Baby Boomer Chronicles: Life in 1971 According to Gray Hair Dave
Join Dave in this episode of "Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave" as he takes a trip down memory lane to 1971 when he graduated from junior high school. Listen as he reminisces about the transition from junior high to high school and shares his experiences of moving from class to class in a more organized school setting. Tune in for a nostalgic look at the past through Dave's gray-haired perspective.
Transcript
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to five minutes with gray hair
Speaker:Dave. My name is Dave. I've got gray hair. Yeah,
Speaker:I've got a gray beard. And yes, I wear glasses. Now
Speaker:let's talk about a little bit more of
Speaker:an organized show. I
Speaker:want to start out with a year
Speaker:and I'm going to go with the date that the
Speaker:date that we're working on right now, which today for me
Speaker:is March 11th, 2024. Now I thought it would be fun to start with 1971. So 1971 was the year
Speaker:that I graduated from junior high school. and
Speaker:we i don't i don't remember ever
Speaker:doing a graduation ceremony from junior high school i
Speaker:don't know if they do that from middle school now or but
Speaker:anyways it was just okay you're done with eighth grade and
Speaker:now you're gonna move on to ninth so
Speaker:you just went from junior high school to high school the next year I
Speaker:don't remember, really, doesn't mean it didn't
Speaker:happen. I don't remember going over to high school
Speaker:to take a tour or anything, but
Speaker:we might have. I somehow doubt that, but I do believe that
Speaker:there were some folks from high school, some kids from high school who
Speaker:came over for a day or two and talked to the
Speaker:eighth graders on how things worked and
Speaker:how the differences of what things were. And
Speaker:we were already moving from class to class once
Speaker:an hour, right? Because, you
Speaker:know, in elementary school, everybody stays in the same room for the
Speaker:whole day. Well, in middle school
Speaker:or junior high school, you don't. You have English
Speaker:in one room, math in another room. You have, you know, gym
Speaker:in the gym, at the gym you have. I had woodshop,
Speaker:you know, down in the woodshop. English,
Speaker:all those fun things. So when I went to high school, it wasn't that
Speaker:much different, but I was still realistically in
Speaker:eighth grade on March 11th, 2071. I
Speaker:believe. Yeah. I graduated high
Speaker:school in 75. So yeah. Anyways. So high
Speaker:school, I mean, junior high school walked every day. I'd
Speaker:occasionally ride my bicycle. but
Speaker:I walked with my friends in the neighborhood. Now,
Speaker:I did take band in the eighth grade and
Speaker:didn't study much with it. Never pursued it, never really
Speaker:gave it what it deserved, so I can't play music today. And
Speaker:that's okay in my mind. That's water under
Speaker:the bridge. That's all time passed. And do I
Speaker:regret it? No, not really. I
Speaker:took guitar lessons later on in life. I regret not
Speaker:keeping those up, but that would have just been for the fun of
Speaker:it. I never wanted to be a musician. I
Speaker:wanted to be the guy introducing the musicians. I wanted to be the guy on stage
Speaker:who was the emcee or was the disc jockey or things like that. But
Speaker:I don't really remember ever wanting to be a musician. You
Speaker:know, during those days, it was, you know, it's
Speaker:still kind of cool out in Michigan, you
Speaker:know, and so you're wearing coats to school. I remember it
Speaker:was, it was, we had a
Speaker:three-story junior high school. And
Speaker:it was, and there was actually an elevator. And
Speaker:I remember as an eighth grader telling the sixth
Speaker:graders when they came in that you had to buy an
Speaker:elevator pass. We
Speaker:didn't charge them much, but we all made a few bucks over the year.
Speaker:Oh, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. But
Speaker:that's what you do to the younger generations as they're coming
Speaker:in. It just is. I'm sorry, folks, but
Speaker:life goes on. I hope
Speaker:things have changed on that scope of
Speaker:things. There
Speaker:were two or three classes in junior high
Speaker:school that I really enjoyed. One was woodshop, of
Speaker:course. Another one was I
Speaker:took a drafting class, and I
Speaker:really, really enjoyed that. The
Speaker:drawing part of it, the mechanical part of it,
Speaker:and I was starting to understand a lot more about it, and I wish
Speaker:I had pursued it more, because I believe
Speaker:that that would have been an interesting course
Speaker:for my life if I had tried that. Now, that being said,
Speaker:I don't know that I would have if
Speaker:I had continued on, but I don't know. I don't remember in
Speaker:high school if that was a course that
Speaker:was available to me. It might have been, but I honestly don't remember.
