The 80s were a different time. There were no index funds. No discount brokers. No internet. But from the 1800s up until the 1980s lots of people retired successfully and lived quite well via investing in a single company and receiving dividend returns from that company. But that was back when the stock market wasn't just short term gambling and short term stock manipulation via corporate stock buybacks and you actually invested in strong companies that you planned to hold through retirement.
Funny what incentives get you. We had incentives for long term consistent strength (people holding stocks for dividends) and got it. Today we hold for short term gambling profits so we get gambling style shell games of companies.