Who else had a record player like this in their room?
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Didn’t the beginning of van phase precede the CB craze? I remember Greg Brady had a van on a Nick at Night rerun. And of course, Scooby Doo.
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Yes, vans first. They were popular with the Flower Children. The girl next door took off with her boyfriend in one (decked out in flower stickers and homemade curtains in the back windows) for a summer in the late 60’s, and it was scandalous! I think the CB craze coincided with Smokey & the Bandit … or that awful CB song that was played on AM radio.
The expensive customized vans were later, though. A coworker bought one with his winnings from playing the numbers in our auto plant (late 70’s).
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When I was in high school my dad said you can’t date anyone that has a van!
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Because they were always headed to the submarine races. Ask me how I know…
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I always thought it was because they had their etchings in the van. 
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That looks like the thing the school principal used to make announcements over the intercom.
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We used Coca Cola cans for curlers. And tried to iron our hair with a real, regular iron.
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We used orange juice cans! Forgot all about that. My hair was always thin and baby fine so it hardly held but yes, those big ole Minute Maid cans all around the head!
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@ChoatieMom I had the exact same bedset - well just the bedframe & canopy (full/queen and not the dresser, etc), with pink gingham bedspread, pink walls, pink carpet. We had just moved when I was 5 and I got to pick the color and I begged for a canopy just like mama-bear had in Goldilocks. No princess phone but I definitely wanted one when I was older! Then when I was 13 my dad thought my room needed an upgrade and a new mattress. We went shopping for one and came home with a waterbed for me! I loved that!
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Do you remember the Close and Play kids record players in the 1960s? My brothers and I would watch the commercials and wanted one so badly. So we would take our little plastic non-close and play record player, put on a 45 record and slam the lid like they did in the commericial. Which invariably would scratch the record because it wasn’t designed for that. Ruined the Beatles 45 (I Want to Hold Your Hand / I Saw Her Standing There) that our older cousins gave us and all those ones that read a story as you followed along in the book (early audio books).
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My dad…but he was an interstate truck driver.
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I couldn’t afford juice can curlers…But I did have real juice cans I used.
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My parents got me a second hand IBM Selectric typewriter as a HS graduation present in 1979. I learned to type in summer school when I was 10, and my HS jobs involved secretarial work. I typed papers for others in college to make money.
I took Ancient Greek for a few years and could pop in a different ball when I needed to type a Greek word or sentence.
My parents got a service contract to cover the typewriter, and in return received a visit from the police - turns out the second hand typewriter had been stolen!
When the police were satisfied that my parents were not aware they were buying stolen property, they let us keep it.
I kept it for several years but finally got rid of it some time in the 90s. It was really heavy!
My first job after I graduated I used a Xerox Memory Writer. I loved that machine.
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Ok, who here is familiar with this marvelous device?
These were common inside ladies’ locker rooms in the 70s. Supposedly you would get rid of fat by turning it on, siting on it and letting the rollers jiggle your butt!!
My sister and I would laugh hysterically as kids. And of course it does not get rid of fat, just makes your skin itchy.
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Elaine Powers!!
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There was also that belt thing that you put around your thighs…it didn’t do anything either, but it was in all of the “gyms” that women went to to exercise in the early 70’s.
Hardly a tech item!
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Yep. I would say that era was a time of passive fitness for women. Any gym “activity” was designed to minimize sweating and work.
Probably because at least my mom spent an hour or more at the beauty salon crafting one of those elegant hairdos. Complete with the fake hair and shellacked with half a can of hairspray. That had to last a week or two, so she would not want to sweat or get splashed with water in the swimming pool.
So glad that I was a young woman in the 80s at the start of the running and soccer movement.
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I had that EXACT bedroom set!
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How about VCRs? My parents who wouldn’t pay for cable until the 90s nor any gaming system (“we had the Apple II for games”) got a VCR in 1978. I believe it’s the one below. My sister and her piano partner were on a talent show - where viewers could vote through their “cable system.” It was called Qube and a precursor to cable. My parents didn’t pay for that either… but they bought the vcr to tape her on it. And they won the grand prize - trip to NYC and go see a show on broadway.
I remember one blank videotape cost $20 back then!!
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