Remember when...
nohr4u1yr
218 Posts
People over 35 should be dead.
Here's why.
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's,50's, 60's, or even maybe the early 70's probably
shouldn't have survived.
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. 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 children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from
a bottle. Horrors!
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside
playing.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode 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 would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. NO CELL PHONES!!!!!
U n t h i n k a b l e !
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.
We had friends!
We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and
teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
They were accidents.
No one was to blame but us.
Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and
ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Some students weren't as smart as others, so they
failed a grade and were held back to repeat the
same grade.
Horrors!
Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.
Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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.
And you're one of them!
Congratulations!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good!
Here's why.
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's,50's, 60's, or even maybe the early 70's probably
shouldn't have survived.
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. 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 children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from
a bottle. Horrors!
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside
playing.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode 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 would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. NO CELL PHONES!!!!!
U n t h i n k a b l e !
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.
We had friends!
We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and
teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
They were accidents.
No one was to blame but us.
Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and
ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Some students weren't as smart as others, so they
failed a grade and were held back to repeat the
same grade.
Horrors!
Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.
Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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.
And you're one of them!
Congratulations!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good!
Comments
We had three sets of clothes - for Church/Synagogue, school and after school.
We really had to do research at the library for reports.
Not only did we make up our own rules to stickball, punchball, etc. but our parents would never think of having a say in what the rules were.
Clothes smelled great because they were hung outside to dry.
The family ate dinner together. The meals were homecooked by Mom or Grandma (in many cases using traditional recipes).
An occasional rare treat was bringing in Chinese food (three from column A, two from column
Good humor ice cream tasted better. My favorite was toasted almond.
Now, I don't recommend doing this, but it makes me wonder exactly how hazardous it is/was. I'm perfectly normal! No comments, please.
The reality now is that sometimes things do happen. I often ask myself, what if something terrrible does happen and I should have warned them or been there to protect them. I would feel terrible. Will I let my son wander around the neighborhood like I did when he get's a little older? I doubt it.
I like to tell about my son (age 9). He still has one friend whose home phone actually does not have an answering machine and does not have DSL. So, when he calls his friend often he pouts to me that he can't get in touch with Curtis because his phone is not working. I patiently explain to him AGAIN that Curtis's phone works just fine. That it is simply busy. He then asks what it means for a phone line to be busy? I explain it again! I also would like to share with you all that my son was just identified at school as a gifted student and put in a program to ensure he is being taught at an advanced level!!!!
Not being able to leave a message. Imagine that!
Now in 2004...part of our recruiting process involves checking the "sexual predator" list to be sure that we aren't hiring a thug.
I hope you all are having a GREAT day!!
Shelley
Believe it or not, I grew up in Miami, FL (20 miles north of downtown Miami) in the 50's and it was a semi-rural environment that did include fields with many cow chips.
Hop Scotch? Catching caterpillers? Sleeping out on the fire escape in the hot summer nights?
In the summer my friends and I would pack sandwiches and have a picnic by the river. We'd be gone for hours but our moms knew we were okay--besides, everyone knew everyone else in our little town. Sometimes we'd stop at the general store to get shoestring licorice and jump rope with it before we ate it.
One of the older kids got the bright idea to hang a huge piece of rope from a tree up the street, and we'd all swing from it and jump off it. Our mothers knew to find us at the rope when it was supper time.
Is that hole getting deeper?