The late 1970s were a time of relatively cheap bulk film loaders, so you could buy 100' of 35 mm film and refill cassettes of 36 frames again and again. Color was still an expensive hobby for most home darkroom enthusiasts, and keeping accurate temperatures was much more important than with b&w films, but yet a growing number of photo clubs and enthusiasts were venturing into the papers and manipulations possible with DIY work.
Much like browsing the Internet now in 2016, it was possible in the dark - with or without a trusty radio station playing - to lose track of time in the sequence of events that ended with the image coming to life in the gentle swishing of the developer tray under the dim glow of the red or amberish safe-lights. The 2nd tray was the stop bath, which neutralized the developer chemical after a slow count of 10 seconds (or was it 30 by the glowing hands of the big darkroom timer). The final tray was fixer to make permanent the "writing with light" (Photo+Graph) on the soft emulsion layer of the paper. After 2 minutes there it was time for a bath in the slow running water of the rise tub where it could languish for hours, if necessary, before using the squeegee on back and finally front and laying the picture on paper toweling or clipped to clothes line to dry.
In the age of digital darkrooms, the nearest think to the thrill of watching a image come out of the blank page is when using panorama stitching software that takes the overlapping frames and produces a finished, extended image in a matter of seconds. That same feeling of witnessing something emerging from nothing arises.
On the learning curve for (wet, old-school, chemical) darkrooms, I recall several things - in no particular order:
burning (blocking all except a selected section to receive an extra measure of the focused light from the enlarger) and dodging (blocking the focused light of the englarger so that certain elements of the photo paper are shadowed and thus get less exposure) could be very precise if using cut out shapes custom fitted to the image on the negative, or more casually, one's fingers and hand or hands could be held at various heights and moved side to side (or up and down) to blend the affected parts seamlessly to the rest
since the experience is analog, not digital, all mistakes are final (no do-overs) and the chain of steps that connect shutter release to finished photo paper washing and drying are many, with many "gotcha" points to watch out for: loading the cassette with film must be dust-free and in completely dark environment, loading the film onto the camera spindle must be secure so that each time the film is advanced it actually does engage the sproket teeth and pull fresh film from the cassette, loading the exposed film into the developer drum in the dark or using a cloth two-handed changing bag has two cautions (get the film neatly onto the spiraling carriage and then get that well into the drum with the top threaded correctly and fully in order to block all light).