Remember:

Skylab?
I was eight but I remember hearing about it being unstable and debris hitting the earth. I would ask my mother if it would fall in Del Rio and would imagine it crashing on a field near my grandparent's home. My lil sister was born in June and I forgot all about Skylab falling until it did in July in Australia and over the Indian Ocean.

I had found a few pieces of what was probably welded lawnmower parts but it looked cool enough for me to pretend it was a part of Skylab. I'm sure plenty of kids had their share of believed Skylab pieces.

Three Mile Island?
I remember my mom being freaked out because she was pregnant with my sister and wondered what the impact could be. She was a rather large sized baby and is the tallest in the family but that's about it.

PattyHearst?
I remember the news being on all the time (small black and white tv) and my mom telling me what could happen if I didn't hold her hand and about kidnappings and brain washings and cults (topic of cults and brain washings and cults came up again with Jim Jones. I think this is why I am not a joiner.) something about not licking stickers or stamps not even the Green Stamps I enjoyed licking and putting into the books,and being too rich and on and on...I was only UGH! I was only three (four when she was arrested)! Obviously made an impression on me because I went into kindergarten knowing what brainwashing was. I remember some lil girl repeating the same sentence over and over and telling her to stop brainwashing us because we had not had lunch yet.

I also liked wearing an old Vietnam War beret I picked up somewhere and a toy machine gun. Although I think that was more influenced by WWII movies and documentaries I would watch (Grandfather a WWII Vet so all this was around me at a very young age) and maybe even That Don Rickles Show-C.P.O. Sharkey, for some reason I really dug that show. Anyway there is a photo of me somewhere with me wearing my school uniform a beret that is way to big for my head and a belt of toy bullets for my toy machine gun. How did that happen? I really was a doll and tea set girl, must have been someone elses.

Wide World of Sports?
I remember the sport's commercials that would run, gymnastics, figure skating and surfing. I also remember Dorothy Hamill, got my haircut to look like her. Didn't work if you had curly hair. It was cut and style perfectly at the salon but it was a wreck after I got home and napped. Until it grew out there were a few times my mom was told, "Oh you have two boys?".