1976 Comes Alive! The Year Of Peter Frampton

Graduating from high school and moving on to college — My Back-to-School Playlist

The fold in the middle indicates that “Frampton Comes Alive!” was a double album. We loved double albums because they were the most convenient way to clean stems and seeds from your pot. And during shortages, you could look for remnants in your double albums! Photo from YouTube. Album from A&M Records.

What a way to start the year. The first number-one song in 1976 was the Bay City Rollers’ “S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night.” It ended with Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night,” the year’s biggest song. Much better, thank you.

My favorite diva, Diana Ross, held the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 the week I graduated from high school with “Love Hangover.”

Since it was the year of the nation’s bicentennial, there were major events all summer. I like to say it was the best summer ever. Everything seemed bigger and better, and the future looked bright. And after eight years of Republican rule, we elected Jimmy Carter as President.

Leaving coastal California forever, I began college in August 1976 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. If I were in Europe or other parts of the world, we would have called it “University.” But instead, we simply called it school.