Not sure why I am experiencing the recent nostalgia and why I am posting my thoughts about this, but I have been thinking about it for weeks. The summer of 1975 was right after my Soph year in college... without doubt the best summer of my life. The Horns were expected to have a good team in the fall with Marty Akins at QB and some guy named Earl at RB - I was looking very much forward to the ou game and the Horns exacting some revenge. Great music on the charts, some memorable movies, no summer classes, parties / fun on the weekend with friends, several Texas Ranger games, water skiing and a lot of tennis, started summer biz with & made good $ with my UT grad brother and only one regret... foolishly I let you get away Pam. Anyone else have some good memories from that summer?
I was finishing up year # 8. Decided that, what with all the lawn mowing and toilet cleaning, I was worthy of a 'Children's Day,' which I announced as taking place in early August, and which my parents graciously humored. They took me for ice cream, bought me a very nice Corgi replica of the Elf Tyrell car (six wheel formula racer) and topped the afternoon off at the theater for a cracker jack viewing of 'Jaws.' I started trying to plan the Children's day for '76. I assumed it would have to be bigger and better. My dad assumed that '75 was a one-time nod to the fact that 'Children's Day' was everyday. I said 'There's a Mother's Day and Father's Day EVERY year!' He said 'You got me soap (in the shape of rose buds, no less). Go mow the lawn.' Push mower, grumbling, getting grass clippings out of the sky-blue plasticky basket, trimming with hand-held trimmers. 'Close the bag with the twist, son. Finish.' Was it possible to feel resentment and still wholly embrace the fact that the old man was right...and damned swell? Yes it was.
I was getting psyched for the next year, the Bicentennial even though I did not know what it was. I had two really gorgeous babysitters who would take me cruising around with them. I got to hear lots of cool music, get lots of snacks and milkshakes and things like that. We cooked a lot of Fajitas and went to Matamoros all the time. We lived in Brownsville and the beach was visited almost weekly. That and '76 were epic years indeed. I was in 2nd grade.
I turned fifteen that year and UT was still three years away. I had just attended my first rock concert, (an all day affair at Jeppesen Stadium), and was just starting to flex my independence. Not the best summer of my life, but certainly a foreshadowing of things to come.
Summer after my first year at Texas. My dad got me a job moving furniture in Houston. First real contact this suburban boy ever had with African-Americans who formed most of the workforce where I was employed. Hard work, interesting and good experience. First stirrings of disco on the radio. Pining for the girl I took to Prom the year before.
7 years old. We moved from Chicago to Tyler Texas that summer. Became friends with the Campbell's through my dad's business (clothing store, we used to special order their clothes because of the sizes in the thighs). Instant UT fan!
1975 was the year I started High School. Coaches still believed withholding water made you tough. You hadn't had a sufficiently hard football practice unless you threw up at least once. Texas had Earl coming back for his sophomore year, Raymond Clayborn and Glen Blackwood as DBs, David Studdard on the O Line, Brad Shearer on D Line, and Russell Erxleben as all world punter and kicker. All had great NFL careers. Expectations were reasonably high. Texas played Colorado in the Bluebonnet Bowl in the Astrodome after going 9 - 2 in the regular season, losing to very good OU and aTm teams. Colorado had the biggest offensive line I had ever seen. I seem to remember their offensive line was bigger than almost every pro team in the NFL that year. Texas trailed early but came back and kicked Colorado's tail. I bought my first car the following year: a 1961 4-door Chevy II (think 4 door Nova) that I paid $400.00 for, put a $400.00 stereo in and could drive around all week on $4.00 worth of gas. Back then, if cops pulled kids over for underage drinking they would usually pour your beer out and tell you to go home. Good times! BTW, I got to go to that concert at Jepessen Stadium DoobieWah!
I was thirteen and my parents moved us to Dallas from that ******** just east of there known as Terrell. Thank you mom and stepdad for getting us out of that insanely miserable place. It would be my second summer out of what would be six summers in a row attending the soccer camps at the Philips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. Just the most beautiful old rustic New England prep school you could imagine. I can still see every detail of the campus as if it was just yesterday. This was the real life location for the setting in the John Knowles novel “A Separate Peace”. For those familiar with the story, I must have crossed “the river” a hundred times in those summers going to and from the locker rooms and soccer fields. And to think that one of literatures most famous moments happened on that spot. After camp, it was off to my father’s house on Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire. Swim, eat, and sleep is all we did with those same friends we only got to see once a year, including the inevitable teenage summer romance that had to eventually end. Miss you Sherry….you are still “my girl”. I know I covered more than just one summer here, but it was 1975 repeated over and over. And I miss New Hampshire. I miss it a lot. Those were the best summers a kid could ask for.
