This morning, a Mustang zoomed up the street in front of me, glasspacks roaring. That car took me straight back to 1974 – my college days in Lubbock, Texas. There was a group of us that were best friends and sorority sisters. All of us were big city girls – Houston and Dallas – except one. She was from a tiny town north of Lubbock.
She had come to college with a little, dark green, box-shaped car. A Renault stick shift. We would pile into that car whenever we left campus, lurching all around town when she shifted gears. I’m sure it was a hand-me-down that her mother found appropriate for a group of coeds. Her mom, Betty Jo, always called us coeds, which we found hilarious. Eventually the little car just fell apart, reaching the point that whoever rode in the back seat had to hold the doors closed. Really. They couldn’t let go or the door would fly open.
So one weekend she tied the back doors together from the inside with a piece of rope and headed home to bring back her new car. And she was so proud. It was a Malibu or a Grand Prix. Something much cooler than a Renault. All the doors stayed closed and everything!
Of course she wanted us to ride with her immediately, so we loaded up and headed out, just to experience her cool new car. When we took off from the first traffic light, the car just exploded! We all jumped and screamed. What on earth?!? She proudly explained that she had glasspacks and weren’t they the coolest thing ever?
No, no they weren’t. Not cool at all. We city girls knew that, and we just couldn’t stop laughing. We were horrified, begging her to make it stop. She couldn’t believe we didn’t understand that a roaring car – it was the muffler, by the way, just in case you didn’t know either – was the envy of all the in-crowd in her little town. Gosh…
Just remembering those glasspacks make me wonder what else we did back then that was embarrassing but we were too clueless at the time to know any better. Trust me, there was plenty.
Flashing Back
Now I went to college in the seventies. It was not a pretty time. But through my nostalgic eyes, we were way cool. In fact, we were so cool that in recent years my eighth grade students started coming to school dressed like us. And it wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t Seventies Week or Nerd Week or anything insulting. It was for real. I tried not to smile too big as I told them I used to have a pair of those wedges! I was proud to show them pictures of my long – almost to my waist – straight hair. Of course, they were more amazed that I was ever young, but that is the way a fourteen year old’s brain works.
Hot Pants
I will admit there was plenty of un-cool in our college days. Hot pants with go-go boots? Oh my. These were for real and immortalized in our college yearbooks. Think short-shorts with panty hose and knee-high boots.
Very wholesome, right? Not the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, for heaven’s sake. Auuugh.
Bell Bottoms and Hip Huggers
Now no one can claim that bell bottoms and hip huggers weren’t cool. And if our jeans were both! OMGosh!
These were our go-tos. We wore them constantly. The low riders were the best. They hung from our hips, our belly buttons were exposed, and those bells flapped when we walked to class. If hems got frayed from slapping the ground, we were extra-cool. Holes got patched. When they shrunk so much that we couldn’t wear them with these anymore…
we pulled them down even lower and wore flat, between-the-toes Bandolino sandals. They were perfectly flat, offered no support, but were totally cool. When they wore out, we would head back to Foley’s for a new pair.
Farrah
If you are too young to remember, this was Farrah Fawcett.
And that was her hair. It was the equivalent of the Rachel cut from the 90s. All the guys wanted Farrah. All the girls wanted her hair. Luckily, mine was long, blonde, and thick. Unfortunately, it would not hold a curl. It looked great when the hot rollers came out. Not so great in the hot wind of the Texas panhandle. Farrah was famous for throwing her hair around. We did a lot of that, too. Oh dear. What we must have looked like…
I really felt sorry, though, for my friends with curly hair. Just to get theirs straight, they gathered orange juice cans, emptied them, and cut out the bottoms. They rolled their wet hair onto these cans and bobby-pinned them in place. When their hair was dry, it was smooth and silky and straight. Until then, they looked like this.
Changing Times
Even the music we danced to needed a do-over. It was called soft rock. Bread? The Carpenters? The Spinners? You would have to google them to remember their biggest hits. Let’s just say we did a lot of slow dancing.
- Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree
- Baby I’m-a Want You
- Could It Be I’m Falling in Love
- Sing
- Bridge Over Troubled Water
- Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
It was so bad, we started listening to old rock and roll. We danced to Chuck Berry, and Elvis was King again. We all stayed home to watch him make his comeback. In a white jump suit. With those sideburns. Elvis – Aloha from Hawaii!
But it was his old stuff that we loved. Jailhouse Rock and Blue Suede Shoes. It was a little hard to dance to In the Ghetto or Polk Salad Annie. Even Elvis wasn’t his coolest in the 70s.
But y’all, we tried. Yes, our dates wore plaid pants (see Elton, above), turtle necks, and saddle oxfords – they had made a comeback, too. We dressed up for football games and pledged sororities. And, um, we voted for Nixon. In 1972, eighteen year olds could vote and legally order a beer with our pizza. We had missed Vietnam and protest marches. We were stylish flower children – we wore peasant blouses with our hip huggers.
I remember adults telling us that we would look back on our college years as ‘the best days of our lives’. I don’t know that I would go that far. But we did grow up. And we had four unforgettable years. Even when we really weren’t cool.
My Sweet Blue Home 