1977

1977

Woodbine Avenue

Overbrook

Philadelphia, PA

My age: 21-22

School- Penn State;  I graduate in August with a BS in Adolescent Counseling.  Now I had to go find a damn job. I had to leave my beloved Penn State and I had to move back home because I didn't have any damn money.  My life went from great to sad in a very short period of time.

Work- I worked as a clerk at this place: Thomas Wolf Resume Company.  The job was deadens after two years,  The FBI shut this company down for mail fraud.

Music- songs were in two camps at this time: rock and roll or disco.

• "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" Andy Gibb
•   "Tonight's the Night" Rod Stewart
• "Best of My Love" The Emotions
• "Evergreen" Barbra Streisand
• "Don't Leave Me This Way" Thelma Houston
• "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" Rita Coolidge
• "Undercover Angel" Alan O'Day
• "Torn Between Two Lovers" Mary MacGregor
• "I'm Your Boogie Man" KC and the Sunshine Band
• "Dancing Queen" ABBA- I hate this song.
• "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" Leo Sayer
• "Margaritaville" Jimmy Buffett- I never liked anything he sang.
• "Telephone Line" Electric Light Orchestra
• "Sir Duke" Stevie Wonder
• "Hotel California" Eagles
• "Rich Girl" Hall & Oates
• "When I Need You" Leo Sayer
•   "Car Wash" Rose Royce
• "You Don't Have to Be a Star (To Be in My Show)"Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr.
• "Fly Like an Eagle" Steve Miller Band
• "Don't Give Up on Us" David Soul
• "On and On" Stephen Bishop
• "Feels Like the First Time" Foreigner
• "Couldn't Get It Right" Climax Blues Band
• "Easy" Commodores
• "Right Time of the Night" Jennifer Warnes
• "I've Got Love on My Mind" Natalie Cole
•  "Blinded by the Light" Manfred Mann's Earth Band
• "Looks Like We Made It" Barry Manilow
• "Dreams" Fleetwood Mac
•  "I'm in You" Peter Frampton
•   "Lucille" Kenny Rogers
• "The Things We Do for Love" 10cc
• "Da Doo Ron Ron" Shaun Cassidy
• "Handy Man" James Taylor
• "Just a Song Before I Go" Crosby, Stills & Nash
• "Swayin' to the Music (Slow Dancing)" Johnny Rivers
•  "I Wish" Stevie Wonder
•  "Don't Stop" Fleetwood Mac
•  "Barracuda" Heart
•  "Night Moves" Bob Seger - I loved, loved, loved this song and every time I hear it, I'm happy.
•  "You're My World" Helen Reddy
• "New Kid in Town" Eagles
• "My Heart Belongs to Me" Barbra Streisand
• "Way Down" Elvis Presley- I dont remember this song and this was probably his last song because he died this year.
• "Weekend in New England" Barry Manilow- I hate this song.
• "Cold as Ice" Foreigner
•  "Lost Without Your Love" Bread
• "Lido Shuffle" Boz Scaggs
• "Keep It Comin' Love" KC and the Sunshine Band
• "You Made Me Believe in Magic" Bay City Rollers
• "That's Rock 'n' Roll" Shaun Cassidy
• "Love So Right" Bee Gees
• "Nobody Does It Better" Carly Simon
• "I Wanna Get Next to You" Rose Royce
• "Somebody to Love" Queen- OMG, I couldn't stand Queen.
• "Muskrat Love" Captain &  Tennille- I hated this song.
• "Walk This Way" Aerosmith
• "Year of the Cat" Al Stewart
• "Boogie Nights" Heatwave
• "Go Your Own Way" Fleetwood Mac
• "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" Elton John
• "Knowing Me, Knowing You" ABBA
• "How Much Love" Leo Sayer

Movies

• Goodbye Girl
• Annie Hall- I loved this movie but now, it isn't interesting to me.
• Oh God
• Airport 77
• Julia- I loved this movie and I cant find it anywhere to watch on demand.
• The Late Show
• Looking for Mr. Goodbar
• MacArthur
• The Turning Point

Movies I didn't see:

• Saturday Night Fever- I don't know why I never saw this movie as I like Travolta.
• Star Wars- I'm not SciFi.
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind- ditto

Books- I am reading JD Salinger and authors who published in the 1940s and 50s. Dorothy Parker, James Thurber and F. Scott fitzgerald are my favorites.

Travels

• o         For spring break, we drove to Key West, FL and spent a week drinking too much.  I don't remember much this trip.
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•         Once I finished college in August, I spent about a month on Long Beach Island at my parents' home.
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• o       Now that I was working and had a few bucks, I took weekend trips to NYC and Washington, DC and felt very liberated and free.
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News Events

• Freddie Prince committed suicide.  His death left me depressed for days.
• After campaigning by Anita Bryant and her anti-gay "Save Our Children" crusade, Miami-Dade County, Floridavoters overwhelmingly vote to repeal the county's gay rights ordinance.
• Elvis Presley dies at age 42. This came as no surprise to me because I thought he was an old, overweight, out of shape man.
• Jimmy Carter succeeds Gerald Ford as the 39th President of the United States.
•  U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam War draft evaders. This was very controversial. But I think it was the right move.  We needed to move on from this dreadful war.
• Roots aired on the TV for several weeks and everyone was memorized.

Family and friends

• My mom turned 50, half a century. I thought this was so old. And she had a kid in 1^st grade.
• As a graduation gift, my father bought me my first month of health insurance. “Congratulations and welcome to the adult world,” he mockingly told me. I wanted to throw up with all this new adulthood bullshit.
• I don't have a car so I have to bum rides from friends, hitchhike or take the bus through life.
• My sister, Tricia, started college in the fall.  She also went to Penn State.  So, my father dropped her off and picked me up and took me back home to Philadelphia.  While I appreciated that I had a place to stay until further notice, I hated that day.  It was a big surrender to all my freedoms.  I had to become a family member again.
• I joined the Columbia Record Club.  For $1, I got 12 free albums and committed to buy thousands more in the next three years.  I never bought any more records and I never understood how this record club ever made any money. Maybe some people fulfilled their obligation but I never did.