According to Pop Culture Madness, these were the top 25 requested songs of 1975. 1. Get Down Tonight - KC & The Sunshine Band 2. Thank God I'm A Country Boy - John Denver 3. That's the Way (I Like It) - K.C. and the Sunshine Band 4. Jaws Theme - John Williams 5. Lady Marmalade - Patti LaBelle 6. Jive Talkin' - Bee Gees 7. You're The First, The Last, My Everything - Barry White 8. Shining Star - Earth Wind And Fire 9. Some Kind of Wonderful - Grand Funk 10. Cut The Cake - Average White Band (AWB) 11. Boogie On Reggae Woman - Stevie Wonder 12. You Are So Beautiful - Joe Cocker 13. The Hustle - Van McCoy 14. Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain and Tennille 15. Rock and Roll All Night (Studio) - Kiss 16. Low Rider - War 17. "They Just Can't Stop It" (Games People Play) - Spinners 18. Lovin' You - Minnie Riperton 19. Someone Saved My Life Tonight - Elton John 20. Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd 21. SOS - ABBA 22. Nights On Braodway - Bee Gees 23. How Sweet It Is - James Taylor 24. Pick Up The Pieces - Average White Band 25. Saturday Night Special - Lynyrd Skynyrd El Link and stay thirsty, my friends.
Here is David Bowie on Soul Train in 1975. First in an interview by Don Cornelius and then the crowd followed by him performing Golden Years and Fame. From the comments on here and another Fame clip he obviously lip synced the performance and was very uncomfortable. He was doing lots of coke in this period of time. David Bowie, Soul Train
Funny you should mention the summer of 1975; that was a favorite of mine. I was 16, and it was my first summer with a driver's license. Got to drive my Dad's old Buick LeSabre (sporty, it was not; but it was transportation). First summer romance. And my parents sent me off on a month-long tour of Europe with a student travel group, the Foreign Study League. We went to Madrid (this was just before Franco died*), Rome, Florence, Venice, Salzberg, Paris, and London. I always think of that summer whenever I hear Magic by Pilot; or Jive Talkin' by the BeeGees; or Listen to What the Man Said by Paul McCartney & Wings. It's one of the summers I would like to re-live. *which made the "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!" jokes in the inaugural season of Saturday Night Light that fall all the more funny to me
Went on my one and only Trek to Philmont Scout Ranch. Got my first real job that summer working at Shakeys Pizza Parlor here in Amarillo. That was a fun job!
The songs I remember, not necessarily my favorites, from that summer: 1. Get Down Tonight - KC & Sunshine Band 2. How Long - Ace 3. Strange Magic - ELO 4. I'm Not in Love - 10 CC 5. Us & Them - Pink Floyd 6. Why Can't We Be Friends - Isley Bros 7. Jive Talkin' - Bee Gees 8. Jackie Blue - Ozark Mtn Daredevils 9. Rock Me A Little While - Doobie Brothers 10. That's the Way of the World - EW&F 11. Bad Luck - Harold Melvin & BNs 12. Listen to What the Man Says - P McCartney the Movies I remember from that summer: 1. Jaws, of course 2. Return of the Pink Panther 3. Monty Python & The Holy Grail Not sure why my posting of nostalgia for that summer but I think we all do this about certain times or periods in our life. Summer 1975 - was for me very pleasant memories....
The summer of '75 ... I graduated from high school in May and then spent the days working in my dad's veterinary lab and the nights as an usherette at Arlington Stadium. And getting ready for my first semester at Texas.
I was 7 in 75, but the summers from 75-79 were the greatest times of my life. Great childhood friends,great music, Unlimited freedom, no worries.
I'm getting a kick out of putting some context to everyone in terms of their age. I would have been 7 at the time, one of my first memories of keeping track of the Horns, remembering that we beat Colorado in the Bluebonnet Bowl. I had been to a few games before that, but I only have vague memories of it, and stories from my parents' friends about how I would be sitting in the stands telling people why Marty Akins should be starting. And I still remember Alan Lowry being my favorite player even though I was only about 3!
I was getting ready to graduate from UT in December 1975. We won the NCAA baseball crown that June. The '75 OU game was a heart breaker. I listened on the radio. OU was probably still on probation, so the networks couldn't televise it. It could have gone either way, but a slew of fumbles did us in. I too remember standing in line to see Jaws. I remember being tentative above going to Port Aransas for awhile after that.
I was busy trying to navigate my Volkswagen Beetle through the massive potholes in the dirt road approaching Soap Creek Saloon off Bee Caves Road. And yes, after spending years paddling out in the Gulf on a surfboard to where dolphins come up and play, after watching Jaws, I didn't go in over ankle deep for three or four years
My daughter was born with a congenital heart defect (atrial septal defect) and we waited and watched until her body was large enough to get through the surgery OK. This came in the summer of '75, when she was 5 years old. We got Denton Cooley to do the surgery. It was successful and my daughter is 100%, but those ten days in the hospital were undoubtedly the worst of my entire life. I remember them in great detail, to the exclusion of almost everything else. I can't recall much of anything else from 1975. Couldn't you have picked another year?
