Have A Nice Day! There Was A Lot Going On In That Decade After The ‘60s - We Late Boomers Should Be Proud To Call The ‘70s Our Own

I had a pet rock AND a mood ring.

I used my curling iron every morning. My favorite shirt was polyester, bright blue, bright green and bright yellow - cat heads. The points of the collar touched my shoulders.

We went and saw “Saturday Night Fever” the first week it came out, and then we stormed downtown and bought the soundtrack. And then we went back and bought the Hustle kit, the one with the foot cutouts, and we taught ourselves to dance like John Travolta.

My first slow dance was in the seventh grade. “Dream Weaver.” Followed by “Feelings.”

That’s right. I admit it. My formative years were the ‘70s.

And I’m not going to apologize for it anymore.

All these baby boomers yammering on and on about turning 50. Yeah, yeah. Technically, people my age (born in 1963) are boomers, although what I have in common with someone who thinks Haight-Ashbury was a life-altering experience, I don’t know.

I was into the Bee Gees. Actually, Andy was my favorite Gibb brother, although he died tragically, killed by the excesses of the ‘80s.

Growing up in the ‘70s is like being the middle child. We are looked down upon by the ‘60s hipsters, because we missed out on all the cool stuff like Woodstock and protesting Vietnam.

We are sneered at by those who came later, for what we wore and what we listened to.

Yeah, well, I lived it. And I’m here to stand up and say, Seventies kids, unite! Be proud of those Bobby Sherman and Farrah Fawcett posters, disco and the yellow smiley face button. You have nothing to be ashamed of.

Remember this: We had “The Godfather” (Marlon Brando before he became a fat ‘80s pig); we had John Travolta FIRST; we had “Jaws,” which changed how the world looked at the ocean (I didn’t go back in until 1987); we had “Fear of Flying,” (which we didn’t read until the ‘80s, but our mothers had it on their nightstands).

We had “Saturday Night Live” when it was funny.

We had the oil embargo and waiting in line for gas (odd days, even days), Bicentennial Minutes, Watergate, the Loud family on PBS and the real Bruce Springsteen.

We had Donna Summer, the original pop diva.

Be proud of it. Love’s Baby Soft perfume and Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific shampoo shoved in your gym locker, next to that one-piece gym suit that zipped up the front. Lip gloss falling out of every pocket. “The Brady Bunch” followed by “The Partridge Family” on Friday nights, and then you’d wake up Saturday morning for “Scooby Doo” followed by “Land of the Lost.”

We were the first couch potatoes.

We had Bufford T. Pusser and Billy Jack and Charles Bronson and Travis Bickle. The ‘70s gave birth to Dirty Harry, Rocky, Luke Skywalker and R2D2.

We had Archie Bunker, Chico and The Man, Fred Sanford, Fonzie, Starsky and Hutch, Carlton the Doorman, Horshack, and we watched them all from our bean bag chairs.

We had “The Gong Show.”

We ate a ton of macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper. Chicken wasn’t a health food. We ate eggs. McDonald’s was a treat, and you had to go inside to order.

We clumped around in Frye boots, Doctor Scholl’s and clogs, then teetered around in 4-inch Candies, all the while encased in jeans with Gloria Vanderbilt’s name on our butts. We wore cowl necks that hung to our knees, and polyester “dress pants” that never lost their crease. We begged our mothers to buy us boys’ Levi’s.

It made us what we are today. It was as meaningful and important a time as the aging hippies have you believe the ‘60s were, and as the 20-somethings will come to realize the ‘80s were (with typical ‘70s niceness, we liked both those decades - we loved “The Big Chill,” and U2).

So when you come across one of those ‘70s denigrators, give ‘em our secret password, and continue on:

Have a nice day.