Write Team: Spending my ‘wonder years’ in the 70s

It seems the older I get, the more nostalgic I become, wishing for days long past. While, looking at the big picture, there is nothing really wrong with our current situations or positions in life, but I still miss how things used to be.

They say that everyone’s “wonder years” are the years between the ages of 10 and 18, or up until you graduate from high school. I was lucky enough to spend my wonder years in the 70s.

My kids will tell you that I am a huge fan of 70s music, and therefore they have become fans of that era as well. The soundtrack of my life was 70s music including early 70s groups like Three Dog Night, the Grass Roots and the Jackson Five. “Joy to the World,” the Three Dog Night version still is one of the top charting songs of all time.

To help feed my cravings for70s music, I was an early fan of the SiriusXM channel “70s on 7″; a satellite channel that plays nothing but hits from the 70s. Over New Year’s week, the channel featured the top 100 songs from the year 1978, utilizing the iconic Casey Kasem and his countdown. So many great tunes.

1978 holds its place in my life to mark a huge milestone and rite of passage.

1978 is the year Dave Hall, Mark Strehl and I graduated from high school, although not the same high school. Dave and Mark are OHS alumni while I graduated from Silver Creek High School, San Jose, California. I mention Dave and Mark because those two are like brothers to me, and our varied experiences always seem to hold a central theme, that being a time we can go back to in life and celebrate the context of the time. Whether we were together in high school is irrelevant, the memories from that year are all the same.

The day we graduated high school in 1978, the number one song in the country was “Too Much Too Little Too Late” by Johnny Mathis and Denice Williams. Which means if we were diving around back then, cranking the tunes from the Big 89, WLS, that was the tune we were rocking out to. Sadly, the only stations to hear that song now are on the soft rock stations Thankfully, by Nov. 1, and deep into our freshman year of college, it was replaced by “Hot Child in The City” by Nick Gilder.

In August of 1978, National Lampoon Magazine dipped their toe into movie making by releasing “Animal House.” I’m not sure we will ever know the true impact that movie has had on the lives of college freshman from 1978, but to this day, I can recite almost every line, and they still come in handy, as does the music. The poetic “Shama Lama Ding Dong” will always serve as the best metaphor for life.

I’d like to say that I have matured a lot since 1978 but the fact that I still laugh at some of the stupidest things ever uttered would make an argument that hasn’t happened. And I think that’s OK. I would much rather act like an immature 18-year-old than a fuddy-duddy in my 60s. I don’t feel my age, why should I act it.

The music of our youth serves to keep us young and our thoughts fresh. To quote one of the top five songs from 1978 “Get down, Boogie Oogie Oogie.”

Jonathan Freeburg is an Ottawa transplant for the past two decades-plus and a regular contributor to 1430 WCMY Radio. He can be reached at newsroom@shawmedia.com.