If you didn't have to live through the 1970's

For those of you lucky enough to have skipped the 1970's (the first time around, any way), James Lileks encapsulates (perhaps that should be encrapsulates) the decade that never should have been:

[. . .] a dreadful 70s generic look that screams END OF AMERICAN INFLUENCE AND CONFIDENCE, plus Kojak-style urban decay. If you weren't around during the rise of the generics you might not recall how depressing these products were; yellow cans that said BEER, yellow boxes of gummint cheese, yellow generic cigarettes. You saw a world where retail would consist entirely of a 7-11 store with buzzing fluorescent lights and the stink of incinerated coffee, a fat greasy unshaven clerk looking at you between glances at a yellow-covered magazine whose cover simply said SMUT, shelves and shelves of generic food, CHUDs in the parking lot siphoning gas from your '77 Pacer — she was twenty years on, and parts were hard to find — while you put a few items in the filthy plastic basket. This was our future in 1975. Little did we know that things would turn around, and in a few years we'd all be spending money on gourmet jelly beans. Morning in America!