The 80s, myth and reality?

[Edward]

Dazed and Confused was the 70s. Well, as it was remembered in the 90s.

I remember watching it on TV, having missed it in the cinema but heard all the buzz. Boy, was I glad I hadn't wasted my money on it. I foundc each and every character in it hateful, the High school culture it depicted hateful, and to top it all off, the tedious worship of Led Zeppelin, simultaneously one of those most derivative and overrated acts ever to disgrace the stage... ugh. No, thank-you.

As a young kid who watched the news every night, I can remember the violence in the UK and Ireland in the 1980s. I honestly thought as a young child I would never travel to either, as the random violence seemed constant. This made me sad, as I had always wanted to travel to Ireland, even as a young kid (at age 4). (These were the impressions of a child, not reality. It just seemed to an impressionable child there was an attack every week.)

Understandable. It was never quite the warzone it was painted as (and we often took a dark amusement in the fear of it emanating from those from parts of the world who were also donig their bit to fund it), but it was a tedious, dull, background thrum, and you had to be careful. I find even today I'm often more innately security-conscious than my English chums - comes, I guess, from having grown up being frisked and bag searched going into Marks and Spencer.

When young people today talk about "the threat of terrorism" as if it was something invented in 2001, I tell them that terrorism wasn't invented on 9/11/2001.

Terrorism is as old as man's ability to make war on man.

Speaking of which, the Pam Am 103 flight that went down over Lockerbie, Scotland had many Syracuse University students (35 total), faculty, and staff on it who were returning from study abroad. Living within 3 hours of the university as a kid and a little over an hour from a satellite campus, it had local significance. The university still has a ceremony every year, and offers scholarships for each of the students killed.

I remember that well. It still has an ongoing impact today, though those not directly affected tend to remember it more for the ongoing controversies around unsafe convictions and such.

I agree, although 9/11 changed the way of life in some aspects for me.
Walking towards the runway area to see folks off at the airport was closed.
The road that cut through the Army base to go from one end of the city to the other
is now gated and a pass required.
The old courthouses with entrances on all sides were shut down except for one on the
front and back. Security was increased 100%.
Terrorism as you pointed has always been around, we just didn’t get it in our living room
with live coverage as it was happening like today.

I've always been shocked at how lax security can be and has been in the past in a lot of places compared to what I grew up with. I can't believe anyone was ever let on a plane without official photo ID for a start! When I was a kid in the eighties, the airport in Belfast had a squaddie checkpoint half a mile up the road, and you only got into the building if you were with someone who could fly. Everyone entering the building went through the level of security check that you do now to get airside (and I seem to recall a second security check for airside as well). Even now, that's all eased off. I still get pulled over for all the "random" security checks at this end, though - I can just imagine them saying "we can't be seen to just pull over all the Middle Easterners, it'll look like stereotyping. Quick - get the Irish guy too!"

I was returning to Canada from London largely unaware of the world news. Unaware that Leila Khaled had hijacked an airplane in the autumn of 1970. I had purchased two beautiful switchblade knives in Switzerland and had them in my pocket as carry-ons. I arrived late and to my chagrin discovered a very long security line awaiting to board. Each passenger was being frisked from head to toe. I repaired to the washroom and jettisoned the largest of the knives shedding a tear and hid the smaller one in my boot, cradled against the ankle bone recess. Miraculously I passed the body search and was allowed to board. Looking back I am thinking I avoided a nasty bit of law enforcement.

Even then you would have been arrested and charged at the London end if caught: flickknives have been essentially illegal in the UK since 1959.

New Coke made a Jack-and-Coke taste like crap. Or a Jack-and-Pepsi. That's why it was an epic fail. Afaic.

Ha, are you sure it's not the JD making the Coke taste bad?

Seriously, though, JD is ok so far as it goes, but ridiculously overrated and massivley overpriced in the UK, given the wide availabiliy of any number of vastly superior Amercan Bourbons (let alone real whiskey).

Related- My parents fretting about if we could eat at a place because we were wearing jeans... And didn't have reservations.

That is a big change I don't remember happening at the time, but can see rom the eighties to the nineties: the triumph of casual wear. I remember when there was a brief fashion around 1989 to wear a collar and tie as its last hurrah; after that, as Yuppies fell out of fashion and became much more openly loathed and held in contempt, then the IT industry started to really boom and with it came the notion of being successful enough not to have to wear collar and tie like all the squares....

Only hippies and health nuts cared about such things in the 80s. I didn't go to restaurants much then because every place--not just restaurants, but almost EVERY stinking place including teachers' lounges in grade schools--allowed smoking, and I was allergic to cigarette smoke.

