Vintage Thingie Thursday - The Secretary is in- the 70's this week!

Hello again this week! This is Sandi's secretary talking, and I'm so glad you stopped by. I've had a great time looking back at the good ole' days, and hope you have too. This week, we've stopped in the 70's for a little while.

The 70's are calmer than the 60's were, women no longer burn their bras, but bikini underwear is in style. Bikini bathing suits are not "string", they are like underwear these days (and she doesn't mean thongs!) Everyone is wearing bell bottom pants and platform shoes, "Make Peace, Not War" is the general feeling overall. Sandi is one of the first young person in her town to have wire rimmed glasses (like John Lennon) and so everyone thinks she's in to drugs.

I sit in the 70's, used for holding the phone, typewriter, and some momentos from high school. I'm starting to show quite a bit of wear, with one hinge sprung terrible and hanging pretty cockeyed. On the desktop, you see Sandi's letter from music - lettered all 4 years - AND her pep club letter - all 4 years.

Telephones are rotary dial now, no more operator needed to complete your call UNLESS you are calling long distance. In the small town that I live in, the phone will only work for 3 minutes, then shuts off automatically. If you want to continue a conversation - you have to call back. It is quite a deterent for teenage LONG conversations! Phones come in black, white, pink, and turquoise. Odd combination of colors, but I'm not the one who makes those decisions!

Sandi has taken typing classes in high school and is able to type 82 wpm (words per minute) on a manual typewriter, and 132 on an electric. Typing is not a required class, and there are only a few boys who are in the class. Sandi's home typewriter was recently purchased for $90.00 from a general store in a nearby town. She saved money from many paychecks to purchase this.

The typewriter types in black and red - with only one font.

Sandi is known in High School as the girl who ALWAYS has a camera, and ALWAYS takes a ton of photos! She uses 110 film, and sends through the mail to have them printed. Sometimes it takes up to a month to get them back. BUT recently she's purchased a Polaroid Camera that prints photos like above. They are great because you get your photo right away, AND have a place on the bottom to write on. What a great invention!

Sr. pictures are done in a nearby town also. There are 8 poses, all black and white - with no clothing change. If you want color, they take the photo and hand paint the sweater whatever color you want, and the lady who does it has to know what color your eyes and hair are. It costs $90.00 for a dozen 5x7's, 1 8x10, and 1 dozen wallets. If you want more wallets, you just order them out of a magazine. 100 photos for $3.50. No copyright problems at all.

The young people all have bracelets or dog tags from someone they know OR a pen pal that they've been given because of the Vietnam War. Everyone knows someone who is fighting in the war, most know someone who was killed in the war.

Note from Sandi: Thanks for joining me for the 3rd installment of "If this secretary could talk!" I've had so much fun digging out items for each post, and took a couple of hours to set each one up, the an hour to photograph each one, another hour EACH for the picnicing of the photos, and then at least 1/2 hour to post each one! Rather labor intensive, but a ton a fun! Be sure and come back to see the present, The Secretary will be all decked out!

If you want to see previous posts, there are here (early 1900's) and here (1950's).

http://coloradolady.blogspot.com/ is where you will find many more Vintage Thingie Thursday posts! Please join us.