Join Dave in this episode of "Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave" as he takes a trip down memory lane to 1971 when he graduated from junior high school. Listen as he reminisces about the transition from junior high to high school and shares his experiences of moving from class to class in a more organized school setting. Tune in for a nostalgic look at the past through Dave's gray-haired perspective.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to five minutes with gray hair

Dave. My name is Dave. I've got gray hair. Yeah,

I've got a gray beard. And yes, I wear glasses. Now

let's talk about a little bit more of

an organized show. I

want to start out with a year

and I'm going to go with the date that the

date that we're working on right now, which today for me

is March 11th, 2024. Now I thought it would be fun to start with 1971. So 1971 was the year

that I graduated from junior high school. and

we i don't i don't remember ever

doing a graduation ceremony from junior high school i

don't know if they do that from middle school now or but

anyways it was just okay you're done with eighth grade and

now you're gonna move on to ninth so

you just went from junior high school to high school the next year I

don't remember, really, doesn't mean it didn't

happen. I don't remember going over to high school

to take a tour or anything, but

we might have. I somehow doubt that, but I do believe that

there were some folks from high school, some kids from high school who

came over for a day or two and talked to the

eighth graders on how things worked and

how the differences of what things were. And

we were already moving from class to class once

an hour, right? Because, you

know, in elementary school, everybody stays in the same room for the

whole day. Well, in middle school

or junior high school, you don't. You have English

in one room, math in another room. You have, you know, gym

in the gym, at the gym you have. I had woodshop,

you know, down in the woodshop. English,

all those fun things. So when I went to high school, it wasn't that

much different, but I was still realistically in

eighth grade on March 11th, 2071. I

believe. Yeah. I graduated high

school in 75. So yeah. Anyways. So high

school, I mean, junior high school walked every day. I'd

occasionally ride my bicycle. but

I walked with my friends in the neighborhood. Now,

I did take band in the eighth grade and

didn't study much with it. Never pursued it, never really

gave it what it deserved, so I can't play music today. And

that's okay in my mind. That's water under

the bridge. That's all time passed. And do I

regret it? No, not really. I

took guitar lessons later on in life. I regret not

keeping those up, but that would have just been for the fun of

it. I never wanted to be a musician. I

wanted to be the guy introducing the musicians. I wanted to be the guy on stage

who was the emcee or was the disc jockey or things like that. But

I don't really remember ever wanting to be a musician. You

know, during those days, it was, you know, it's

still kind of cool out in Michigan, you

know, and so you're wearing coats to school. I remember it

was, it was, we had a

three-story junior high school. And

it was, and there was actually an elevator. And

I remember as an eighth grader telling the sixth

graders when they came in that you had to buy an

elevator pass. We

didn't charge them much, but we all made a few bucks over the year.

Oh, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. But

that's what you do to the younger generations as they're coming

in. It just is. I'm sorry, folks, but

life goes on. I hope

things have changed on that scope of

things. There

were two or three classes in junior high

school that I really enjoyed. One was woodshop, of

course. Another one was I

took a drafting class, and I

really, really enjoyed that. The

drawing part of it, the mechanical part of it,

and I was starting to understand a lot more about it, and I wish

I had pursued it more, because I believe

that that would have been an interesting course

for my life if I had tried that. Now, that being said,

I don't know that I would have if

I had continued on, but I don't know. I don't remember in

high school if that was a course that

was available to me. It might have been, but I honestly don't remember.

But that class I enjoyed. I

enjoyed the whole time. That was one of the better

grades I'd gotten, the shop classes, that kind of class. There

was a computer class, a data processing class in

high school that I took with Mr. V. And

that one was one of my favorite classes. I liked them and they held

my interest. I did well. I

would do okay on the English and the math and the history. I

did a little better in civics than I did in,

which we now would call poli-sci or political science, because

I always enjoyed that. but

we didn't really have that in junior high school, but we had, you

know, the sciences that we had, I was okay with

it. I was lucky in high school, and

I know we're not talking about high school, but I did not have to take biology. I

only, I got away, not got away with, but the

only requirement we had was we had to take one, and I took earth

science, which I found to be very, very interesting. I

really, really did, and it was, A class we'll talk more

about as time goes on. But now has come

to the time that I want to talk about how

much things were back in 1971 on this day. The average household income

was $9,876. It was. I mean, cars. The Ford Pinto. The

Ford Pinto was $2,385. The Chevrolet Nova was $3,099. The

Buick Skylark was $3,463. The Volkswagen Beetle, are you ready for this? The Volkswagen

Beetle, it was a German import, was $1,899. You could buy, back

on March 11th, 1971. You're not gonna believe this one. You

could buy a Porsche 924 for $11,995. You can't do that now. You just, you can't. Oh

my gosh, it's funny. Um, McDonald's hamburgers

on this day in 1971 were

20 cents a piece, 20 cents.

Postage stamps were six cents. Um,

uh, TVs, which

weren't very big, the largest you could get back in those days,

the largest was a 25 inch. And

we're looking at now what? 60, 80, 100 inch TVs,

a 25 inch color TV in colonial

style, wood finished cabinet, $699.95. And

that was from Sears. Believe

that? Oh my God, this is

funny. Oh

my goodness, this is funny. So

let's go to music. Today,

well, let's put it this way. From

March 27th through, February

27th, I'm sorry, through March 6th, actually

March 13th, These are the top, the

number one songs. The

week of February 27th, One

Bad Apple by the Osmond Brothers. March

6th that week was Mama's Pearl by the Jackson Five.

March 13th was One Bad Apple Again

by the Osmonds. It's

funny, isn't it? The

number one song for the year was

Joy to the World by Three Dog Night. Amazing!

I remember all these songs. I

do. Back then, you collected albums. You didn't collect DVDs.

nothing on there was no such thing or wasn't even thought of

for cell phone jet so um

it's fun i tell you and see um okay

so a gallon of milk in 1971 went

for a dollar and i remember we only bought half gallons

and they were not in plastic jugs they were in that

wax coated paper so Anyways,

folks, this is more about what

I'm thinking for the podcast. I hope it's something that

you like, but I want to bring back the things that happened

as a baby boomer when we were growing up. Baby boomers

are my primary avatar, my primary audience here.

If you're not a baby boomer and you're listening, I think it's great. Thank you.

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an email. Well, that's all I got for today, folks. I'm gonna

say, Bye-bye, and I'll talk to you

again tomorrow, and we'll see what else was happening in