Two readers took me up on my offer yesterday to share a personal story about a 70s fad. So here goes.
The year was 1973 and a wild trend was sweeping the nation. The fad and the name—streaking—had begun centuries earlier, but for some reason it made a big comeback in 1973.
During the time of this craze, my job as a seventh grade girl was to spend as much time as possible on the telephone. My girlfriends and I talked for hours after school and on the weekends. Literally, hours.
Our household phone hung on a wall in the kitchen. Like many houses, there was a circular traffic pattern joining the foyer, living room, dining room and kitchen, where my brothers used to chase each other pushing Tonka trucks. The phone cord reached from the kitchen to an arm chair around the corner in the dining room, where I spent the bulk of my adolescent years.
One Saturday afternoon my parents tried everything to get me off the phone. Little brothers yelling and screaming, pots and pans clanging, nothing fazed me.
Just then, my very clever parents paraded in and ran the foyer-living room-dining room-kitchen circuit. All they had on were novelty hats, which they held over their frontal regions. The phone receiver I held instantly crashed on to the floor.
Parental streaking: The fast-acting remedy for your difficult teenager.
Word Nymph 
I never thought you would put this story in print.
Today that parental parade would instantly be on you tube.
Maury Povich is holding on line 2.
That’s hilarious. My parents would never have thought of such a thing. But just imagining it is making me smile.
Rush on line 3: Proof positive of the Godless depravity in pinko-liberal artsy-fartsy households, America. And just look at us today.
We would have had to tell Rush that, less than 24 hours later, my mother was playing the organ at church.
That is funny on a few levels.
What a hoot! Even with the title photo you used, I did not see that one coming. Excellent!
Better that you didn’t see it, coming OR going!
Just noticing, no comment from your mother… yet. LOL
She was one of the two who requested the story yesterday. She’s three hours behind anyway.
I thought aging tended to blur one’s memory. This one remains, and in living color, unfortunately.
I LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!! Literally hurt from laughing! And the comments are priceless tooooooo!