Genuine question, how did anyone actually survive the 1970s?

"My eyes would burn so badly from the air pollution when visiting LA that I'd have to roll the car windows up."

Born in the San Fernando Valley in 1962, finally left in 1990.  My fifth-grade teacher would say, 'Open the windows and let the fresh smog in.'"

"I grew up in the Philadelphia area, and the pollution was nasty here, too. Everything seemed to be covered with a fine grit. People who want to roll back EPA regulations forget or have never experienced how bad it was."

"In New York, too. Even into the '80s. Wore a suit and a white shirt every day to work (even in 95+ degree weather with barely functioning AC in the subway). Would come home with black soot rings on my cuffs and collar from the ambient soot from cars, trucks, and ubiquitous smokers in the office."

"I remember changing the oil and dumping the used oil on the ground."

"Auto magazines at the time instructed you to dig a little hole in the backyard and pour the oil in it."

"So many people were screwing so many others. Deep Throat was a Top 10 movie the year it was released."

"And the corollary of people killed by drunk drivers or killing themselves by driving drunk."—Dog-boy

"My parents held large parties, and I always remember a local priest coming by, getting absolutely sloshed, then smiling and waving, and hopping behind the wheel to drive himself home."

"It was often one of the kids' jobs to pass a beer from the cooler to whoever was driving."

"My mother would hand us her cocktail when she needed to shift gears."

"When my dad would get a new car in the '70s, he would take the back seatbelts out because they were uncomfortable for passengers to sit on."

"I remember the gas lines because I worked at a convenience store/gas station during the worst of it in 1979. I'd show up to work at 6:30 a.m., and there was already a long line of cars waiting. Every week, the price was going up a nickel, which was a lot then."

"There were riots over gas. The '70s were far worse than anything we have now."

"Smoking everywhere: Subways, zoos, movie theaters, elementary schools, etc."—RKFRini

"High schools with their own smoking area."—10OCT77

"Airplanes. Remember the captain turning off the 'No Smoking' signs, and suddenly the whole plane smelled like cigarettes?"

"The nurses' stations in hospitals were full of ashtrays with smoldering cigarettes waiting for the staff to come back and take a quick drag before going into another patient's room."

"My pediatrician smoked while he examined me."

"Both my parents smoked. They would both smoke in the car with the windows rolled up during winter road trips. That cured me of ever wanting to smoke, thank God. All my friends and my little sister smoked, too. So happy that it repulsed me!"

"I have a cigarette burn mark on my arm from a stranger turning with a lit cigarette while we were standing at the edge of Crater Lake one summer. I remember how unbothered both he and my parents were about it. Like, sure, we are irresponsible with fire and children all the time. No big deal."

"The entire world smelled like cigarettes."

"I saw an interview once with a soldier, and he stated he was walking point in Vietnam, and two days later, he was sitting in his parents' living room. Went from hunting people to just being expected to be normal again in 48 hours. They never even tried to ease them back into society or address any problems they may have developed while serving their country. It was, 'Thanks for your service, now go on with your life.' Criminal, what we did to these soldiers."

"And the fact that they were drafted. I can’t even imagine what it would be like for me to have my 18-year-old son forced to be put into a situation like that. Or for him, of course."

"I quit more jobs that decade than any other. Sometimes the same day I started. The physical assault, the innuendo, the leers. God, I had blocked it. I started dating a guy who had a black belt in karate to make me feel safer."

"A man copping a feel was just part of being a woman."

"Women only became legally eligible for credit cards in 1974!"

"I was 14 years old in 1978. My guidance counselor reviewed my course selections for the next year of high school, and one of my choices was chemistry. He looked at me and said, 'Now, why would a young lady need chemistry – why don't we change that to secretarial skills instead?' And me, being a kid not knowing any better, said, 'Okay,' and he enrolled me in learning to type and do shorthand/dictation like a good little girl. That's what I don't miss about the 1970s: Being told as a young lady I have limited things that I should be preparing for and doing in my life."

"Oh yeah, everywhere had the local 'flasher.'"

"We were young girls (pre-teen), and there was a perv in the next town who would wear a raincoat and flash when we walked by. We got so sick and disgusted after more than a year of this that we started yelling at him (which didn't work), and finally, we started throwing rocks (that worked), and he stopped flashing (at least us). There was also a streaking fad in the 1970s; it was a strange time."

"I had a friend in high school who, at 15, was dating a 28-year-old. Common knowledge, and nobody was concerned."

"Pedophilia was still pretty prevalent in the mainstream culture. Many rockstars, especially."

"Yes – it was normal. My older sister and aunt would go to bars at 14, meeting 'boyfriends.'"

"Racism. It was even promoted on TV shows, and as a child, I had no clue I was laughing at people being racist."—Jumpy_Ebb2417

"The blatant racism. If I took a current 20-year-old and transported them back to 1975, the public's vocal racism would absolutely shock them."—One-Hand-Rending

"Kids in elementary school would say things that were racial slurs."

"Openly mocking and threatening gay people."

"I grew up in California, and the number of serial killers in those days was crazy. I remember being afraid to walk to school because of the Zodiac."

"It was literally called the Golden Age of Serial Killing. Bundy, Gacy, Berkowitz, Alcala, Dahmer, The Zodiac, Hillside Strangler, Golden State Killer aka The Original Night Stalker..."

"I remember waiting outside in the rain for them to check out my elementary school  for a bomb – and it was very possible there was a bomb."

"It was really considered just a minor inconvenience until a guy shot some people while trying to take over a plane."

"We tried to buy our first house. The mortgage rate was over 14 percent."

"Eighteen percent interest rates to buy a house."—415Frisco415

"How expensive everything was. Inflation was sky high."

"My folks had shag carpet going up the side of the bathtub! It was Harvest Gold to match the sink and tub."

"And colored toilet paper seems really disturbing now. I remember pink and bright blue and even yellow, I think."

"I have a couple of vintage quilts that were made out of that polyester double-knit fabric, and they are the heaviest, warmest blankets we own. I completely understand why that stuff went out of fashion — it must’ve been like wearing your own personal furnace all day."

"That was one of my biggest fears as a kid. You couldn’t watch two hours of TV without seeing someone struggling in quicksand."

"Those of us who grew up in the '70s were led to believe that this would be a much bigger problem than it actually is."

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.