What else was going on forty
years ago?
·
The United States and the People’s Republic of
China establish full diplomatic relations.
·
The State of Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to
families of the dead and injured in the Kent State shootings.
·
The People’s Army of Vietnam and
Vietnamese-backed Cambodian insurgents announce the fall of Phnom Penh,
Cambodia, and the collapse of the Pol Pot regime.
·
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi flees Iran with his
family, relocating to Egypt after a year of turmoil.
·
The Pittsburgh Steelers stake their claim as the
NFL team of the 1970s by beating the Dallas Cowboys 35-31 at Miami’s Orange
Bowl in Super Bowl XIII.
·
Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San
Diego): Brenda Ann Spencer opens fire at a school in San Diego, California,
killing two faculty members and wounding eight students and a police officer.
Her justification for the action, "I don't like Mondays", inspires
the Boomtown Rats to make a song of the same name.
·
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran,
Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.
·
Ayatollah Khomeini creates the Council of the
Islamic Revolution.
·
Iranian Revolution: Supporters of Ayatollah
Khomeini take over the Iranian law enforcement, courts and government
administration; the final session of the Iranian National Consultative Assembly
is held.
·
Iranian Revolution: The Iranian army withdraws
to its barracks leaving power in the hands of Ayatollah Khomeini, ending the
Pahlavi dynasty.
·
‘This Old House’ premieres on PBS.
·
Philips publicly demonstrates a prototype of an
optical digital audio disc at a press conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
·
The first fully functional Space Shuttle
orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the Kennedy Space Center, to be prepared for
its first launch.
·
In a ceremony at the White House, President
Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel sign an
Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty.
·
America’s most serious nuclear power plant
accident occurs, at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania.
·
Iran’s government becomes an Islamic Republic by
a 98% vote, overthrowing the Shah officially.
·
A Soviet bio-warfare laboratory at Sverdlovsk
accidentally releases airborne anthrax spores, killing 66 plus an unknown
amount of livestock. It is a violation of the Biological Weapons Convention of
1972.
·
Margaret Thatcher becomes the UK’s first female
prime minister
·
The Salvadoran Civil War begins.
·
Dan White receives a light sentence for killing
San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Gay men in the
city riot.
·
American Airlines Flight 191: In Chicago, a
DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport, killing all 271
on board and 2 people on the ground in the deadliest aviation accident in U.S.
history.
·
McDonald's introduces the ‘Happy Meal’.
·
Los Angeles’ city council passes the city’s
first homosexual rights bill signed without fanfare by mayor Thomas Bradley.
·
The first direct elections to the European
Parliament begin, allowing citizens from across all then-9 European Community
member states to elect 410 MEPs. It is also the first international election in
history.
·
Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT
II agreement in Vienna.
·
The Sony Walkman goes on sale for the first time
in Japan.
·
NASA’s first orbiting space station Skylab
begins its return to Earth, after being in orbit for 6 years and 2 months.
·
The Sandinista National Liberation Front
concludes a successful revolutionary campaign against the Somoza dynasty and
assumes power in Nicaragua.
·
The Disco music genre dominates and peaks on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart, with the first six spots (beginning with Donna Summer’s
Bad Girls), and seven of the chart’s top ten songs ending that week.
·
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein arranges the
arrest and later execution of nearly seventy members of his ruling Ba’ath
Party.
·
Michael Jackson releases his breakthrough album
‘Off the Wall’. It sells 7 million copies in the United States alone, making it
a 7× platinum album.
·
The controversial religious satirical film Monty
Python’s “Life of Brian”, premieres in the United States.
·
The first cable sports channel, ESPN, known as
the Entertainment Sports Programming Network, is launched.
·
Federal Reserve System changes from an interest
rate target policy to a money supply target policy.
·
National March for gay rights takes place in
Washington, D.C., involving tens of thousands of people.
·
Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urges his
people to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand attacks on United States and
Israeli interests.
·
In Greensboro, North Carolina, five members of
the Communist Workers Party are shot to death and seven are wounded by a group
of Klansmen and neo-Nazis, during a "Death to the Klan" rally.
·
500 Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade
the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages (53 of whom are American). They
demand that the United States send the former Shah of Iran back to stand trial.
·
The radio news program ‘Morning Edition’
premieres on National Public Radio in the United States.
·
The NORAD computers and the Alternate National
Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland, detect an apparent massive
Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and
checking the early-warning radars, the alert is cancelled.
