The Year 1976 Brian's Life

 THE YEAR 1976

Who can tell me about the year 1976?  For those of you who are old enough to remember the Bicentennial year of our country, was it something special?  Did the country celebrate in some fashion?  Were there parades, or maybe school let kids out half day?

Myself.... I was one year old.  My parents were still shoving a spoon in my mouth loaded with peas or strained carrots.  Maybe even some pureed beets?  I had no clue what was going on, that is a fact.  My mother would have been changing my cloth diapers.  You know, the ones that parents would simply throw into the washing machine and then re-use.  I bet a hundred bucks some of those diapers were never washed or re- used but thrown in the garbage can out on the street.  Remember those, the metal barrels, with a handle welded on to them so Americans could drag them back and forth.  Maybe this was just a California thing?

As far as I know, the Bicentennial year for our country was simply another year.  A year filled with both good events, and bad events.

New York City was dealing with a serial killer who would be given the name "Son of Sam".  He would commit a series of attacks that would terrorize the city for the next year.

Big Ben, no relation to Paul Bunyan, stopped working.  The big clock had internal damage that took nine months to repair.  Paul Bunyan by the way, was introduced to us in a 1916 promotional pamphlet by freelance writer William B. Laughead.  I would love reading these tall tales at a later date.

NASA landed Viking 1& 2 on the planet of Mars!  These spacecrafts actually took close up color photos of the red planet.  Maybe some of you have seen the famous "Face on Mars" photo?

The world's first laser printer was introduced and could print up to 215 pages per minute.  Steve Jobs, whom I mentioned in 75, would create his company.  Maybe you've heard of it ... Apple Computer Co.  The Apple 1 was distributed to the open market and sold for $666.66. ( Odd ?)  

Vehicles introduced in this year to name just a few.  The Cheverolet Chevette, Ford Falcon, Honda Accord, Pontiac Pheonix, and the Dodge Aspen.  No Toyota's yet?  I couldn't find any mention of them.  Who remembers Datsun vehicles?  They don't make any lists for 76 either.

1976 was a Presidential election year for the U.S.  Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford for the title of POTUS.  Carters Vice President, Walter Mondale.

Musician Bob Marley and his Manager survived an assassination attempt. Sylvester Stallone wrote the script for Rocky, with a ball point pen, in just three and a half days.  Paul Simon won a Grammy for Album of the Year.  Maybe only due to the fact that Stevie Wonder did not produce and album that year.  Stevie had won Grammies for album of the year in both 74, and 75.  Music groups like The Cure were formed.  Along with Foreigner, and Joy Division and Madness.  I'm pretty sure I've never listened to Joy Division and Madness.  I'll have to look up some of their work.

California was in the middle of a fairly severe drought in 1976.  Surface water supplies were at record lows, ground water was used to make up for shortages.  Interestingly, California is hopefully pulling out of another record setting drought this year that has lasted almost seven years or more.

CSU Fullerton was the location of a massacre in July of 76.  I refuse to repeat the name of the shooter because I feel as though this forever martyrs their name into history.  I don't think mass murderers' names should ever be published.  Nine people were shot and seven of them died.  The shooter was a custodian of the campus.

The World population in 76 was 4,142,505,882.  Anyone remember the world population in my last post?  We have doubled in population since 1976!  That's just a 47-year span!

  Gasoline was .59 per gallon.  New cars averaged $5450.00.  This would have been important to know if you had hopes of making it on to the Price is Right show with the infamous Bob Barker.  RIP Bob. Homes were in the price range of $44,200.00.  Minimum wage was set at $2.30 an hour.  So, in just one year, Americans were making .30 cents more an hour, and home prices had already jumped $4500.00. That thirty cent raise in minimum wages would have given Americans $ 624.00 more a year before taxes for a 40-hour work week.  This is interesting to me.  Let's look in to this a little more extensively.  At $2.30 an hour, Americans were making just $92.00 a week!  We pay that much for a tank of gas in 2023.  Heck!  Three bags of groceries at the market can cost you a hundred bucks.  Your annual salary at $2.30 an hour would have been just $4784.00.  Today's minimum wage is at $15 an hour.  We earn $28 dollars more a day, then workers made in a WEEK in 76! Think about this, in 76 you would have to work an entire year to save up for a new car.  Today, it's basically equivalent!  New cars are in the $30,000 range.  So again, one years' worth of earnings at minimum wage to save up for a new car.  Not a fancy model either.  We're talking base models.

HealthCare in the year of 76 cost families between $93 dollars a month and $57 a month.  At $93 a month, that would have been one fourth of your monthly income.  Blue Cross was one of the providers during this time.

All in all, 1976 was basically just another year of many.  Prices were slowly getting higher and higher on just about everything, areas of the U.S. were in severe drought.  The world's population was getting larger and larger.  Music was evolving.  I have relatives that believe the music from the 60's and 70's will never be compared to.  There are definitely some very good lyrics and music from those two decades.  At one year of age, I was getting ever closer to walking on my own two feet!  As far as my question at the very top of this page... the government re-introduced the two dollar bill!  Fascinating.