Speaker:But that class I enjoyed. I
Speaker:enjoyed the whole time. That was one of the better
Speaker:grades I'd gotten, the shop classes, that kind of class. There
Speaker:was a computer class, a data processing class in
Speaker:high school that I took with Mr. V. And
Speaker:that one was one of my favorite classes. I liked them and they held
Speaker:my interest. I did well. I
Speaker:would do okay on the English and the math and the history. I
Speaker:did a little better in civics than I did in,
Speaker:which we now would call poli-sci or political science, because
Speaker:I always enjoyed that. but
Speaker:we didn't really have that in junior high school, but we had, you
Speaker:know, the sciences that we had, I was okay with
Speaker:it. I was lucky in high school, and
Speaker:I know we're not talking about high school, but I did not have to take biology. I
Speaker:only, I got away, not got away with, but the
Speaker:only requirement we had was we had to take one, and I took earth
Speaker:science, which I found to be very, very interesting. I
Speaker:really, really did, and it was, A class we'll talk more
Speaker:about as time goes on. But now has come
Speaker:to the time that I want to talk about how
Speaker:much things were back in 1971 on this day. The average household income
Speaker:was $9,876. It was. I mean, cars. The Ford Pinto. The
Speaker:Ford Pinto was $2,385. The Chevrolet Nova was $3,099. The
Speaker:Buick Skylark was $3,463. The Volkswagen Beetle, are you ready for this? The Volkswagen
Speaker:Beetle, it was a German import, was $1,899. You could buy, back
Speaker:on March 11th, 1971. You're not gonna believe this one. You
Speaker:could buy a Porsche 924 for $11,995. You can't do that now. You just, you can't. Oh
Speaker:my gosh, it's funny. Um, McDonald's hamburgers
Speaker:on this day in 1971 were
Speaker:20 cents a piece, 20 cents.
Speaker:Postage stamps were six cents. Um,
Speaker:uh, TVs, which
Speaker:weren't very big, the largest you could get back in those days,
Speaker:the largest was a 25 inch. And
Speaker:we're looking at now what? 60, 80, 100 inch TVs,
Speaker:a 25 inch color TV in colonial
Speaker:style, wood finished cabinet, $699.95. And
Speaker:that was from Sears. Believe
Speaker:that? Oh my God, this is
Speaker:funny. Oh
Speaker:my goodness, this is funny. So
Speaker:let's go to music. Today,
Speaker:well, let's put it this way. From
Speaker:March 27th through, February
Speaker:27th, I'm sorry, through March 6th, actually
Speaker:March 13th, These are the top, the
Speaker:number one songs. The
Speaker:week of February 27th, One
Speaker:Bad Apple by the Osmond Brothers. March
Speaker:6th that week was Mama's Pearl by the Jackson Five.
Speaker:March 13th was One Bad Apple Again
Speaker:by the Osmonds. It's
Speaker:funny, isn't it? The
Speaker:number one song for the year was
Speaker:Joy to the World by Three Dog Night. Amazing!
Speaker:I remember all these songs. I
Speaker:do. Back then, you collected albums. You didn't collect DVDs.
Speaker:nothing on there was no such thing or wasn't even thought of
Speaker:for cell phone jet so um
Speaker:it's fun i tell you and see um okay
Speaker:so a gallon of milk in 1971 went
Speaker:for a dollar and i remember we only bought half gallons
Speaker:and they were not in plastic jugs they were in that
Speaker:wax coated paper so Anyways,
Speaker:folks, this is more about what
Speaker:I'm thinking for the podcast. I hope it's something that
Speaker:you like, but I want to bring back the things that happened
Speaker:as a baby boomer when we were growing up. Baby boomers
Speaker:are my primary avatar, my primary audience here.
Speaker:If you're not a baby boomer and you're listening, I think it's great. Thank you.
Speaker:So here's my call to action, folks. Tell your friends about
Speaker:me. Let people know you listened to Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.
Speaker:Yes, it takes 10 or 11 minutes for
Speaker:him to get everything out that he wants to talk about today, but it's daily. If
Speaker:your friends don't know what a podcast is or how to use
Speaker:one or how to download one, please show them. Take
Speaker:them to my website, fiveminuteswithgrayhairdave. That's the
Speaker:number five, minuteswithgrayhairdave.com. There's
Speaker:all kinds of interesting things there. There's some pictures, there's some merchandise that
Speaker:I've purchased for myself. If you were interested in something like that, let
Speaker:me know. I can get it and send it to you. Leave
Speaker:me a message, leave me a voicemail. You can leave me a voicemail on every page.
Speaker:It's that little red microphone on the bottom right-hand corner, or just go
Speaker:to the comment page, send me
Speaker:an email. Well, that's all I got for today, folks. I'm gonna
Speaker:say, Bye-bye, and I'll talk to you
Speaker:again tomorrow, and we'll see what else was happening in
