A Life, Lived: Happy Birthday Paolo!

Good lord - has it been another year already? I think I just finished paying for the last birthday celebration!

Yes, someone turns 35 today!

We did have a lovely Mexican feast planned but then hell broke out at work and by 5:30 I had done nothing but cut 3 peppers in half. Dinner will wait until tomorrow. We had a lovely dinner out where Paul was treated to a birthday treat from the waitress. The Mexican feats is on hold until tomorrow.

So what was Canada like in 1975 when this wee lad entered the world? It was a gentle, innocent land.

Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister of Canada.

Our population was 22,697,000. 23 % of these folks lived in the country.

36 % of Canadians were under the age of 20.

Bill Davis was premier of Ontario.

Products labeled in grams and ml replaced those labeled in ounces and pounds. So what is no one south of the border can figure out our distances or measurements here?

The beaver becomes an official symbol of Canada. The US can have its menacing eagle - give me a fuzzy, hard working beaver any day!

The CN Tower was completed in Toronto. Somehow having the tallest freestanding structure in the world did little to improve the city. But we do love to brave about our giant phallic symbol - Freud would have fun with our obsession.

Believe it or not, "streaking" is the latest fad to seize North America. It involves running through a crowded room stark naked and at full speed. The object is to get in and get out as soon as possible, hence the name "streaking."

It is such a popular fad that Ray Stevens turns The Streak into a number one hit. A streaker even dashes across the stage at the Academy Awards.

The golden age of 60s music is over, and disco is still several years away.

Canadian artists are flying high. The Guess Who's latest LP is Road Food (LP means a Long Playing album that revolves at 33 1/12 revolutions per minute...CD's are still on the drawing board).

You can't turn on the radio these days without hearing Star Baby or Clap for the Wolfman...Or a song by former Guess Wholead guitarist Randy Bachman. Roll On Down The Highwayby Bachman Turner Overdrive should also get your feet moving.

"The only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping...and showing his shortcomings."

...Actor David Niven commenting on the streaker who ran across the stage while he was hosting the 46th Academy Awards. The streaker, 33-year-old Robert Opal, is murdered five years later in San Francisco.

Box office hits include: the bawdy but hilarious Blazing Saddles, which lampoons everything, including discrimination and prejudice; Young Frankenstein(" that's Franken -sthteen!"); Chinatown , with Jack Nicholson; and the Godfather Part II.

Favourite television programs include: CBC's Summer Movies, which features Canadian movies such as the NFB feature, The Heatwave Lasted Four Days; and Front Page Challenge; at Radio Canada, La boite à surprises for young kids, Moi et l'autre for parents.

Natalie Imbruglia, Drew Barrymore, , Kate Winslet, David Beckham, Enrique Iglesias, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Jamie Oliver, and Tiger Woods are born.

Soul Train premieres on television in the United States - fashion immediately deteriorates.

"The Way We Were" (performed by Barbara Streisand) wins the Grammy for best song. The Grammys ceased to have any relevance.

Saturday Night Live and Wheel of Fortune premiere.

It's an uneasy time in our relationship with our neighbours to the south. The amount of American ownership of Canadian businesses generates national debate. People are also concerned about the intrusion of American culture into Canadian society, especially Anglophone society. Motion pictures and television are seen as the major culprits, as most of the popular programs and movies in Canada originate in the U.S.A. Given the crap reality TV that beams our way daily methinks we needed to protest some more.

There were 11,278,513 cars and 13,165,000 telephones. No one owned a personal computer.

Mainframe computers have been around for years, but the first personal computer, the Altair 8800 , is just coming on line with a do-it-yourself computer kit. Handy little gadgets called VCRs are almost ready to go to market.

To the south two university dropouts will found a company called Micro-Soft (the hyphen is later dropped).

Something called the Arpanet has been set up by the American military to maintain communications in the event of a Soviet nuclear strike. Eventually, it will be opened to the public and re-named the Internet.

The average hourly wage was $ 6.40. Poverty was not discussed.

All in all it was a simpler time to be sure!