Recalling the 70s

There was no Wikipedia back in the 70s, and we didn't even have a television for most of that decade. In those days I got most of my news from John Birch Society publications. Then there were the guys at work and the guys in the bar, but they were pretty much the same guys. I think they got most of their news from television. Whenever I would tell those guys about something I had read, they would invariably respond with, "Do you believe everything you read?", and I would respond to that with, "Do you believe everything you see on television.?" Ah, those were simpler times!

We had several record breaking winters in the 70s, and the summers weren't all that warm either. I didn't mind, I had wanted to live in the North Country all my life, and now I did. I bought a pair of snowshoes in '69, and I got another pair for my hypothetical wife in '70. She would carry our daughter in a backpack, just like an Indian caboose. We used to break trail for the snowmobilers who were afraid to strike out cross country because of the fences and other hazards hidden beneath the snow. Once we had established a trail, the snowmobilers would follow it. We didn't mind because they would pack the trail so that, the next time we used it, we could take off our snowshoes and tuck them under our arms until we wanted to veer off the beaten path again. We still have those snowshoes, but we haven't used them in decades. My hypothetical wife quit going to the woods with me about the time our daughter got too big to carry, and most of my woods time nowadays is spent on the tractor, plowing our driveway and hauling out firewood.

I think the listing of four continents on the Budweiser label refers to prizes the beer has won in international competitions. I don't know why I think that, I just do. I never did care for Budweiser, too hoppy for my taste. Funny, but I really like Busch and they are both made by the same company. Busch reminds me of what beer used to taste like back in the 70s, before the major breweries bought each other out and started messing with their formulas. I'm a firm believer in the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Speaking of which, what was wrong with the health care we had in this country before Obama care? Poor people already got it for free, and most working people had some kind of health insurance from their employer. The way I remember it was the employers started cutting back when insurance premiums started rising faster than inflation. All they needed to do was pass a law saying they couldn't do that. Michigan did something like that with their property tax a long time ago. The assessed valuation on primary residences cannot rise faster than inflation, unless the house is sold, and then it takes a one time jump before settling back into the controlled mode. It's not a perfect system, but at least it keeps people who have lived in their home for years from having to sell it just to pay the taxes.