Happy Birthday...

So, Sunday June 1st is my birthday. Oh joy.

But instead of writing a long diatribe lamenting about turning 36-ish, I’ve decided I would reflect on what it means to be a girl born in the early 70’s. So to my other 30-ish friends and family, perhaps you can relate.

Girls, you were born in the early 70's if...

You remember your mother’s friend wearing the coolest platform sneakers with the Pepsi wave on the side (or at least I do).

You had a Garfield eraser and practiced drawing him on your scribblers.

You just realized you can still draw Garfield.

Ma-Ma-Ma-Max actually means something to you.

You owned something with Holly Hobby on it. (I actually had the life-size playhouse in my room. Coolest thing ever.)

You remember how disgusting fruit-flavoured chips were. Thank God that didn't last.

Thursday nights meant hanging out with the gang from Cheers and seeing what the Cosby kids were up to.

Sunday nights were about watching the Wonderful World of Disney, the Beachcombers and Fraggle Rock, in that order.

Adults didn't seem concerned with the fact that kids could buy candied cigarettes...you know, the ones that had the little puff of "smoke" when you first blew into them?

You wore pins that held solid perfume in a secret compartment.

Barbie was a “superstar”.

You played “pong” on your black and white tv and wondered “what will they think of next?” And then Atari came out and completely blew your mind.

You spent four hours every Saturday afternoon listening to Dick Clark’s top 40 so you could record your favourite songs onto your cassette tapes.

You still can’t see a St. Bernard without having flashbacks of Cujo jumping on the passenger window of the car.

Your status in junior high was determined by three things: how many Swatches you owned, how many friendship pins you had on your sneakers and whether or not you had a real K-Way and not an imitation one.

You fought with your friends over who would get Shaun Cassidy when you played “boyfriends.” (Poor Parker.)

You had cases of Pop Shoppe Pop in your basement. (My favourite was black cherry.)

You folded up your already tapered jeans to make them even more tapered.

You owned the entire collection of Little House on the Prairie books.

You had a rainbow sweatshirt with puffy sleeves.

You also owned a bubble-knit sweater with pom-poms.

You actually had discussions about how you “trained your hair” to feather back.

You carried the fold over “comb and brush” combo in your back pocket for regular “feather” maintenance.

Olivia Newton John’s black outfit at the end of Grease was the raciest thing you had seen to that point. That's also when you wanted your first pair of high heels...just like the wooden ones she was wearing.

You choreographed your own routines to the entire Saturday Night Fever album.

Wal-Mart was Woolco and you remember the day hundreds of people lined up outside the local Woolco for the first shipment of Cabbage Patch Kids.

For my friends who lived near the NB/Maine border...you stayed up until 1am on Saturday nights to watch Stacy's Jamboree out of Bangor.

And finally...you remember playing with the dead hornets in the back window of your car. Why? Because you weren't restricted by those pesky seatbelts. :)