TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because , WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING ! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms...... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! If YOU are one of them . . CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were. Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?! The quote of the month is by Jay Leno: "With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks,"Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?" For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us ....go ahead and delete this. For the rest of us.....pass this on.
Thanks God, i belong to this brave generation. I will save this post and show it to my son when he grows up enough to read it.
"We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. " Dude. Come on. This is one thing I never did. Guess you must have been one of those wierd kids my mum told me to stay away from . Scarry to think that an 18 year old today was born in 1988 though.
Yep sounds a good idea - take God out. If we get all that shit with it in, imagine how much better things could be with it out.
I heard on Jim Bohannan's radio show another list of things that the "Class of 2010" (born in 1988) "never had/did" - trying to get a copy of the transcript...very funny...can't remember many. But...."they've never been Rung up"...They've never licked a stamp, never used a dial phone, never seen a switchboard, anyway, a lot of good ones, much better than the above. My take is that if it wasn't for TV re-runs, they wouldn't have any sense of history, LOL. I can remember entering school in 1955, riding my bike about 2 miles to kindergarten, had to get special permission from the Principal...but thinking that WWII was "ancient history" not much different than ancient Rome or the Revolutionary war. Same with the Korean war... So, I guess if you're 3, and we are at war in Iraq (volume one)..it is the first reference you may associate with war. Anyway, if I get the transcript, I'll post it. Don
Yup another fine member of this established club. Kids these days have no clue what it really was like to grow up in our era.
good post ... takes me back. I hear today's kids even have schedules. SCHEDULES?! The only thing on my itinerary in my childhood was, 1. Wake Up 2. Find a new way to get dirty and scrapped up
You are right and it is sad to because we had a lot of fun. The kids today would be arrested for doing half of the things we did and never thought about it. Heaven forbid if they bring asprin to school these days.