It would be fascinating to see some good sociological research on smoking culture. I'm currently rewatching episodes of a Scottish sitcom called Still Game which were made around 2005, the year before the smoking ban came in in Scotland. Very little looks dated compared to today (I don't think there has yet been a significant shift in fashion in the 10s; if you look at photos from the middle of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, you will spot differences, but not so much at all 2005 to 2015...), but then they go into the pub and there are people smoking. I remember back in the 90s rewatching seventies sitcoms and being amazed at how many people - including regular protagonists - were depicted smoking, how many smoked in restaurants, but nowadays it seems bizarre and alien to see someone smoking in a public building, and that's after only one decade of the smoking ban in England (came in dowm here a year after Scotland). The other interesting thing I'm seeing is vaping fast overtaking cigarettes as a more commonly-seen means of consuming nicoteen, at lest here in London. Vaping is now required to be done outside, so there's no difference in that sense.

Just like in any era, people forget the bad stuff.
There is the threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads. Everywhere you went, commercially, had a smoking and non-smoking section. Pretty much everyone dealt with second hand smoke everywhere they went. I like the music, and still do. Some of the cars were kind of neat. Plenty of good movies, and loved shows like Miami Vice.
Other than that, it's not a time I really enjoyed all that much culturally.

The biggest joy of the smoking ban in the last decade, for me anyhow, is less the nkowledge that my health has benefitted and more being able to go to the pub for the evening and not having to wash perfectly clean clothes or air them out for a week to shift the stench!

I remember watching Threads on its original broadcast, in the television room of a caravan site in Scotland, and being terrified by it. I must have been nine at the time. I recall being around twelve and endless discussions about nuclear war; we were convnced it would happen. Ironically, I was talking about Threads to some of my undergrads last year, and busy telling them how even if they watched t now it wouldn't be as scary because they weren't watching it when it was a credible threat. The next week, North Korea started its current wave of missle testing and NK and its enemies started baiting each other.

 

[2jakes]

We were not aware of security or the lack of it with regards to the safety
of an elected official.
President Kennedy and the motorcade passed through our hometown
before going to Dallas was a great event.

There's photos of the motorcade downtown with buildings all around
and people looking down from the windows everywhere as the President,
First Lady rode in an open convertible.
I don't know if folks were naive, ignorant or careless.
It was not until 911 that security of public places was stepped up.

 

[Edward]

If memory serves, Kennedy was offered a protective 'glass' bubble for the top of that car, but declined it. Interesting to thnk nobody saw any danger, despite the fact that three previous presidents had been assassinated in public places.

 

[2jakes]

If memory serves, Kennedy was offered a protective 'glass' bubble for the top of that car, but declined it. Interesting to thnk nobody saw any danger, despite the fact that three previous presidents had been assassinated in public places.

We read about Lincoln in history books. The three previous presidents that you’ve mentioned was not
something that folks knew much about unless they were history buffs.

This is a police shoot-out from 1938.
By the time I joined the news (1980s) the cameras were kept back about a block away.
The police had a good reason and personally I think it makes sense.
And those photographers standing were not too bright!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. A bubble top existed for the Presidential limousine, but as the Warren Report states, Kennedy specifically asked that it not be used in Dallas. Given the hostile political climate in the city at that time, this has been interpreted both as a desire by JFK to be more visible to his supporters, and as a gesture of defiance to his opponents.

As for smoking in the 80s, when I rode Greyhound coast-to-coast in 1983, smoking was permitted on all buses. I rode all the way from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh sitting next to a guy sucking on the worst stinking black rope of a cigar I've ever experienced in my life. Horribly, horribly foul.

The driver would announce after boarding a new group of passengers at each station that pot, at least, was not permitted on the bus. "No grass, no sass," was the exact phrase he used. Thankful I was for small blessings.

 

[2jakes]

Yep. A bubble top existed for the Presidential limousine, but as the Warren Report states, Kennedy specifically asked that it not be used in Dallas. Given the hostile political climate in the city at that time, this has been interpreted both as a desire by JFK to be more visible to his supporters, and as a gesture of defiance to his opponents.

As for smoking in the 80s, when I rode Greyhound coast-to-coast in 1983, smoking was permitted on all buses. I rode all the way from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh sitting next to a guy sucking on the worst stinking black rope of a cigar I've ever experienced in my life. Horribly, horribly foul.

The driver would announce after boarding a new group of passengers at each station that pot, at least, was not permitted on the bus. "No grass, no sass," was the exact phrase he used. Thankful I was for small blessings.

