More seventies memories

This is from a live journal entry from ten years ago after a trip we made to Long Island. 


When we went to Long Island we stopped in Valley Stream for a couple of minutes to see the old apartment we lived in before moving to Islip in 1972. The building hadn't changed much. What can you do to brick? Air conditioning had been added, the awning changed, little else. 

We drove past the first school I attended, Alden Terrace Elementary. Perceptions and distance changes over time. I hadn't been there in years and it seemed so much smaller. The baseball fields I played little league on were tinier than I remembered. the walking distance from one side of the field to the school was so much shorter.

Missing were the garages. They had ben torn down. We used to sit on the roof and watch the games, or traffic. We weren't allowed up there. I saw my parents drive by, looking for us. I jumped off, slipped and landed head first on the ground. A few more stitches for me.

In the alley leading to the school was where the ice cream trucks would wage war. There was lovable old Gus, who used to let us ring the bells on the truck, against any young newcomer driving a Good Humor truck. The poor newbie didn't know what hit him when he stole Gus' spot on little league night. Gus blocked him in the alley so he couldn't get out to continue his route.

We lived in the landing pattern of Kennedy Airport then. They came in so low, you could read the writing on the sides of the planes clearly. Later, in high school, a couple of us were planespotters. Then though, the new thing was the 747. No plane had sounded like than when flying by. A few years later though, when the Concorde was controversial - to me, it had nothing on the noise the 747 produced. The Concorde did have a higher pitch, but the bass notes belonged to Boeing.

When we went to Coney Island, I thought of the power of radio and the hundreds of thousands sunning themselves, with their transistor radios tuned to WABC. Morrow, or Lundy, or Harrison would tell them to flip over to even their tans,and lines of people on the sad would do so. that was influence people.

In the apartment, listening to the radio was where the musical education started. The hits of the time of the early 70's. then the consultants came in and ruined it all. It must have been in '74 or '75 when it all seemed to change for me, in many other ways than musically. For three years I didn't listen to much of anything, other than Bob Murphy and losing Mets games. It was all disco out there, and Donald Grant tearing apart the Mets, for these ears until birthday number thirteen. 

I had birthday money and was going to buy either a bowling ball or a record album.

The Beatles '67-'70 won.