What was suburbia really like for a teenage girl in the 1970’s? In a word, sheltered. Although my friends and myself liked to think of ourselves as rebels, we were really just bored teens looking for a bit of fun in a largely unexciting environment. While urban areas were bustling with disco, punk rock and gender bending explorations, suburbia was asleep with banal shopping malls, 3 channels for your TV viewing pleasure and shag carpets.
At times a bit of the real world did edge its way into our quiet neighborhood. I remember hints to the Watergate scandal (my dads’ ever-increasing bad mood and outbursts of profanity while watching the evening news), the gas crisis (we bought a compact, gas saving foreign car, much to my dads’ dismay) and the ominous shadow of nuclear power plants melting down, thanks to the accident at Three Mile Island. But all of this was so far removed from my teen-aged concerns. Boys, Bubblicious, Loves Baby Soft and 8-track tapes were foremost on my mind.
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