Theme: Perspective-- Though you don't need a lot of...

Wow, this is a tough one. I guess that I will go through the 70's. I was a youngster growing up in Washington County, Maine, just becoming a teenager and thought I knew it all. History, news and politics were not much of  a dinner table conversation. Dinner conversations were more like, who is doing what for chores this week or where is the horse show.

My family moved from Milbridge to Harrington, from a house with my own room to an old  one-room school house that my dad went to school in. Sectioned of by furniture and curtains, while waiting for construction of a new house. It seemed fun as there were many new adventures. More places to ride horses, our own swimming hole close by and did I mention more work. More work as there was no running water or indoor plumbing. Carrying water up hill as a kid is very hard work. There were 5 of us kids,I being the oldest and there was always other kids there. As now we were closer to town and other kids. So really at this time did it matter to me that in the big wide world Amtrak was created, Disney World opened or even that the voting age was being lowered to 18? No, it didn't involve horses, swimming, or work.

Just for the fun of it I looked up a time line for the 70's to see what I might have missed. While I was in my own little world of being a kid always outside doing something such as: horseback riding, swimming in the summer, snowmobiling in the winter (only because my friends downtown would let me ride with them), ice skating or helping with the garden and haying I discovered that I missed a lot of stuff. At the time in my cowboy boots and blue jeans, racing up the field on horseback, with the wind blowing through my hair to see who was going to get to the top of the hill first I had no idea that in the big world around me there were such things going on as CAT scanning being introduced or Nike running shoes hitting the market or the 2nd building of the World Trade Center opening.

Thinking how would I find the time to watch the news as it was an assignment for school to write some report on the Last Apollo mission to the moon or Nixon releasing Watergate tapes and then on to him resigning. My parents were more concerned with getting the garden planted, gathering the eggs, cleaning the barn most anything other than sitting down to watch the news and having conversation about what was going on in the big world. Some new people moved into the neighborhood, they were referred to as Hippies, free spirit people. Flower power, peace signs, and bell-bottom pants, not just bell-bottoms but also referred to as hiphuggers because they rode down low on the hip.The more patches they had the better the pants. Loved those patched bell-bottom pants, with my leather moccasin shoes, with no sole on the bottom. Not so good to wear in the rain, water soaks through the leather after awhile. Mother would say to me one of these days those pants will disappear. I would always make sure to hide them so that she couldn't find them. Oh yes, what about those platform shoes. The higher the platform the better.

In 1976, I graduated high school, yippee!! Bicentennial year, 200th birthday of the United States. Big celebrations with red, white and blue everywhere. The popularity of the CB radio going strong. A lot of people were on the air with breaker, breaker 19, 10-4 good buddy and all that jazz. My family and I being concerned with which town the parade or horse show would be in this weekend for the Bicentennial celebration. We never did have one of the CB radios. Little did I know that West Point Military Academy had started to accept women or that the Alaskan pipeline was being worked on and finished in 1977.

As we move through life in our own worlds, I think that we tend to lose sight a lot of the time on the big world around us. Some things effect us and some do not. History not one of my strong points nor one of interest really. Guess that is because of where I was as a child. No ones fault really just the way it is.