What were the 70's like?

I know - If some of you remember, I posted a question like this, very similar not too long ago, but I still wonder. What was the 70s era like? Was the music good at the time? The clothes? What was school like? Was school back then, like it is now?

Just curious...

I didn't live in the 70's but I CAN tell you that the music was more than good.

I thought it was great. I liked the first part more than the last. The music was awesome, one good tune after the other. I remember picking up hitch hikers and giving them a ride as far as I was going, and sometimes see them get another ride before they disappeared from view. People were more trusting then. There was a lot of racial tension especially in the first part of the 70’s. The Viet Nam War created a special unity among the civilian population against the war and the government for its involvement. The mood was bittersweet. I lost two friends to the war. The sexual revolution mood of the sixties was still prevalent and there was camaraderie with everyone you met. Jobs were plentiful and everywhere I went it was like a boomtown. In our area there was a huge one floor building that was turned into a D.J. bar and dance hall. For $5 you got all of the keg beer you could drink, and there were at least a thousand people there, during college breaks there were even more. Gas was cheap, about 40 cents a gallon, the pay was decent and houses and rent were both affordable. I was a carpenter and could go to any town and show up on a job site and get hired instantly.

The first part was great. The second half was different. It was obvious that the war couldn’t be won, and after President Nixon and VP Spiro Agnew resigned over the Watergate incident, the mood of the entire country changed to a more somber one. The image of invincibility and moral accuracy of the United States was being questioned by citizens on a personal level; that teenage sense of immortality was fading. Inflation started to creep in and you could feel the camaraderie draining away. The late seventies, in my opinion, was the beginning of true corporate greed, banks were giving mortgages on houses for three times their actual value and interest rates for them went as high as 14%. It went down hill until the great recession of the ‘80’s.

Overall I liked the 70’s.