Imagine eating at restaurants when smoking was permitted.
Even though there were signs for “smoking section"...

I don’t think the smoke paid attention to those signs!

 

[scottyrocks]

Ha, are you sure it's not the JD making the Coke taste bad?

Seriously, though, JD is ok so far as it goes, but ridiculously overrated and massivley overpriced in the UK, given the wide availabiliy of any number of vastly superior Amercan Bourbons (let alone real whiskey).

JD is actually a sour mash whiskey. As far as taste, it's only as good as any particular tongue thinks.

The advertising here plays to heritage, in much the same way Harley-Davidson has been doing for decades. And look how well how they've done, as well.

I'll drink bourbon, too, as well as vodka. Because I use mixers, I am probably not as particular as a straight-up drinker.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Depends on the restaurant. I can still get fresh, well made food in many local places.

The 80s were the first era where we had a few restaurants emphasizing fresh food -- a local place called "The Salad Patch" is still well remembered by many here.

One thing that's been forgotten is that as far back as the 1930s, the American diet was under fire for its heavy reliance on canned, processed, pre-frozen foods. If you ate in any metropolitan chain restaurant in the 1930s -- Child's, Bickford's, Schrafft's, Howard Johnson's, Waldorf Lunch, the Automat, etc -- you were not getting anything remotely resembling a "fresh, local meal." All these places used processed foods prepared in a central commissary and trucked to the individual restaurants, where they were reheated, kept warm on steam tables, and served to customers many hours after they were prepared.

Even "better" restaurants depended heavily on processed foods. In the big cities of the East Coast, there was no such thing as a fresh vegetable "out of season" -- all restaurant vegetables were canned. Fresh meat in a restaurant was extremely rare -- nearly all meat had been in cold-storage, or had been frozen for months before it was used. This was considered "modern efficiency." A modern foodie transported back in time to The Era would turn up her nose in disgust at the kind of bland, soggy, flavorless meal she'd get even in an expensive restaurant. The American habit of slathering salt, pepper, and condiments on meals stems directly from the second-rate food we, as a country, were for many decades being served.

This was still going on in the 80s -- if you went into any "family restaurant" of that period, whether a chain or locally owned, you would get cold-storage or frozen meat, vegetables from a No. 10 can, reconstituted soup, and processed white bread. And you wouldn't think there was anything odd about it, because you were used to eating that way.

 

[2jakes]

The 80s were the first era where we had a few restaurants emphasizing fresh food -- a local place called "The Salad Patch" is still well remembered by many here.

One thing that's been forgotten is that as far back as the 1930s, the American diet was under fire for its heavy reliance on canned, processed, pre-frozen foods. If you ate in any metropolitan chain restaurant in the 1930s -- Child's, Bickford's, Schrafft's, Howard Johnson's, Waldorf Lunch, the Automat, etc -- you were not getting anything remotely resembling a "fresh, local meal." All these places used processed foods prepared in a central commissary and trucked to the individual restaurants, where they were reheated, kept warm on steam tables, and served to customers many hours after they were prepared.

Even "better" restaurants depended heavily on processed foods. In the big cities of the East Coast, there was no such thing as a fresh vegetable "out of season" -- all restaurant vegetables were canned. Fresh meat in a restaurant was extremely rare -- nearly all meat had been in cold-storage, or had been frozen for months before it was used. This was considered "modern efficiency." A modern foodie transported back in time to The Era would turn up her nose in disgust at the kind of bland, soggy, flavorless meal she'd get even in an expensive restaurant. The American habit of slathering salt, pepper, and condiments on meals stems directly from the second-rate food we, as a country, were for many decades being served.

This was still going on in the 80s -- if you went into any "family restaurant" of that period, whether a chain or locally owned, you would get cold-storage or frozen meat, vegetables from a No. 10 can, reconstituted soup, and processed white bread. And you wouldn't think there was anything odd about it, because you were used to eating that way.

I’m lucky to have local eateries where the food is prepared fresh
and the climate we have makes this possible.
No processed foods.
And there is a difference!
They take pride.
They make so much, once it’s gone, you just have to wait for the next time!

 

[BlueTrain]

We were at the local zoo once (The National Zoo in Washington, D.C.) when there was a birthday celebration for an elephant (I'm not making this up). In attendance was the ambassador from Sri Lanka who commented on how the elephant's weight gain was due to his American diet.

