Showing posts with label 1974. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1974. Show all posts

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Casper of the 1970s.

 

Casper mayor's son remembers him as an industrious leader and an unsettled father.

I don't remember this Mayor at all, but then in 1974, the year this is sort of tied to, I was eleven years old.

Still, this gives a really good glimpse at the Casper that was, even when it tries to portray the city as sort of a typical midwestern slow city, and its not a pretty picture at all.

“Casper in the ‘70s was pretty much an idyllic, all-American, apple pie, pickup truck, horse-riding, cowboy-hat-wearing type of community,” Cody said almost two months after his father died.

Charles came to Wyoming from Michigan. He shot guns and rode his motorcycle and took his kids up Casper Mountain. Under the all-Americanness, though, was the tender underbelly of a family fraying at the seams.

“He was the Hunter S. Thompson in the Casper world of mayoral politics,” Cody said of Charles. “He really was like the party mayor,” he added.

Charles spent his free time drinking, doing hard drugs and chasing women. Everything he did, he did to the fullest extent. He told Cody once that he never lost a case as a litigator. He had a “narcissistic” drive, Cody said, to be the best at what he did, even if it was at the expense of others.

On June 28, 1974, the Casper Star-Tribune reported that Charles had declared a bid for a state Senate seat as a Democrat. The mayor believed that “city and county officials are best equipped to solve impact growth problems.”

I think the "drinking, doing hard drugs and chasing women" was a lot more common amongst Casper's elite in the days than we might want to admit.  Not the slow little town some what to claim they remembers.

The author apparently went on to be a lawyer in the Southwest.

Monday, March 17, 2025

M103 Heavy Tank, National Museum of Military Vehicles.


A M103 Heavy Tank.


A Cold War giant, the M103 served from 1957 to 1974, with its final years being used by the Marine Corps.  By the time it entered service, the M60b was already in use and the Army regarded the heavy M103 as obsolescent.

While very impressive in size, the tank was too big even for its own era, and plagued with various problems accordingly.


This one must be a rebuilding project.  It's the second one I've seen, the other being at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center / USAHEC

Last edition:

Mortars. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Tuesday, December 31, 1974. Americans get to own gold again.

Depression era restrictions on the private ownership of gold in the US were removed.

The prohibition, as well as government price setting of Gold, had come into effect in 1933.

South African Kugerrands and Canadian gold coins immediately became very popular as a hedge against inflation.

France ended its state monopoly on television.

Catfish Hunter signed with the Yankees, becoming baseball's highest paid player at that point.


Last edition:

Monday, December 16, 1974. Safe Drinking Water.

Monday, December 16, 2024

Monday, December 16, 1974. Safe Drinking Water.

The Republic of Mali invaded the Republic of Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) in a border conflict over water rights.

The United States Senate unanimously (93 to 0) ratified the Geneva Protocol, the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", almost 50 years after it had first been signed signed in Switzerland on June 17, 1925, and became effective on February 28, 1928.

Hmmm. . . . 

The Safe Drinking Water Act was signed into law.

Probably wouldn't happen today.

ANZUK, a military unit created in 1971 by agreement of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, was disbanded after slightly more than two years of having been in existence.

No surprise, given the Vietnam War and the "winds of change".

The Towering Inferno premiered.  I recall seeing it in the theaters with a friend on a Saturday afternoon, even though I was 11 years old.  It was awful.

Frankly, they shouldn't have let us in the movie at all.  I'm sure we walked down and watched it, but it features a totally stupid 1970s example of full frontal that serves no purpose other than to be a toss out to the Playboy ethos of the era, which no 11 year old, or 21 year old, or 61 year old, should have to put up with.

It also, fwiw, runs down the National Guard, in the 1970s post Vietnam War style.

And the plot is moronic.  One of the 1970s scare movies.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 17, 1974. Greek democracy restored.

Labels: 

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Sunday, November 17, 1974. Greek democracy restored.

The Greek New Democracy Party won the first Greek parliamentary election since 1964 and the first since the fall of the Greek military junta.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 8, 1974. WIN


Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Tuesday, October 8, 1974. WIN


President Ford launched his "Whip Inflation Now" (WIN) campaign. 


There are some very serious lessons from The Great Inflation that have been largely forgotten, not the least of which is that running the massive deficits we currently are inevitably will feed into an inflationary cycle.  Neither party, nor the American public in general, have any fiscal restraint.

The campaign was a failure.  High inflation would persist until the Reagan administration intentionally through the economy into a recession, which cured it.

Pins with WIN were offered for free.

The Franklin National Bank on Long Island failed, the largest bank failure in U.S. History. 

Baja California Sur as its 30th state and Quintana Roo were added as the 30th and 31st Mexican states.

Last edition

Monday, September 16, 1974. Letting the evaders and deserters off, somewhat.

Monday, September 16, 2024

Monday, September 16, 1974. Letting the evaders and deserters off, somewhat.

President Ford issued a conditional amnesty to American draft evaders and military deserters provided that they agree to work for 24 months in alternative service.

In my view, this was a mistake.

President Carter would compound the mistake in 1977 by issuing a general pardon to most evaders, but not deserters.

None of this should have been granted.  People died in the place of those who deserted and evaded. If a person had a genuine objection, and more than a few did, the honorable thing would have been to refuse to serve and to take the consequences.  Muhammed Ali provides an example of this, as does Walt Whitman from an earlier era.

The legacy of the Vietnam War in this regard continues to haunt us.  The same generation that reviled their parents, went on to brand their parents "the Greatest Generation", and never made peace with the largescale evadence of the call of duty.  Examples of course, abound, including Donald Trump, who was excused priority in the draft due to shin splints, and Joe Biden, who had multiple deferments including health related ones.

The first female Royal Canadian Mounted Police began training.

The Provisional IRA assassinated Martin McBirney QC, 56, and Rory Conaghan, 54, both judges in Northern Ireland.

Argentinian terrorist set off fifty bombs, killing four people.

The Bay Area Underwater Rapid Transit Tube, the first tunnel underneath the San Francisco Bay, opened to the public.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 19, 1974. Recognizing independence.

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Saturday. September 7, 1974. Independence for Mozambique.

Portugal and FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) recognized independence for Mozambique, with it to formally occur on June 25, 1975.  The negotiations took place in Zambia.

FRELIMO, a far left wing political party that was formally Communist, has governed the country continually since that time.  It has evolved into a democratic socialist party.

Last edition: 

Wednesday, September 4, 1974. Recognizing East Germany.