Three Thngs About 1976

[fiat_knox]

So, why am I posting about 1976?

Firstly, 1976 was the Bicentennial, and a big US election in its time. A war had just ended, and a corrupt businessman who'd conned the nation into disgracing itself by installing him as President was ousted, hoist by his own petard.

It was the first year I ever became aware of the US' electoral process. Though, for some years prior, that damned war had been present and growing in my consciousness.

1976 was a record year in the United Kingdom. I remember it being hotter than any year I'd experienced before, or since. We were inundated by ladybirds. Those little black-spotted red cblobs lay in thick carpets everywhere. I loved them - still do. I must've been the only one who did. To this day, some of my contemporaries still shudder at the sight of a ladybird.

1976 was, of course, the runup to the Queen's Silver Jubilee; the year the world was gradually becoming aware through the popular press of things like drugs, punk and the silicon chip. Me, I was so heavily into lasers and the EM spectrum, chemistry, biology, French, Latin and Welsh.

And maths.

All of which brings me to my first linkage; an article which kind of confirms my suspicions ...

Kids of 1976 Were Smarter Than Today's Kids - Yes, We Were

Back in 1976, I became a massive, massive bibliophile. I was known to all and sundry, staff and pupils, as "The Mad Scientist" back then. If I was going through school today they'd be calling me "Grissom," because of what he once said about him being a ghost in school.

Personally, I couldn't have called myself a pupil if I didn't spend my time trying to see. Though I didn't begin dilating until adulthood ...

I was clued in to all of this stuff which modern children today, rather naively, dismiss as "nerdy" or "geeky." It doesn't get you the girl ... but if intelligence and skill lands one a really good paying job, would you be satisfied with a mindless bleached blonde who'll only put out to someone if it'll get her into Big Brother or onto a Heat cover?

So yeah ... we are smarter now than today's kids will ever be when they get to our age.

IF they live to our age.

And now, the final link in this rambling thread: and a very sad one, too. For, along other things, 1976 was the year I first got to read a whole bunch if SF authors I had never read before. Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson ...

and Michael Crichton.

I watched The Andromeda Strain long before I got the book. But I remember going out of my way to buying the novelisation the minute I saw it, even bankrupting myself and having to go without tuck for two weeks because I'd blown all my pocket money to buy the book.

And so, now, today, I have to announce with great sadness that the man whose book had placed me in such financial straits, way back then, has died: Michael Crichton, RIP.

I mention 1976 because there are all these kids wandering about wearing T shirts with "1976" in big, bold numbers. FFS, they weren't even alive in 1976! Chances are, their parents were still in short trousers even then!

Also, just on Monday, I'd been talking to a man in the street about my chesty cough. And I just said to him "I don't normally get sniffles, so when I do get a cold, it's a pretty powerful one to while it might be a sniffle to me, it's the bloody Andromeda Strain to everybody else."

Funny how these things keep coming around to haunt you, isn't it?

Comments

[lemuria.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the ladybirds - I remember being on holiday in Weston-super-Mare that year and seeing them everywhere! And the heatwave/drought, in fact whenever I hear the phrase 'long hot summer' it takes me back to 1976.
I think I was a bit older when I got into SF, I was certainly past the stage of kids' books and reading adult novels by then (I don't remember there being anything like 'young adult' fiction back then, apart from a few US imports which were all about biker gangs). I remember buying a book on astrology, which my mother disapproved of intensely, and I read a lot of stuff on earth mysteries, stone circles etc. I had most of the Janet and Colin Bord books - Mysterious Britain and the two follow-ups.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

Ug, I wince at the broad conclusion reached by the journalists or researcher. All that proves is that mathematical reasoning in the specific area where those samples were from has decreased. I suspect rather heavily that other skills, chiefly those involved research and social information gathering have grown to compensate. Cooperation likewise screws up much of the education systems, as collaboration is frowned upon in schools yet essential in the work world.

I mourn the loss of a great author, despite his climate change denial advocacy.

[victorian-glove.livejournal.com]

For me, 1976 was to be the final year of idyllic happiness.

In 1977 my Grandad died. And that idyllic world passed with him.

Such a very special man. He was mourned for years and years to come. Including today.