Gas lines, shag carpet, and the gadget that learns to sell itself.
The house goes avocado and harvest gold. The pocket calculator does the checkbook; Pong plugs into the television; the CB radio gives the station wagon a call sign. And late at night, a pitchman named Popeil teaches America that a gadget is a story: it slices, it dices.
The pocket calculator - arithmetic leaves the head and the pencil forever, for $19.95 while supplies last.
The gas line, the pink slip, the resignation on live TV. The first decade that suspected tomorrow might not be bigger than today.
A steelworker watching the mill close and a valley kid soldering a circuit board in a garage are both, correctly, sure the future has picked a side.