at the airline counter (no online check-in or kiosks at the airport), we would walk directly to our gate, as this was long before TSA security measures were introduced.  Our family or friends could also accompany us to the gate to wish us bon voyage.

• Paper boarding passes were used to check in at the gate.  You could even use a ticket with another person's name on it as they didn't check IDs...because a paid-for seat was a paid-for seat, and it didn't matter who occupied it.

• Roller board suitcases and wheeled luggage were not common in the 70s.  There was also no ability to track our checked luggage with the airline's app or using air tags.

• We didn't even think about the quantity of liquids in our carry-on luggage, nor the Swiss Army knife in our pockets.  This was all before the TSA regulations limiting liquids to a quart-sized bag of 3.4 ounces per item.

• Meals on flights were more elaborate and included real metal utensils.

• The average legroom in the 1970s was 34 inches as opposed to the 32 or even 28 inches offered by some airlines today.

• Flying was very noisy and statistically speaking up to 77 times more dangerous in the 1970s than it is today!

Car Travel

• Every thruway exist had toll booths with collectors to provide IBM punch-card type toll tickets and to take cash toll payments.  E-ZPass wasn't implemented until 1993 and wasn't fully operational for the entire NY Thruway system until 1997.

• Most gas stations provided full service and often cleaned our windshields and sometimes checked our oil while pumping our gas.  These gas stations often sold gas only.  It wasn't until later that gas stations turned into "convenience stores" providing snacks, drinks, and other supplies.

• Many people did not buckle up when traveling by car.  Seat belt use was voluntary until 1984 when NY became the first state to require the vehicle driver and front passenger to wear seat belts.  It wasn't until 2020 that NY required all motor vehicles passengers over the age of 16 to wear seat belts.

• For entertainment while traveling, we had nothing but radio and possibly 8-Track tapes.  Factory installed 8-Track was introduced with the 66 Mustang and cassette tapes were introduced in 1971 in Mercedes.  Most cars in the 70s still had only a radio.  And many of those were AM only.  (An FM stereo radio was usually an expensive extra-cost option.)

• There was a nationwide speed limit of 55 MPH in an effort to save gas after the Arab Oil Crisis of 1973.

• There was no GPS navigation!  To find our way around, we had our glove compartment or seat pockets crammed full of old road maps, and often a large atlas containing maps of the entire US.  For a long complicated road trip, we could get a TripTik from AAA, which showed our route highlighted on a series of map sections all neatly bound in a convenient packet.  But nobody to tell us to "Turn left in a half a mile".  We had to pay attention and figure it out ourselves.