An old guy rant in 1977 Phoenix, Arizona


Let's time-travel back to 1977, and be an old guy doing a rant. 1977 is the year I moved here, at age 19, and to me it's "back in the day", but it's all relative to when someone was born. In this story I'm going to imagine that I'm an old guy living in Phoenix in 1977, and I see this punk kid from Minneapolis. Whipper-snapper!

Let's see, I gotta do the math, so if this guy were 60 in 1977, he would have been born in 1917, would have been a kid in the 1920s and '30s, and graduated high school in 1933. I'd like to believe that he marveled at how much the city had grown, and the modern marvels, but chances are better that he'd dislike the changes, and go off on rants. Let's listen to him:

"Dang! What was that? One of them-thar foreign sports cars! Just a bunch of darn foolishness if you ask me. These young people zipping around in their little cars, there oughta be a law! Not sure what that was, but those darned things have been infesting the city since after the war. Noisy darned little things! I believe I'll get in my Cadillac and go crush that little ant!"

My car, by the way, was a 1965 MG Midget, which had started to gain popularity after World War II, and continued in production until 1978. They were made in England, and the American GIs saw them there, and started imported them home after the war.

1930 MG Midget Sports Car

"I wouldn't be surprised if that young fool was from Minnesota. So many of those people moving into Phoenix, crowding it up, driving up prices. I saw that the price of gas was nearly forty cents a gallon. Where will it all end? It's not like it was back when I was a kid!"

I really don't remember the price of gas in 1977, but since the MG required premium gas, I know that it was over 30 cents a gallon, probably closer to 40 cents in 1977.

"Dang fool! Where's the top of his car? Won't he be surprised in the summer! I don't expect that car even has air conditioning, so he probably won't be driving it in the summer. Darned young fool, he probably will. If I see it parked in my favorite parking spot, I'll run right over it, that's what I'll do. That'll learn him a thing or two!"

OK, that's enough ranting for now. Nothing like good old-fashioned old guy rant to make me feel better, even if it's just in my imagination. Thanks for ranting along with me!

Image at the top of this post: My MG Midget on Camelback Mountain in 1977. You're on Wonderview Road, looking south.
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