If you are about 56 years old, or perhaps a smidge younger, you might remember July 1976, which hailed America’s Bicentennial, or 200th birthday. Gerald Ford, was President at the time, following Richard Nixon, whose faux pas now makes him look like a boy scout, compared to Democrat Presidents of the 1990s to 2020s. 1976 was a magical time for young dreamers such as myself, living a carefree childhood seeing as I was only 10 years old at the time. 200 years before in 1776, 13 American colonies took a leap of faith and declared independence from England and King George III. 1976 was a time when even the media was happy to teach its youth about Our Nation’s history, and even with a few civics lessons in how laws were made, and how Our Country came to be.
ABC’s ‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ was always a hit with kids, including animation with short three-minute episodes between programming that involved initially in 1973, multiplication, then grammar; remember ‘Conjunction Junction?’
As the bicentennial year approached in fall 1975, ‘America Rock,’ started hitting home with episodes explaining the abridged history of the colonies from Plymouth Rock to the American Revolution. I remember an episode specifically on the American Revolution called ‘The Shot Heard ‘Round The World,’ which now, will probably be more than what is taught in many schools today on the differences and eventual conflict with England. Others that followed were ‘I’m Just a Bill,’ and ‘The Great American Melting Pot,’ which taught us kids a little bit about the wider world out there. Of course there was no internet, and cable television was still building up, yet even as a kid I found myself watching the national and six-o’clock newscasts on Houston broadcast channels.
Depending on where you lived, you either locked or kept your doors unlocked, and kids might leave in the morning after breakfast, and not return until just before dinner. Kids growing up in the Houston suburbs were generally free from any distress in their living standards, and in Montgomery County, when the population was minuscule compared to today, kids could get away with a lot more things back then as compared to present day, but it was genuinely more innocent stuff. Television was legendary, with ‘Welcome Back, Kotter,’ ‘S.W.A.T.,’ ‘The Jeffersons,’ ‘Sanford and Son,’ ‘The Rockford Files,’ and others that were well loved and entertaining. Even ‘Saturday Night Live,’ was funny back then.
The outlook on life for kids in 1976 was wide open as career fields are concerned. If you had the will, you could make it, and the incredible costs of today to attend camps, or college was much more affordable than it is today. Immigration was under control, and our population was over a hundred million less than it is today, so opportunities were much more available.
I enjoyed the community swimming pool, and riding my bike around the neighborhood. We’d play kickball, hide-and-seek, board games, and have sleep-overs. As far as information was concerned back then, the encyclopedia and library were major sources. You could ask your older family members, but there weren’t many other resources to get information quickly like we have today. The conflicts in the Middle East were the same back then as they are today, and the Soviet Union and the threat of nuclear war was a real possibility. But as kids, it really didn’t appear on our radar.
Summertime was popular. I enjoyed visiting cousins, and seeing aunts, uncles, who have since passed on, but that’s life. The fireworks of July 4th, which I spent in Austin that year in 1976, were awesome. Then afterwards we went back to one of my aunts’ house, and me and my cousins would pop firecrackers. It was memorable.
Looking back at 1976, it’s incredible to imagine the technology that we didn’t have back then. The Dick Tracy watch had been dreamt up decades prior to the bicentennial, I now find on occasion; myself answering my Apple Watch when my iPhone is out of reach. Of course cell technology was in its infancy fifty years ago. Thankfully the internet did not exist because many of us did a lot of stupid stuff, even as 10 year olds. But I’m thankful that I can make a phone call by calling out on Alexa to dial someone.
Education wise, I feel that teachers back then cared a whole lot more for the students than they do today. I got my fair share of discipline in school, with corporal punishment from first grade on, and I admit I deserved it. With corporal punishment gone, students that might have been reluctant to be are not kept in line as much as they would with paddling.
Safety wise, kids don’t have as much freedom as they did back then. In those two generations, Democrats have reduced standards, not only in schools, but in personal accountability, giving little punishment for serious crimes, and cheating kids from real life-changing opportunities. Everyone locks everything now.
A lot has changed in the last 50 years, and the next five decades will tell the tale if America will survive. Right now we have a chance, with a strong GOP, and a Democrat party that has gone completely communist. But complacency is always a possibility, and if Democrats win again. Well, they can’t win.
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Publisher: Veteran of the Week