·
In response to the hostage situation in Tehran,
U.S. President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United
States from Iran.
·
U.S. President Jimmy Carter issues Executive
Order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States and U.S. banks in
response to the hostage crisis.
·
Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini orders the
release of 13 female and African American hostages being held at the U.S.
Embassy in Tehran.
·
‘The Wall’, a rock opera and concept album by
Pink Floyd, is first released.
·
Eleven fans are killed during a crowd crush for
unreserved seats before The Who rock concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in
Cincinnati.
·
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first
Supreme Leader of Iran.
·
The world premiere of ‘Star Trek: The Motion
Picture’ is held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
·
The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.
·
The One-child policy is introduced in China – it
contributes to Missing women of China. It was loosened in 2013.
·
VisiCalc becomes the first commercial
spreadsheet program.
·
Chrysler receives government loan guarantees
upon the request of CEO Lee Iacocca.
This day was the end of the
seventies and an end of a marriage and a big move.
It was a busy day as I recall.
The real estate broker took me to a lawyer’s office to sign a stack of papers
from the city and the banks signing off one house and signing onto another
house. Didn’t read any fine print but just wrote my name. It was fairly an
emotional day but I wasn’t thinking logically.
When you sign over your house to
another person it is like handing the keys of your car to someone else. If you
leave your golf clubs in the trunk, they are now the new car owner’s golf
clubs.
Well my first wife hadn’t found
a spot yet and our arrangement was to divide the furniture and I was moving
that day. I had a gentleman’s agreement with the new owner to store her
furniture in the basement, but that required another trip to a lawyer to sign
some more papers releasing responsibility for my wife’s stuff.
After the hand cramps from all
the autographs going back to the old house when there was a moving van loaded
with all the new owner’s stuff. Yikes!
I had thought about taking the
rest of the day to leisurely drag my stuff out before leaving the rooms vacant,
but suddenly I was on a emergency deadline!!
Luckily my friends who
volunteered to help me move (bless them) took all this calamity in vain.
Had to rent a truck to move my
junk. Do you know how hard it is to rent a truck when you don’t have a driver’s
license? Somehow we juggled the legal requirements and filled the truck with
boxes of records, books, book cases, plates, clothing, guitars and amplifiers,
etc.
Good-bye old house.
Backing the truck up on the
lawn, breaking the sidewalk and getting attention of the neighbors, the ramp went
to the porch and within an hour all the stuff was piled inside the empty rooms
(except for one leftover beer stein). I think I had a case of beer to repay
them for their efforts on a clear Friday and knew I was endeared to helping
them move several times as payback.
It took time to make a house a
home, but it was shelter with more than enough room for one person.
Just four blocks from where I
grew up, the neighborhood hadn’t changed much. Still within walking distance to
shopping districts and restaurants and very bike friendly was the draw to move
back. Also it is quiet and safe at night.
Employment was easy to reach by
a block away public transport or even close enough to walk to. Luckily the
career stayed downtown so I never had to move.
Over the years I saw trees cut
down for three story houses to replace them, ice cream trucks, antique fire
engines, fireworks, car crashes, wild lawn parties, screaming children,
domestic disputes, robberies, deer, raccoons, possums, flying squirrels, hawks,
owls, bats and rats, and neighbors coming and going.
The neighborhood was fairly
middle class for young married until they had children and moved to the county
but then people started renovating and expanding their homes and the prices
soared.
To see what the interior looked
like back in the day:
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Then the lawn changed into a
forest and a garden and a sanctuary.
Would I sell? Though the
assessment is 5X what I paid for the lot, it is only a good investment with
still plenty of room and the biggest chores are washing the dishes and picking
up leaves.
The house is somewhat stable
through hurricanes and winter snows, the heat works, the water works, the
refrigerator and stove work, the washer/dryer work and best of all the studio
will keep me alive through the hottest July and the coldest February. So much
can be ordered online and delivered that transportation can be spinning outside
in the fresh air for exercise.
Plus travel doesn’t need to take
place due to social media. When the electricity dies (but quickly comes back
due to our position on the grid) there is still a rocker on the porch to watch
my shade tree grow.
Got’ta live somewhere, so until
mobility become difficult or the property taxes become impossible, I’ll stay
put. When and if I ever move out (either vertical or horizontal) someone will
tear this place down, cut down all the trees, scare off all the critters, and
return the spot to match the rest of the neighborhood.
Home Sweet Home for 40 years.
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