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From the Editor: The good, the bad and the cheesy of one far-out decade

By ROD HARMON Deputy Managing Editor

The '70s were a turbulent decade. Vietnam, Kent State, Watergate, Black Panthers, Patty Hearst, gas shortages, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Three Mile Island disaster, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, inflation, energy crisis, malaise.

But that's not what we're commemorating this week.

What you now hold in your hands (or are reading online for free, in which case I highly recommend that you to pick up a print version so you can appreciate the magnificent designs by Sally Tyrrell Ericson and John Willhoite -- really, I'm not kidding) is an homage to '70s cheese.

I'm talking disco music, shag carpeting and platform shoes with live goldfish in the heels. Lava lamps and black-light posters. Playing with an Evel Knievel stunt cycle in the backyard while munching on a Chunky candy bar, sipping on a bottle of Orange Crush and listening to Casey Kasem's top 40 countdown on a transistor radio while your older sister sunbathed with baby oil and yelled at you to stop throwing lawn darts at the bratty kid who lived next door.

You can thank (or blame) Peter Frampton for this if you want, because it was his celebration of the 35th anniversary of "Frampton Comes Alive!" that sparked the idea for a '70s-themed GO. He'll play the album in its entirety to a sold-out crowd at the State Theatre on Tuesday.

But truth be told, we were just looking for an excuse to pay tribute to the decade of our youth. All of us on the GO staff grew up in the '70s or went to college in the '70s. (And we remember at least some of it. There was a reason Cheech and Chong were so popular, you know.)

Faster than you could say "far out," we hunted down old photos, cued up some tunes and set about embracing the decade with a big, sloppy, Bubblicious-flavored kiss.

So sit back, relax, and join us on a journey of the music, the movies, the catch-phrases, the fashion and the trends -- good and bad -- that made us forget things like long lines at the gas station and the missing Nixon tapes.

And have a nice day.

Deputy Managing Editor Rod Harmon may be contacted at 791-6450 or at:

rharmon@pressherald.com