Also, when I was a kid, if you went out for the baseball team and you couldnt hit the ball, the other kids beat the shit out of you for making the team lose all the time. There was no participation trophy, if you sucked, you got beat up. Its kinda like Jack Welsh, if your unproductive, fired! No 14th place trophy.
Frankly, I think the 14th place trophy is for the parents sake. The kids aren't that dumb, they eventually catch on. Somehow though, the focus on self esteem leads to a sense of entitlement, because of the "I am somebody" mantra when in reality they ain't shit, life don't work that way and no one told them life ain't fair, this leads to one pissed off angry kid that takes it out on society.
I did walk to elementary school, and it was uphill, and there was sometimes snow. To the guy who crashed his big wheel on the day of the Sioux City plane crash, I was working in a telemarketing office. I worked about 15 minutes or so before I realized it was a scam and I walked out. A lot of people had a bad day that day. There was cable TV available where I lived, but we didn't get it. We picked up three television stations from Knoxville Tennessee. One of them was on the UHF dial, the picture was always snowy. (circa 1972) Our telephone was on a party line with our neighbors, my uncle's family. Often when I picked up the phone I would here my teenage cousin scream at me to hang up the phone, she was using it. I remember my granny complaining on the phone to the three or four people she called every day about that Watergate stuff keeping her from watching her soap operas. She was toothless so it sounded to me like she was saying "so poppers". So until the age of about 17 or so I always thought that day time drama shows were called so-poppers.
I remember going to the PX with my Mom and if I was good she would give me one dollar which was just enough to buy 4 comics - Sgt. Rock, Daredevil, Thor, and Shang-chi Master of Kung Fu. Our family's first VCR - a Panasonic behemoth that cost almost a grand. Our first VHS movies - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Blazing Saddles. I think they cost almost $100 each. I had that Farrah Fawcett poster - all you guys know which one I'm talking about. Star Wars came out and it was the biggest thing ever. I think movies were $2.50 or so back then. I had a Sony Walkman cassette player. Cost $100 and was heavy. Goddamn cassettes would eventually wear out or get messed up if you happened to leave them in direct sunlight. Then you would have to pony up another $7.99 to replace it. Turntables! Remember those?!? Vinyl, baby... I remember as recently as 1992, my roommate at college telling me he would go to the university's computer lab and send someone an "e-mail," and I really didn't give a shit since I was working two jobs anyway to get through school... Now I look at kids nowadays, including mine, and I see them growing up with computers, portable DVD players, cell phones, iPods, etc., etc. And you know what? 30 or 40 years they'll be writing the same kind of stuff: "Why, back in 2010, I actually had to sit down at a computer station to send someone an e-mail, or use my cell phone. None of this 3-D holographic shit!! And we had to actually drive and fly to places, not stand in a ray of light and have our entire molecular structure broken down, zipped along a space/time continuum, and reassembled at the other side in a matter of nanoseconds. You bastards have it EASY!"
I use to clerk for this local - guys been trading for like 25+ years and he just hated computers and computerized charting software (he could never get it to work right or draw the right trend lines, ect...). He would always say to me, "you know back in my day, if you wanted a chart you needed graph paper and a pencil....and if you wanted some technical indicators, you actually used a calculator." Has anyone seen any of those "NFL Rush" Commcerials (they aired all season this year, i think Reggie Bush was in them). They actually aired commercials telling kids to go outside and play. They also set up a website that listed activities and games that the kids could play once outside. How pathetic is that...not only do you need to advertise "go outside and play", you also gotta list instrustions for the games online.
in 1957 or 8, my grandfather gave me a dollar. I can still see it. Crisp and new. It was in the desk at our house, and one day, I took it, went to the local store, and bought a dollars worth of baseball cards. they were a nickel, you got the big piece of red rock hard bubble gum and five cards. My father beat my ass, then, chewed out the guy at the store, "what's the matter with you, sellling a kid a dollar's worth of baseball cards........." Shows you what a buck was worth. BTW, I had Sandy Koufax as a rookie, George "sparky" Anderson as a Second Baseman, as well as Don Zimmer, Stan Musial, all of em. Yup. When I was a boy, there were no "hedge funds". You stole your money with guns and violence.
holy crap what did you do with those baseball cards? i still have my Mark Maguire's tops rookie card locked up somewhere
I gave them to the son of my best friend as a gift. We were Yankee haters, my Dad and I. I noticed, years later, I had no Yankee cards at all. I think those wer the ones I put in the spokes of the bike. LOL Nelson Fox. I had Nelson Fox. Larry Doby, Steve Cocharan (some klunkers in there.).
"Yup. When I was a boy, there were no "hedge funds". You stole your money with guns and violence." lol. I tell my kids, look, if you ever want to steal, I'll explain to you how to get money, never pay it back, without going to jail. Guns and violence is for chumps. Now of course, Nutmeg being a man of integrity, wouldn't do this, but ya never know what goes through these kids minds.