Like others, I grew up in the 1950s eating food that was well-cooked, if sometimes bland, and never anything but old-fashioned "American" food, sometimes called "comfort food" now. And yes, restaurant food was pretty much the same. That's what people's taste ran to, anyway, mostly. People didn't have fresh food at home everyday by any means. How you can have fresh food right out of the garden in February is beyond me. Even in the summer, when you might have had green beans fresh from your own garden, which we did, they would have only been fresh the first night. For the next three or four nights, they were leftovers. Same with everything else on the table. Lettuce, however, would have always been fresh from the garden in the summer and we ate it by the bushel. I've also read comments from people who thought restaurant vegetables were usually undercooked, especially green beans. Everybody like potatoes in any form but mashed potatoes are one of the most difficult things to keep in good shape for serving. At banquet-type meals, the mashed potatoes are usually starting to cool off and dry out by the time they get to the table, just like TV dinner mashed potatoes.

Everybody on the block, almost, ate the same things, too, but somehow, it always tasted a little different at someone else's house.

We don't use vinegar much now but when I was little, there was always a little cruet on the table. Same with my wife's family. Maybe people used to think there was some health benefit from using vinegar.

Another thing was that, in spite of having neighbors who were immigrants (in West Virginia in the 1950s!), we never had anything that was remotely "ethnic." Not even spaghetti. When I finally left home and went away to school at the other end of the state, I was surprised at the things people ate that I'd never heard of. That even included pizza. The only pizza I'd ever seen was homemade by an Italian mother. Nothing like any commercial pizza.

But since leaving home, I'm not such a picky eater.

 

[2jakes]

We were at the local zoo once (The National Zoo in Washington, D.C.) when there was a birthday celebration for an elephant (I'm not making this up). In attendance was the ambassador from Sri Lanka who commented on how the elephant's weight gain was due to his American diet.

Like others, I grew up in the 1950s eating food that was well-cooked, if sometimes bland, and never anything but old-fashioned "American" food, sometimes called "comfort food" now. And yes, restaurant food was pretty much the same. That's what people's taste ran to, anyway, mostly. People didn't have fresh food at home everyday by any means. How you can have fresh food right out of the garden in February is beyond me. Even in the summer, when you might have had green beans fresh from your own garden, which we did, they would have only been fresh the first night. For the next three or four nights, they were leftovers. Same with everything else on the table. Lettuce, however, would have always been fresh from the garden in the summer and we ate it by the bushel. I've also read comments from people who thought restaurant vegetables were usually undercooked, especially green beans. Everybody like potatoes in any form but mashed potatoes are one of the most difficult things to keep in good shape for serving. At banquet-type meals, the mashed potatoes are usually starting to cool off and dry out by the time they get to the table, just like TV dinner mashed potatoes.

Everybody on the block, almost, ate the same things, too, but somehow, it always tasted a little different at someone else's house.

We don't use vinegar much now but when I was little, there was always a little cruet on the table. Same with my wife's family. Maybe people used to think there was some health benefit from using vinegar.

Another thing was that, in spite of having neighbors who were immigrants (in West Virginia in the 1950s!), we never had anything that was remotely "ethnic." Not even spaghetti. When I finally left home and went away to school at the other end of the state, I was surprised at the things people ate that I'd never heard of. That even included pizza. The only pizza I'd ever seen was homemade by an Italian mother. Nothing like any commercial pizza.

But since leaving home, I'm not such a picky eater.

American “pizza” and pizza made in Italy depending on what part
is totally totally different.

Amazing what they put in it.

 

[scottyrocks]

I grew up on, among other nasty things, canned vegetables - 1960s through the very late 1970s when I met a girl who cooked me fresh vegetables. What a revelation! I suppose they existed in the 1960s, although to eat at my house you'd never know it.

 

[Edward]

JD is actually a sour mash whiskey. As far as taste, it's only as good as any particular tongue thinks.

The advertising here plays to heritage, in much the same way Harley-Davidson has been doing for decades. And look how well how they've done, as well.

I'll drink bourbon, too, as well as vodka. Because I use mixers, I am probably not as particular as a straight-up drinker.

In all seriousness, thouh, I do like JD, but it is - as you note - one of those brands like Harley which hasbeen elevated to "lifestyle brand" and costs far more than it should (imso). Still, as long as it keeps selling well at that, don't think it'll change.

 

[AmateisGal]

As for smoking in the 80s, when I rode Greyhound coast-to-coast in 1983, smoking was permitted on all buses. I rode all the way from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh sitting next to a guy sucking on the worst stinking black rope of a cigar I've ever experienced in my life. Horribly, horribly foul.

