1978

It's come to my attention that Mims and Peaches, and even my husband, are displaying the signs of acute 'spoiltness' when it comes to dinner time.
Most nights they sit down to a Morrocan feast, or a hand stirred risotto, a stuffed chicken breast or an Asian style salad with grilled salmon. Occasionally, I'll get a complaint that it's too salty or there's too many vegetables. At times Peaches will simply push her plate away with a look on her face like she's just stepped in dog poo.
So, with this in mind, a few nights ago I decided to serve them what I was most likely to be served, night after night, circa 1978. We know it as 'meat and three veg'. In my case the 'meat' component would usually be a wafer thin charcoaled steak or a fatty little chop.
I took a photo of mine, but due to my misplacing the camera cord, here's a generic shot of 'meat and three veg'... we all know it anyway.

Yesterday I had the misfortune of reading the newspaper and watching the news all in one day. It was more than this koala could bear. The news is such a source of frustration and angst for me that I had no choice but to retreat to a nicer place, using only my mind! That place in this case was 1978.
I started school in 1978. I remember the first day of school. Mum packed my little blue cardboard port with good stuff like pencils and exercise books. I remember the smell of them.Then we walked to school, as I did everyday for the rest of my primary schooling.
We didn't have a 'healthy options' menu at the school tuckshop. It was open everyday and it sold sausage rolls, Samboy chips, Mr Juicy orange juice, Surfie iceblocks and finger buns, and no one was overweight.
I would go to Woolworths with Mum on a Saturday morning. It closed at noon on Saturdays and wasn't open at all on Sundays. There was a designated person in the fruit and vegetable section to weigh and price your things. On the checkout one person would punch in the prices and another would pack your groceries in brown paper bags.
We'd take our paper bags home and put everything away in a kitchen that looked a bit like this....except our fridge wasn't yellow, not sure where they would have got that?

We ate out at a restaurant when it was someone's birthday. It was a Chinese restaurant with red walls and a lazy Susan on each table. I remember we always had chow mein and I had pink lemonade.
Most weekends my parents and their friends had a party at someone's house. While the parents got sloshed the kids would play pool for hours on end or spotlight, depending on whose house we were at. Dad would have ten scotches and drive us all home at midnight.
He would also smoke in the house, and shoot feral animals in our yard - and we lived in town! This was Rock-vegas in the 1970s.
We would open our birthday and Christmas presents very carefully so we could re-use the paper. That was just the done thing. Grand-ma always gave us a bath towel, and it got harder and harder with each year to look excited.
We only had two television stations; the ABC and RTQ7, which had quite a few local shows. I remember watching the test pattern early in the mornings waiting for a program to start, and it would come on again later at night once all the shows were finished. Notable programs that I was impressed with were Charlie's Angels, Young Talent Time and I Love Lucy.

Jimmy Carter was in the Whitehouse and Malcolm Fraser was in The Lodge. Bread was about 50c a loaf. Petrol was 21c a litre and at the petrol station someone would fill your car for you and take the money. Most transactions were done with cash. Mum was a nurse and each pay day she'd go to the hospital and pick up her little envelope with money in it.

There were no mobile phones, but everyone had a house phone and you only paid for the calls you made - how's that for a system? Genius.
Fashion in 1978 was out there. Saturday Night Fever was starting to have its influence. Being only six years old, I missed all this.

It was a heyday for men's fashion. No shirt was tight enough, no collar too wide...think dress shorts, Farrah slacks and the famous safari suit.

Like any other era though, not everyone can win a prize.

Actually, this crowd above had the last laugh. They formed a company and called it Microsoft.
And that folks, is 1978 according to me.
In other breaking news, I attended the opening of the Nespresso shop in Queen Street last night. They had a flash mob. It was very exciting. I'd only ever seen one on the tele.
Maurice Sendak died. I would have liked to meet him. I wonder what he would remember about 1978?

Adios amigos.
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