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80s Southern California Style
By Marc "Devil Dog Of The Web" Iseli / Updated Dec. 2025
Strap in, because we’re about to crank the time machine back to the early 80s, when a boot Marine like me got dropped in Southern California, three thousand miles from home and lightyears from common sense. Forget FaceTime, if you wanted to talk to your family, you had to bribe the payphone with quarters and hope the comm gods were listening. So you got tight with your squad bay brothers, all 70-plus of us packed in like sardines marinated in aftershave and testosterone. What could possibly go sideways? We’re diving into the off-duty shenanigans that made those years the best kind of questionable decisions of my life.

If your memory banks are less fried than mine and you spot something I missed, go ahead and unload your mental seabag. Fire off your corrections or additions, and I’ll slap them in here faster than an RF-4B max climb.
80svmfp3@gmail.com

Long Distance Phone Calls- If your hometown were 3000 miles away and you wanted to talk with family, you needed to drop a quarter in the payphone and dial 0 for the operator. Tell them you wanted to call PA. and give them the phone number. They would dial and talk with your family to see if they would reverse the charges. This is how you tested your family to see how much they really loved you.

Local Radio Stations- “The World Famous KROQ” 106.7 KROQ FM (Pasadena). Richard Blade, one of the most recognizable voices of KROQ’s New Wave era. Jed the Fish, Afternoon drive host; influential in breaking Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, The Pretenders. Freddie Snakeskin, known for irreverent humor and creative audio “drop ins.” Poor Man, A staple of KROQ’s chaotic, personality?driven style. Other stations, KMET 94.7 FM, The Mighty Met, and KNAC 105.5 FM, Long Beach.

Local Television Stations- Only three full-power stations broadcast from Orange County during the period MCAS El Toro was active: KDOC-TV (Channel 56, Independent, based in Irvine. They usually brocasted old reruns like Kung Fu and the Twilight Zone. KOCE-TV (Channel 50, PBS member station, Huntington Beach, and KTBN-TV (Channel 40, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Santa Ana. Most of us had rented TV's with rabbit ears that could still pull in Los Angeles channels.

Transportation- The average cost back then for a new vehicle was about $7,000; most of us had beaters, and the weekends were a time for us to get as far away from base as possible. So many beaches, and Los Angeles was just down the road. The average cost of gas was $1.19 per gallon. For that time was considered high due to inflation and the gas shortage of the late 70s. Every car you could imagine was on the road. Datsun 280ZX, Chevette, VW Rabbit, Toyota Pickup 22R, and even the Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am.

Photo Process Centers- No SD cards here. In the old days, you had to rely on photo centers, which offered one-hour processing. The two big names were Fotomat and Fox Photo, which would cost you $4.99 for 12 exposures and $7.99 for 24 exposures. It was always a crap shot whether the pictures you took would come out OK. It didn't matter you ended up paying for the bad ones, too. When I got my first SLR and loaded the film, I shut the door and clicked the lever several times. I took what I thought would be some of the best shots on the Midawy, and when I opened the door, I found that the film never advanced.

The Paper Trail- Let me take you back to typewriters, carbine paper, and paper folder SRBs with everyone's SSN plastered all over for all to see. Unheard of in today's world. I did not have a credit card back then. Did anyone else have a card? How they were used was another deal. You would give it to the clerk, and they would put it into the Credit Card Imprinter "Knuckle-Buster". Several sheets of paper, one carbon. You signed and got a copy, and the other was given to the clerk.

Time To Grub- Outside of chow hall meals most of us would eat fast food. A burger, fries, and a Coke would cost you about $3. McDonald's Big Mac costs $1.35. A can of soda costs between 30 and 50 cents. I had the best of both worlds living in the NCO barracks with four-man rooms. All my roommates were renting off base, and I had the room to myself. The money I saved on rent went towards a toaster oven. I would drive out the back gate to the off-base living grocery store, buy food, and come back and cook it in my room. Food of choice, TV dinners cost $1.50.

Pay Day- As a Corporal, you would earn about $540 to $676 per month in base pay before taxes, depending on years of service, and you were paid twice a month. All branches use the same pay schedule now as they did in the 1980s, the 1st and the 15th of each month. That does not sound like very much in today's world, but when we deployed on Det-C in 1981, we had very little we had to pay for. I put all my money in the savings, and when we returned to El Toro, I bought my first car.

The Big Screen- Although VHS movie rentals took off in the early 80s, most people still loved watching movies on the big screen. Especially since there were so many great movies that were released in the 80s that did not make it to VHS until way after the movie stopped showing. Movie tickets cost about $3, and most States still had drive-in theaters. Two of my plane captain cohorts and I went to the Highway 39 Drive-In, just a 20-minute drive from the base in Anaheim. Can not remember what was playing, but it finally closed in 1997 and became a weekend flea market, as most of them did.

Party Time- On Fridays, we would launch out the birds for weekend hops and Sgt. Tim Francis would throw a cookout with burgers, hot dogs, and beer at the ballpark, and we would get up a team and play some baseball. A 12-pack of beer was $3.59 burgar meat was $1.82 a pound, and around $1.72 for a pack of hot dogs.

Miscellaneous Stuff- Postal stamps cost .15 cents. We had no GPS; we had to use those damned road maps that you could never refold originally. Phone books with everyone's name and addresses listed are posted in every phone booth. Pack of cigarettes average 63 cents to $1.00. Hotel rooms mid-range $20 to $40 a night. Bottom line, even though California prices were a little higher than most of the country. It was still a great time to be stationed in Southern California in the early 80s compared to what is happening today.

Hop, Skip And A Jump - The most visited place daily would be El Toro Rd. Just out the back gate, jump on Trabuco Rd, and you are there; no need to get on I-5. Everything you could ever need was on this road: fast food, gas, banks, and Malls. The Saddleback Valley Plaza was the main mall. Some of my favorite eateries were the Sizzler Steak House, I can not believe it is still in the same location to this day, The Golden Bun, and several fast-food joints that we never had back home. Jack In The Box and Carl's Jr.

Alright, you glorious Rat Phixers and Phlyers, if we ever survived a TAD, a Det, or a BOHICA, who haven't, and you didn’t think I was the biggest gaff off in the squadron. Got a sea story, or some grainy photos your ex didn’t set on fire, and they’re only slightly illegal? Send ‘em by email, snail mail, or safety wire it to a carrier pigeon. I collect ‘em all, just nothing that would incriminate me.
80svmfp3@gmail.com

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