The driver would announce after boarding a new group of passengers at each station that pot, at least, was not permitted on the bus. "No grass, no sass," was the exact phrase he used. Thankful I was for small blessings.

I am eternally grateful that my city instituted a city-wide smoking ban in public places. It is SO nice not to have to deal with it.

 

[2jakes]

I grew up on, among other nasty things, canned vegetables - 1960s through the very late 1970s when I met a girl who cooked me fresh vegetables. What a revelation! I suppose they existed in the 1960s, although to eat at my house you'd never know it.

I was in my 30s when I first ate lobster. It was very rich & filling.
I have tasted oyster. Once.

 

[Juanito]

I remember watching it on TV, having missed it in the cinema but heard all the buzz. Boy, was I glad I hadn't wasted my money on it. I foundc each and every character in it hateful, the High school culture it depicted hateful...

Fair assessment, but we are talking about 1980s culture and it is a dead on potrayal of the events and feel of the summer of 1980, at least for me and where I lived--YMMV.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The only fresh vegetables we regularly had were dandelion greens, dug out of the dooryard and boiled until they looked like spinach, and corn on the cob, which we got only in August and September. Very occasionally we'd go out to a roadside farm stand in late summer and get a bag of peas or string beans or some cucumbers, but that was a special occasion to be remembered fondly thru the winter months.

Lettuce was trucked in from somewhere and sprayed with water in the store to make it seem fresh, but you'd feel the slimy end of where the head was cut off the plant and know it really wasn't. All tomatoes came in a little cardboard tray wrapped in cellophane, and you put them on the window behind the kitchen sink to hopefully ripen before the fruit flies discovered them. Sometimes they'd be "pre-ripened," which meant they'd been gassed to cause the green to go away. Carrots came in a bag with the greens already cut off, and if you were bored you'd cut the top end of one off and put it in a saucer with some water and wait for it to sprout. Peas and beans and spinach and niblet corn came in cans, or if you were swanky, you got the frozen kind. Potatoes were fresh during the fall, but they sat in dark cellars the rest of the year, and always smelled musty when you bought them in the store. You'd store them in your own cellar, and exhume them only just before it was time to cook them. Usually they'd have sprouted by then and you had to cut off the eyes, because everybody knew they were poison and would kill you, like green potato chips.

 

[2jakes]

I am eternally grateful that my city instituted a city-wide smoking ban in public places. It is SO nice not to have to deal with it.

My next door neighbor’s mail was delivered to me by mistake.
I went over to deliver it.
It was in the summer time.
When he opened his front door, a cloud of cold air combined with cigarette smoke
hit me.
Although he didn’t have a lit cigarette, my eyes watered and I had to step back to
breathe fresh air.

I made an excuse that Polo was outside fighting with the dog and had to
go, declining the invitation to go inside his house.
He recently died of lung cancer.

 

[AmateisGal]

My next door neighbor’s mail was delivered to me by mistake.
I went over to deliver it.
It was in the summer time.
When he opened his front door, a cloud of cold air combined with cigarette smoke
hit me.
Although he didn’t have a lit cigarette, my eyes watered and I had to step back to
breathe fresh air.

I made an excuse that Polo was outside fighting with the dog and had to
go, declining the invitation to go inside his house.
He recently died of lung cancer.

I never had the urge to take up smoking. Both my grandfathers smoked, but one of them developed emphysema. Toward the end, he was on oxygen constantly, was bedridden, thin as a rail, and didn't even have the breath to eat. That cured me of *ever* wanting to smoke.

 

[Nobert]

I'm sure the irony has been touched on countless times on this forum, but the period at which we throw such fond and longing backwards glances was one that was defined by the new, the relentless, unquestioning stride forward into the miracles of modernity. This was certainly true of recipes of the time, wherein the raw ingrdients would, oft as not, be something with "Heinz" printed on the label. If I remember, it was the Heinz company that forged its repution on "Untouched by Human Hands," quite an advancement in days when food sanitation was a bit less stringent and diced carrots could be dicier to one's health (a great book on this is called Kitchen Literacy covering the history of food consumption from the late 18th century onward).

As far as the 80s go, I couldn't speak to overall food quality, having an atypical upbringing in that regard. My father wanted to be a farmer, which was the reason the family moved to Maine in the first place, and from the age of eight, I was not only eating local, farm-raised foods but selling them at farmer's markets and fair concessions. I once offended a high school girlfriend by almost laughing out when I saw that her family kept butter in a squeeze bottle. I had never heard of such a thing. We would eat out, but I can't remember a change in quality over decades, only in the venues, school cafeteria being the bottom of the heap.