makonnen

Guys, tell me about 1977.

I was 5 yo and my one and only memory was my dad taking my friend and I to see Star Wars. I remember my mind being blown from that movie.

I also know Smokey and the Bandit came out that year.

Carter (I think) was President.

Cold War was in full swing...

Is this the "Summer of Love?"

This looks like a good year.

8gv

Full time college.

Full time job.

Full time girlfriend.

That's all I remember!

Fish'nFool

And Grizzle Adams

Intrest rates on mortgages were 11%

xl883lo

Summer of love was 67 not 77. Disco was in full swing (Saturday Night Fever). Cars sucked because everything was downsized and they hadn't figured out emissions controls yet. Inflation was starting to get rolling but not double digits yet. I was having a great time because I was a sophomore in college but it general terms it kind of sucked.

Funchy

1977 was an awesome year. Port Adelaide beat Glenelg by 8 points in a great SANFL grand final

makonnen

Ok I was under the impression that Disco = Summer of Love??? But they're different? How does bell bottom pants fit into all of this?

11% interest rates? Who the hell is going to borrow money at that rate? I don't understand how an economy can run with such high interest rates as the 70's and early 80's. Imagine that now? I think the economy would stop.

Daddoi7

I had another year to go in my six year commitment in the Navy Reserve. That winter was freezing cold in north Florida. My dad tossed out the new soil insecticide I was putting in the pickup to use on our potato crop, he got something else. cost us $100,000 ($500,000 in today's dollars). That was added to the $100,000 he lost by changing salesman for our crop the year before in spite of me and everyone else telling him not to. Trying to pay that debt off at 10% interest rates was difficult for our 300 acre farm. Went bankrupt some years later. I am still living in the mobile home I bought to live in then. Bitter, me, naaa.

skibum

Freshman in high school. Curious girlfriend. Good times. Bullets dodged.

brobin

I was 26 living in Boston. After a horrible winter we had a major snowstorm on May 9th. That was it for me. On August 31st I packed up the car and moved to Beverly... Hills that is. (You know the rest of the song). Loved it there and stayed for 15 years before moving to Honolulu.

ed d

I was 8 living around Wash DC in some apartments . Had a rapist roaming the complex and the poor Vietnam vet above us flipped out and started shooting a gun in the middle of the night . Had this crazy neighbor from Morocco who dressed up like a women and tried to catch the rapist . Big afro's and the Car Wash sound track . Interesting times though as a kid you think it's normal .

novabasstoon

I think early 80’s they hit 18%. My father had the (mis)fortune of buying a house in 1981, but here is his logic. Interest rates and price are inversely proportional, so even though his rate was 17% the house price was super low. Over the next 10 years he refinanced 4 times, eventually into single digits.

His advice to me - you can always refinance into a lower interest rate, but you can never reduce your basis, in other words don’t overpay. I think about all those folks who bought at the height of housing market in 2007 and then crashed and burned a few years later, I think dad was right. Same thing is happening now.

Insider

some asshole was president that thought the answer to the energy crisis was "turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater"

the USA gave away the Panama Canal

double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates, and double digit inflation was all the rage......something that is almost economically impossible to "accomplish"

shit bag draft dodgers were pardoned

the first US bailout of the shittiest car maker (in the free world anyway) happened

the department if education (indoctrination) was instituted to make sure that the USA would have failing public schools for generations

people figured out that polyester made shitty uncomfortable clothing and that bell bottom jeans made you look like a chode

mymojo

Disco was huge as were IROC Z's, Trans Ams, Honda civics were a curiousity, gas busted through the $1/gallon mark, a 350 cubic inch V8 was good for 145 hp. As a a HS kid during the 70's not much about the economy registered with me but looking back I could see it was a very difficult time financially for my parents. My dad's career as a tool and die maker was under assault as companies started the trend towards manufacturing outside the USA and my mom got a job as a waitress at a bowling alley to help make ends meet. Oh and I got a permanent.


Oh, and this guy was captured not far from my childhood home after terrorizing the city for a year.

noelm

I sold a car for $2,200 that is now a collectors classic and very rare, worth well over $200K if you can find one!

Walleye Guy

• Yes interest rates were high for loans but you could get a CD that paid about 10% or so
• I was already married for 3 years (no kids yet)
• Renting a Sears house in a rural area
• Driving a crappy car of which today I couldn't tell you what it was
• Both my wife and I worked and she would drop me off and pick me up from my job everyday
• I was in my second year of employment from the company I retired from in 2018
• Both of my parents were still alive
• Boatless
• Nearby bar around work had two-for-one happy hour
• I probably made <$10K annually back then (how the heck did we even eat)
• Red, White, and Blue beer was about $2 or $3 a six pack (UGH!)

SeaCat22

It was the first year in recorded history that it snowed in Miami FL.
It continued to snow after that. Yeyo.
Elvis Died

Keith B

My memories of ‘77.
I was 5
camping at Rocky Neck State Park and visiting Millstone Nuclear power plant.

striped bass were something we heard about but rarely caught.

We could almost walk across the backs of the schools of bluefish and I learned to cast to the nearest edge or one of my only 2 lures would get bitten off.

GE was downsizing all operations in CT and my dad started taking “bumps” to keep employed.

I would get sent with a few dollars to the local store for milk and a pack of smokes for my parents.

I was the TV remote.

THT Mod 7

IROC Z28s did not start until 1985. I had a '84 Z28 and it was not an IROC

mymojo

YOu know, now that you mention it, you're right. The Iroc's were from my college days! They were Z28's in the '70's. I still had the perm though.....

ncmallard78

The music sucked...