Halloween, Part 5

My awesome friend found his pictures! Well – he found the negatives – and he was nice enough to get them developed, scanned them and then emailed them to me. I do not remember that we took all these pictures! This helped me to remember that in the course of the evening, we went a large open space in the middle of the University of Washington called Red Square.

Take a look! (Click to enlarge)

A ‘70’s-ish layout if ever I’ve seen one.

Practicing our “V” formation skating.

The effect would have been better without the flash. I’m number 2, second from the right. Remember – I’m topping out at 6’-5” – so we’re all pretty intimidating.

Oooooh! Scary!

Here we are in a group pic just before we got ready to assault the airport

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Geared up, faces and lights on, ready to go! On the roof of the parking garage at Sea-Tac!

Well - now that you know what we looked like, I bet you're ready to hear the whole story. Tune in tomorrow to read what happened just a few minutes after this shot was taken

Halloween, Part 3

As I mentioned in the last post, there were 7 of us guys all outfitted in our Rollerball costumes. I’m 5’-11”, and was the shortest one of the bunch of us. When I had all the gear on, I was about 6’-6” and had the presence of a football player. The tallest guy was 6’-6” before, and over 7’-0” when he was all decked out. I think I have a line on getting some photos, so they should be coming soon. You won’t have to imagine what we looked like because you’ll be able to see it. Keep in mind that these are from the ‘70s, so I hope they’ll do us justice.

So – the big night came and we were ready. We had decided that we would spend the evening (this was Halloween night) going to different bars and trying to win costume contests. We had scanned the newspapers – there wasn’t the web to surf back then – to find out all the places that were having contests. We identified a bunch of places where we could go and try to win. There were varying prizes, some cash, some gifts, and we wanted to try to win them all. We had ended up spending about $100 each to make the costumes, which was a lot of money back then.

We gathered at my friend’s house and planned out our evening. After we got all dressed up, we decided it would be a great idea to take some pictures. We did a bunch of poses that emulated scenes from the movie, and we even made a big silver ball – like the movie – and held it high in some group pictures. We had conscripted one of our friends not dressing up to transport us around, since it was a little difficult to drive with roller skates on. He had a great ‘70s vehicle – a Dodge van, all carpeted, little windows in the side in the back – a veritable epitome of the times. It was the perfect way to go in style.

So – the evening began. I don’t remember how many bars we went to, but it was probably at least a half a dozen. Some of them were small little places with not many people and just a little contest, but others were pretty good sized. I remember the best one was a huge bar and we ended up being one of the top three for the big prize. There was a huge stage and we each took our turn vying for the biggest cheer from the probably fairly tipsy crowd. When our turn came, we skated in a perfect “V” formation and pivoted around to face the audience, with the leader holding up the silver ball in a perfect victory pose. The crowd went wild – it was like being rock stars! I can’t remember if we won – I don’t even know if it mattered all that much – for that moment we were on top of the world.

We had totally succeeded. We had won contests, we’d been the life of the parties we attended, and we’d had a complete blast. But – we didn’t even know that we had the biggest adventure of the night still ahead of us.

Iron-on Transfers

This may come as a huge surprise to many kids who read this, but back in the ‘70s you couldn’t buy t-shirts with words, logos, etc. printed on them. You could buy any color t-shirt you wanted, but there were a very few shirts with logos on them, for the most part - they were just not available.

The big thing back then was iron-on transfers. They were huge! The stores that sold these had tons of solid colored t-shirts, oh – and you could get baseball shirts, tank-tops and some other types of shirts – but tons of shirts. The walls of these stores were covered with iron-transfer patterns, and there were also bunches of books with pages and pages of transfers.

The most difficult part was, of course, picking out which pattern to put on your shirt. There were bands, ‘70s sayings, popular culture icons, places, cars – a ton of cool stuff. I remember that one of my favorite t-shirts that I got was a blue shirt with the band Chicago’s logo on it. And my brother had one with the slogan “Keep on Truckin’” with the cartoon guy with his foot stuck way out on it. They were really cool!

There are some great websites where you can pick up retro t-shirts. Just Google retro/’70s/classic t-shirts and you’ll have some great old memory flashes as you peruse the pages and pages of what were some great iron-on transfers. Nowadays, finding them on the web is easy; clicking through “pages and pages” of them on the computer is also easy; ordering them off the websites is easy; opening your mailbox to find them is easy, too. Back in my days you had to make a real effort to get a ride or ride your bike to the t-shirt store, you usually involved a close friend or two, and you got to sit there and watch them “make” it after you finally chose the perfect transfer. And when you put it on, it was still warm!

