Being fifteen in 1973, Minneapolis, Minnesota


When I first started writing in this blog, my intention was to explore history before I was born, and that's what I usually do here. But as the years have gone by I've found that my own life seems to cover the type of history that many people don't know about, so today we're going back to 1973, when I was fifteen years old.

I was watching a video this morning of a comedian talking about how much his son knew at 15, which was everything. And, as someone who is no longer fifteen, I know that that level of confidence peaks at 18, and then tends to fall off quickly, as you find out that the world is a much more complicated place than you ever imagined.

I grew up with three brothers, and we were all monkey boys. My dad hung ropes, and swings, and just about anything that a group of orangutans would want, in the backyard. At fifteen I had just started on the gymnastics team, which my brother got me on, even though I was still a year away from high school. I guess they weren't that strict in those days. What I'm doing there, by the way, is called an "L-lever" which seemed impressive to grownups, but was actually very easy for me. All you really need is very skinny legs, which I had.

In the background of my early teen years was the Vietnam War, which had been going on for a very long time, and unlike previous wars that the United States was been involved in, was mostly seen as unpopular. People were protesting against it, and some people were burning their draft cards. It worked like this: there was a lottery to see if you would be drafted, and you were given a number when you registered for the draft. The war ended in 1975, while I was still too young to be drafted, and at the time both the draft and registration for the draft ended. Actually, registration was quietly reinstated, but for young men my age, it didn't exist. I'm not sure when it returned, but not long afterwards I'm sure as most people don't even know that it was ever suspended.

At fifteen I was already making arrangements to get out of Minneapolis. Unlike most of my friends, I hated the snow and cold (although the summers are pleasant!). My friends played hockey, and were happy living in an ice world, but I dreamed of places that were warm all of the time. I had never seen them, except in movies, but I know that they existed.

I didn't have a car in high school, but I bought one when I turned eighteen, and the following year I packed up the most important stuff I could think of, like a tennis racquet, a small set of golf clubs, and a drawing board, and moved to Phoenix. My confidence will still very high, and even though I've learned a lot since then, it remains that way.
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please consider subscribing to History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more