Where Were You in 1973?-

Courthouse Museum asks the question and stimulates memories from 50 years ago

Merced Mayor Pro Tem Sam Pipes and Mayor Edwin Dewhirst view the plaque commemorating the opening of the M Street Bridge over Bear Creek in August 1973. The plaque remains at the bridge. It cost under three-hundred thousand dollars to build fifty years ago. Photo: Merced Courthouse Museum

If you’re over fifty, reminisce along with me for this column.

If you’re under fifty, read this anyway because your day is coming.

The Merced Courthouse Museum’s latest exhibit focuses on the year 1973.

Using photographs acquired from the Merced Sun Star and other sources, the rooms of the Museum come alive with memories from that particular time fifty years ago.

The photos include the successful completion of the Bear Creek Bridge at M Street, protests over a plan to build the County office building in front of the Courthouse, and other projects from that year. Even how the community dealt with the Arab Oil Embargo gets a photographic representation in the exhibit.

As the year began, gas was thirty-nine cents a gallon. By October, the price would go up and rationing would start thanks to the Embargo.

This ARCO station attendant stands next to a gasoline pump in 1973 Merced. Gas rationing started shortly after the Arab Oil Embargo began. Photo: Merced Courthouse Museum

The exhibit includes icons from 1973 within the display cases. There are vinyl record albums, a fondue set, and a sample of the fashions worn by the hip wannabees of the era.

Plaid pants for the guys and a polka-dot skirt for the ladies.

Among the photos is a series of three shots of the dissembling of the Westgate Plaza sign from downtown Merced.

The Sun Star photos are in glorious black and white.

Display cases show icons from 1973. In the background of this photo is a sampling of fashion choices from that time. Photo: Merced Courthouse Museum

But for many of us, especially those who did not live in Merced County in 1973, the exhibit affords an opportunity to look back on our lives fifty years ago.

I was a sixteen year old who just got a driver permit. Walking out of the Department of Motor Vehicles Department, then housed inside the Lewis County (New York) Courthouse building, my dad said to me, “Now you’ll have to learn how to drive.”

I ran my first red light within minutes as I was leaving the village of Lowville. That was not a great start. But somehow, I got better at obeying the rules of the road.

Steve as a teen. I’m in the top row center of this photo of the South Lewis High School Tennis Club from 1973. Photo: The Talon (South Lewis High School Yearbook)

On weekday mornings in my hometown back in 1973, the sounds of two announcers at radio station WBRV would help me get moving for the day.

George and Ed hosted a popular morning show with segments that served as signals for me to get myself in gear to make it to the school bus stop near my house.

Here was the routine: breakfast by the 7:00 AM news, brush teeth by the 7:20 Swap Shop program, homework papers and school books ready to go by the 7:30 weather report, and out the door to the bus stop by the 7:40 sports program.

The bus arrived shortly before 8:00 and I was on my way to high school.

Steve’s parents. My mom and dad from about fifty years ago. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

In 1973, my family was among the fortunate to have cable TV. Gone were the days of using an antenna to capture two or three stations within range of the stations’ transmitting towers.

In 1973 with cable TV, we now had an amazing ten channels from which to choose.

One of those stations was WPIX in New York City where my brother could watch practically every Yankee game, and where my dad and I could watch reruns of The Honeymooners.

I can proudly say that I knew the dialogue of each episode of the original thirty-nine episodes before I entered college. Ralph and Ed from the Honeymooners were almost as common as the daily drop-in visits from my Grandma and Grandpa Newvine, my great aunt Myrtle, our neighbor Fred, and others who always found the Newvine home warm and welcoming.

Instant coffee with some kind of baked good was always served to our nightly visitors. If there was time, a game of cards would keep us entertained.

Courthouse Plaque. (Left) Local student Darcy Bentley looks at the plaque in front of the Courthouse Museum. A group known as the Merced Lawyer’s Wives conducted the first Courthouse Tour in 1973, (Right) The plaque remains in place with only the weather wearing the finish. Left photo: Merced Courthouse Museum. Right photo: Steve Newvine

While the focus on this exhibit is 1973, it is worth noting that the Merced County Courthouse Museum marks a fortieth anniversary this year. The Museum, established in part thanks to the efforts of the Merced Lawyer’s Wives group, opened in 1983.

1973 was a special year for the community of Merced. It was a time that made an impression on all of us, even if you did not live here then.
It was a pivotal time in our lives.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His California books are available for sale at the Merced Courthouse Museum Gift Shop. His childhood memoir A Bundle of Memories is available at Lulu.com