Next time you see your favorite ‘70s image, maybe you’ll pop onto the web, order a t-shrit and relive those memories!

The General Store

The other day I talked about the local candy store. But what about the local general store? For me, this little store was about six blocks from our house. It seemed that it was there from the beginning of time and was as much a part of our community as anything else.

It had many names: I think in the beginning it was “Lambs”, and then “Jim’s”. We had an account there and we would often be sent on an errand to pick up various items for mom. It was cool to say “put it on our tab”, and then sign the little slip of paper with our signature. It was the type of place with a butcher in the back – I think it was Jim himself or his brother. The other key thing about the store was that it was at the corner of the two main arterials – the veritable epicenter of our little community.

As we grew up, this was one of the fun destinations for us kids. My brother, cousin and I were the ones that I remember most often hanging out there. We would saunter on down to the store and buy some candy and a pop (Shasta, sugar pop) to snack on and then sit on the little brick ledge outside of the front corner door. This afforded us a front row view of people walking and driving by. We got the biggest kick out of watching people doing the funniest things on their way home – assuming they were in their own little private world. We’d catch sight of them singing, picking their nose, funny hair-dos, talking to themselves. It would provide for an afternoon of cheap entertainment and laughs.

Sometime in the mid-70s a 7-11 went in across the street. There was the predicable dip in business as we all flocked to try out the new-fangled slurpees, and I think the store might have even closed for awhile.
They eventually reopened and are still there today, while the 7-11 has been turned into a dentist office. It’s more of a coffee hangout now. It’s gone through a bunch of name changes – “The Store”, The Corner Store”, “The Little Store”, which I think it is now - and there is no butcher any more. But you can still pick up the essentials, grab a treat (caffeinated or not), and even hang out on the ledge and people watch if you want.

Every little community’s got one – do you remember yours?

No excuse

I got really busy.
I published a book.
Christmas came...
My other responsibilities piled up.
I kinda forgot about it...

All of this isn't a good excuse, I know, but I am finally back and ready to blog all things '70s. Since releasing my book, I've had a lot of positive reviews and I've learned a lot about the world of publishing. Of course my book is all about growing up in the '70s. Many people have shared with me so many cool things about their experiences growing up. I'll try to share on one or two specific memories per post and see how that works out, ok?

The local candy store. I grew up in a suburb north of Seattle and we had a few little stores in the area, but none had the same compelling attraction as Godfrey’s. Mom took any of our appliances there to have them fixed when they went on the fritz - apparently he was quite the tinkerer/handyman, but my siblings and I loved going there because he had the best, oddest, couldn't-find-at-the-local-7-11 candy.


Of course we walked there. It was only 5 or 6 blocks away - although since we lived above the Puget Sound, it was all downhill there and all uphill home. We must've been quite the site - Mom lugging some sort of broken appliance in a shopping bag, and all of us kids running along beside her. My brother and I would be especially excited and would most likely be daydreaming about all the goodies that we'd spend our whole 25 cents on.

As we walked in, Mom would greet Mr. Godfrey and begin to explain her latest appliance woe, but us kids would totally zone them out and begin the arduous task of scanning the endless bins of penny candy in an effort to begin to decide which of the sweet treasures we would actually buy. There were candy cigarettes, atom bombs pixies, rock candy strings, candy sticks (root beer was the BEST), smarties, pixy sticks - you know - a tube of flavored sugar, Necco wafers, laffy taffy, sweet tarts, little tootsie rolls, caramels, slo pokes, lemon drops, root beer barrels, jawbreakers, candy necklaces, licorices, gummy bears, etc. etc. etc.

Mom always let us buy our allotted amount, but we had to consume in moderation... so picking what to eat first and what to save for last was sometimes just as difficult as figuring out what to buy.

I realize that this was such a simple pleasure compared to what it takes to appease kids today. It was a good walk in the fresh air; it was spending time with the family; a chance to watch someone who was a good fix-it guy and store owner working and relating with the local neighbors; a lesson in decision making (all those candy choices); an opportunity to learn about commerce – even on a very small scale – as it related directly to my pocket; and a great lot of fun and something to look forward to, especially for a little kid.

What types of penny candy do you remember when you grew up? Did you have a little local store like me? I’d love to hear your stories.