It’s incredible to see how much has changed (and the things that somehow remain the same).
Here’s what they had to say:
1.
“Two cars in the driveway.”

“Meat with dinner every night.”
“A color TV.
A 27” color TV.

Which is larger than the pull-down-screen the grade school movies of my youth were projected on.
The magic ofThe Jetsonscame to life, siiiiigh."
“An extra living room for guests.”

“A dishwasher.”
“Children with braces to straighten their teeth.”
“Having a perfect lawn and a lawn service to mow for you.

Lawn services were not nearly as common as they are today.”
“In the ’70s, if your house had a tennis court, you weremoney.”
“Air conditioning.”

“An in-ground pool and an intercom system in your house.
“Going on vacation to somewhere other than visiting relatives; traveling by airplane.”
“The poor folk all had unpaved, straight, short driveways.

The rich folk had circular driveways.
“In my neighborhood, two bathrooms.
They always had their curtains open so everyone could see right in their house.”

“Each of the kids had their own bedroom.”
“Having extracurriculars, like ballet lessons.
Most of us just had to hang out not at home.”

“Our rich neighbors had their basement finished in 1970s glory.
And one of the very first VCRs (cost around $2K).”
An awful lot of very affluent people drove fairly nondescript cars, particularly old money.

Anyone with all three stickers for sure was upper middle class.”
“The rich family on our block of middle-class families would give out full-size candy bars at Halloween.”
“I grew up in a working-class neighborhood.

Went to a classmates house after school one day (1970), and what a revelation.
A housekeeper greeted us at the door with, ‘Hi Miss Amy, whos your friend?
Will she stay for dinner?’

and took my friends coat.
Her house was huge (they had 10 children, both parents were professionals).
Her yard was vastly deep.

But I was most impressed with the 5-gallon jug of milk in their enormous refrigerator with its own spigot.
In her defense, paper towels were not yet a thing.
Most people used cloth kitchen towels that some people called tea towels.

But we had a good laugh at that.”
“Having your own phone line.
We had a party line where four families were on one phone line.

All the other houses around us were made of timber.”
26.And finally, “I remember when my neighbors got MTV.
I went over there and watched it for hours.

We never had any sort of cable anything.”









