In 1975, the world was a different place.
There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo.
In 1975, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was Jaws. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.
Remember, that was before there were DVDs. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty. And mostly all of that without 3D computer effects.
Do you know who won the Oscars that year? The academy award for the best movie went to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to Dersu Uzala. The top actor was Jack Nicholson for his role as R.P. McMurphy in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. The top actress was Louise Fletcher for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The best director? Milos Forman for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
In the year 1975, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow. Oh, that's many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it? Look at the cover!
In 1975... Altair 8800 is released, sparking the era of the microcomputer. In relation to the Watergate scandal, former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell, and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, are sentenced to between 30 months and 8 years in prison. Iran and Iraq announce a settlement in their border dispute. The United Nations proclaims International Women's Day. Colonel Richard Ratsimandrava, President of Madagascar, is assassinated. Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title. The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War. The United Kingdom votes yes in a referendum to stay in the European Community. NBC airs the first episode of Saturday Night Live, with George Carlin as the first host. The first petroleum pipeline opens from Cruden Bay to Grangemouth, Scotland. The wreck of the HMHS Britannic is found in the Kea Channel by Jacques Cousteau. Victoria, Australia, abolishes capital punishment. Volkswagen introduces the Golf, its new front-wheel-drive economy car, in the United States and Canada as the Volkswagen Rabbit. The video game of the day was Pong.
That was the world you were born into. Since then, you and others have changed it.
The Nobel Prize for Literature that year went to Eugenio Montale. The Nobel Peace prize went to Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. The Nobel Prize for physics went to Aage Bohr, Ben Roy Mottelson and Leo James Rainwater from Denmark and the United States for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection. The sensation this created was big. But it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn't it?
The 1970s were indeed a special decade. Women's liberation continued. The hippie culture faded. There was an opposition to the Vietnam War, and nuclear weapons. The environmentalist movement began. Tom Wolfe coined the decade the "Me decade" due to a new self-awareness. Mao Zedong died and the market began to liberate in China. There was an oil crisis. After the first oil shock, gasoline was rationed in many countries. In Eastern Europe, Soviet-style command economies begin showing signs of stagnation. The Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, witness the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian Arab terrorists. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Who, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Bee Gees, Abba and others play their music. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison all die at the age of 27. The space mission Apollo 13 nearly ends in disaster. Egypt signed the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. There was a revolution in Iran. The world sees its first general microprocessor. The C programming language makes its debut. Consumer video games show up on the scene. Microwave ovens become commercially available. Margaret Thatcher was victorious in the UK elections.
Do you remember the movie that was all the rage when you were 15? Total Recall. Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio when you were 15? Maybe it was How Am I Supposed to Live Without You by Michael Bolton. Were you in love? Who were you in love with, do you remember?
In 1975, 15 years earlier, a long time ago, the year when you were born, the song Fly, Robin, Fly by Silver Convention topped the US charts. Do you know the lyrics? Do you know the tune? Sing along.
Fly, robin fly
Fly, robin fly
Fly, robin fly
Up, up to the sky
Fly, robin fly
Fly, robin fly
Fly, robin fly Up, up to the sky
...
There's a kid outside, shouting, playing. It doesn't care about time. It doesn't know about time. It shouts and it plays and thinks time is forever. You were once that kid.
When you were 9, the movie Gremlins was playing. When you were 8, there was A Christmas Story. When you were 7, there was a Disney movie out called The Fox and the Hound. Does this ring a bell?
6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... it's 1975. There's TV noise coming from the second floor. Someone turned up the volume way too high. The sun is burning from above. These were different times. The show playing on TV is Baretta. The sun goes down. Someone switches channels. There's The Jeffersons on now. That's the world you were born in.
Progress, year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading towards? The technology available today would have blown your mind in 1975. Do you know what was invented in the year you were born? DNA Sequencing By Chain Termination. The Digital Camera.
I was surprised
I was happy for a day in 1975
I was puzzled by a dream
It stayed with me all day in 1995
...
That's from the song State I Am In by Belle and Sebastian.
In 1975, a new character entered the world of comic books: Colossus. Bang! Boom! But that's just fiction, right? In the real world, in 1975, Charlize Theron was born. And Lauryn Hill. Liv Tyler, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone special. Everyone taking a different path through life.
It's 2011.
The world is a different place.
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