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The prom
committee selected Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night” to be the
theme for our Senior Prom. School administration nixed the idea
because the title was too provocative. “Do You Know” by
Diana Ross was eventually chosen and “Free Bird” by Lynyrd
Skynyrd was our unspoken anthem.
One
month before graduation, Star Wars opened in May 1977; however,
Best Picture went to Woody Allen for “Annie Hall”. “Laverne &
Shirley” was the most popular TV show.
We
endured “You light up my life” by Debbie Boone, grooved to
Fleetwood Mac’s “Go your own way”, and the Grammy for Record of
the Year went to the Eagle’s for “Hotel California”.
Alex
Haley brought his African-American genealogy to TV with almost
half of the U.S. population watching the mini-series “Roots”.
Disco
was center stage and featured in “Saturday Night Fever,” which
also propelled “Vinny Barbarino” to the big screen.
Peanut
farmer Jimmy Carter was early in his single-term presidency.
Due to
the questionable behavior of several previous classes, HHW
school administration would not authorize an official class trip
for our Senior Class. So… we scheduled our own unauthorized
Senior Weekend in Wildwood Crest, NJ. Youthful initiative
prevailed.
Gas was
only 64 cents a gallon and the minimum wage was $2.30.
Quakerbridge Mall celebrated its one year anniversary.
In early
June, several dozen classmates met at a dock along the coast of
NJ to be shuttled by boat to Island Beach State Park to
celebrate Senior Skip Day. The Coast Guard chased the group off
so the party (kegs and all) moved to a sandbar in the bay.
Again, youthful initiative prevailed, until the tide started to
rise that is. In the end, our classmates whose parents owned
boats managed to get everyone back safely.
The
Apple II computer was introduced by Steven Jobs and Steven
Wozniak.
Seat
belts were still an option in most cars and not yet required by
the government.
Two
months after graduation, Elvis died on August 16, 1977: he was
42 years old.
When we
left high school, no one had ever heard of a Sony Walkman, the
IBM-PC, MS-DOS, Compact Discs, or cell phones. The VCR was
recently invented, but very few families had one. 8-track audio
tapes were gradually being replaced by more compact cassettes.
On
October 20, 1977, the tour plane named “Free Bird” carrying
members from Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in rural Mississippi killing
several founding members of the band.
That’s
how things were 30 years ago…Do you remember? |
