American Life 51 Years Ago: A Snapshot
Weary of politics? Worn down by rampant inflation? Worried about how you’ll afford your next dozen eggs?
How about something completely different today? A mental palate cleanser. We’ll be back to the grind tomorrow.
As I began cleaning out the spare room recently I found a fraying Froot Loops box. Inside was some old, not-very-valuable china. But it’s what protected that china that caught my attention.
Yellowed, brittle pages of The Washington Post.
Most of the paper was from February 4, 1972. Some, inexplicably, was from December 24, 1979.
Unsurprisingly, the ’72 news was full of Vietnam and Nixon.
But it was the advertisements and the stock market charts that offered a telling snapshot of life in the nation’s capital more than a half century ago.
You think the stock market is down now? (It plummeted 613 points yesterday to 33,296.) How about February 4, 1972 when the market dipped 2.70 points, closing at 903.15 over concerns about the “future of the dollar”?
There was good news in the real estate market: “professional men” interested in finding a tax shelter or inflation hedge could purchase beachfront homes in Bethany Beach, DE for $27,500. Beach lots were going for $7,995.
Oh, and VW Beetles were selling for under $2,000. (When I bought mine in 2004 it was close to $20,000.)
Apparently Christmas 1979 was the golden age of cinema. Movies showing in Northern Virginia included “Apocalypse Now”, “Kramer Versus Kramer”, “Animal House” , “North Dallas Forty,” “Blazing Saddles” and “The Electric Horseman.”
When was the last time you wanted to go to the movies and there were SIX decent films offered at once? Oh, and 44 years ago movie theaters offered something called a “good neighbor special”: Tickets for $1.75.
Houses in the Northern Virginia suburb of Woodbridge were selling in the “low $50,000s.” According to Realtor.com, the median listing home price today in that sprawling community is $436K, trending up about 17.6% year-over-year.
Last time I had to buy a tire for my car I spent more than 100 bucks. In 1979 you could get “radial blems” for as low as $27.79. Of course, according to the census bureau, the median family income in 1972 was just over $11,000. So there’s that.
You know what wasn’t a great deal in the 1970s? Color televisions. A 23-inch Zenith would set you back a whopping $429 and had the resolution of Jell-O. Today, for $70 more, Best Buy will sell you a 65-inch Samsung smart TV.
One of my favorite finds was a tongue-in-cheek story by acclaimed Post sportswriter and columnist, the late Kenneth Denlinger, on the big news that ABC was adding its first female sports director, 29-year-old Carol Lehti.
She was described as “another pretty face.”
“She is the first woman associate director for sports in television. Yes, they now trust a woman to see that the pro basketball game of the week gets on and off the air on time, that the 18 allotted commercials are seen during the game, that the highlights are gleaned for the taped portion of the post-game show.”
Incidentally, Lehti went on to win 16 Emmys, covered multiple Olympics including the 1972 Munich games and the horrific terrorist attacks, she hosted Wide World of Sports, Monday Night Football and the Indy 500.
Pawing through old newspapers is a great way to spend an afternoon. And it got me thinking. With newspaper circulation in the toilet - The Pew Research Center reports that in 1972 daily newspaper circulation stood at more than 62 million. Today, it’s just 24 million and that includes digital subscriptions - what are folks using to wrap their glassware and china?