"Logic is the science of the justification of conclusions we have reached by natural reasoning.  My point is that, for such natural reasonings to occur, consciousness is not necessary.  The very reason we need logic at all is because most reasoning is not conscious at all."

- Julian Jaynes

The Origin of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral mind 1976

The Year 1975 Brian's Life

 THE YEAR 1975

Tis the year I began breathing air.  Of course, I remember nothing about this time in my life.  I couldn't tell you what the weather was like, who the president was, or even what weather is.  Silly humans right!  Can't walk for at least one year after birth.  Can't feed ourselves, can't even talk to let others know what we are screaming our heads off about.  I often wonder what we are doing on this planet, but that's a whole other philosophical discussion that I'd rather not get into.  1975 would be the start of it all, for me.  Even though I don't recall any early events in my life, I can give you facts about the year 1975 by researching them.  That is my plan for these first few years of, The Life of Brian.  I have decided to create this Blog, to document my life one year at a time.  My plan is to write two blogs a month covering, you guessed it, each year of my journey on this planet.

Some of these entries may be a tad boring, (probably all of them). Some of them you might not even believe.  But this will be, the truest account of what has transpired in my forty-eight years of being alive.  Ok, maybe not the truest account, but definitely 97.5 percent accurate.  I would miss the Bicentennial year by one lousy year.  But that's ok, good things were happening, and who would want to be the age of zero for something as big as the Bicentennial Year!  Being a one-year-old was much more interesting. Yes, I know you aren't actually considered to be zero years old during your first year of life.  1975 brought about the first ever technology of the magic eight ball!  This invention gave people hope, and dreams, didn't it?  The Rubic Cube would make its way on to the shelves.  To this day I cannot solve that stupid thing!  And yes, I too, took the stickers off the little squares just to make it look like I could figure it out.

Americans were popping Pez candies in their mouths while listening to artists such as Paul Simon on their fresh 8 track tapes.  Mr. Simon would create the album of the year with hits such as " Still Crazy After All These Years".  Song of the year was by Captain and Tennille, "Love Will Keep Us Together".  That song would still be on the radio years later.  I can remember listening to it while riding in the back of our family car.  No seatbelt mind you.  Just rolling around, not a care in the world, in the back of the family station wagon.  Movies would include "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", as well as one of my favorites, "Jaws". Ford was president.  His Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller.  The Vietnam War would end in 75.  My Dad had fought in the Vietnam War for the Army.  He was lucky to return home.  At the young age of 20 he had gotten his draft card in the mailbox.  While some ran to other countries avoiding the draft, my dad bravely got on a train and served his time with the U.S. Army.  He would spend a total of three years in the Army, one full year in the jungles of Vietnam.  I've never really thought about the war ending the same year I was born.  I'll have to ask my dad what his thoughts were at that time.  Surely it had to have made him ponder.  Two happy events, the birth of a child, and the end of a war he had fought in.  In his own words, "War is hell, nobody should have to go through that".

My mom remembers people being excited about the upcoming Bicentennial year.  She recalls playing records such as Winnie the Pooh, and Remus for myself and my two older sisters.  They had no T.V. or radio at the time. When I was a month old, our family would move to the state of New Mexico.  Soon to return to California, however.  The value of the mighty dollar was much stronger in 75.  A loaf of bread set you back .33 cents.  A quart of milk just .46 cents.  Yes, the hourly wage was far less than what it is currently, but it really doesn't seem to be an even adjustment compared to today's wages vs cost of living.  Can you believe gasoline was just .57 cents a gallon!  The average cost of a home was just $39,300.00.  You can't even buy a new car for that price today.  Minimum wage was $2.10 per hour.  Americans are making twelve dollars and ninety cents more an hour in the year 2023, and if you only have one job earning that wage, you are close to the poverty level!  Homes in my area of California range between seven hundred thousand and tens of millions!  Things have gotten way out of hand in my opinion.

The Russians and Americans worked together in 75 by linking up space craft on July 15.  Margaret Thacher was the first women elected to lead Britain's conservative party.  The Japanese would invent the first recorded tape, and VCR.  A man by the name of Steven Jobs would help develop the Apple 1 prototype.  Egypt would reopen the Suez Canal after 8 years of closure.  Our country had 215,973,199 humans in 1975.  The world population has increased to 8,056,941,822 as of Monday August 28, 2023.  Yes, that is 8 BILLION people.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we did remember everything from the second we are born.  It's probably for the best that we do not.  Babies scream for a reason, and most certainly a lot of it comes from some form of discomfort. If you've read this far with me on this Blogging Diary adventure of sorts, stay tuned!  There's some good stuff coming your way!  And if you are family reading this, feel free to correct me on anything I may have incorrectly stated.  Lastly, if you like to write, start one of these Blogs on your own.  I think it would be fun to read what others have experienced.  Why should we only care what famous people have done.  All of us have a story worth writing about.

"You said I'm full of diseases

Your eyes were full of regret

And then you took a picture of your salad

And put it on the internet"

- The 1975, Change of Heart

Music Lyrics