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Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | I got this email from my sister tonight and it struck a chord with me. I know that most of the membership are of an age where they'll relate to this, and although some of the content is Australian, you'll get the gist. (I'll translate where I can)
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1920's, 30's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were 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 or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking .
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a Ute (pickup) on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Rooster.
Even though all the shops closed at 5.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy fruit tingles (candy) and some (fire) crackers to blow up frogs with.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, 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. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with Matchbox cars.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet 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.
Only girls had pierced ears!
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time.......no really!
We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,
We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!
Footy (football - any code) had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that.
Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather staps and bullies always ruled the playground at school.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
Our parents got married before they had children and didn't invent stupid names for their kids like "Kiora" and "Blade"
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 70 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 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 our lives for our own good.
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
I hope it wasn't too long...
Muz |
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June 2003
Posts: 1792
Location: Rego Park, NY, | This is great. It really makes me remember many things. I actually fell of my bicycle when I was 15 and broke my right collar bone. I also broke my left collar bone when I wasin the first grade.
I remember playing outdoors until the street lights came on. Now with technology I feel the younger generation has become lazy. My 14 year old son Mike always ask to use the computer for get definition and spanish homework. I keep telling him that I used to use a dictionary for definitions and my class notes and textbook for spanish. I don't allow him to use the computer for these purposes anymore. He can use it for research for school. At home we all have time to usethe computer for leisure activities but I insist that all school assignments must be done first,work before play. |
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April 2006
Posts: 1138
Location: CT | Well put. I keep trying to tell my kids how it was 'in the old days..', and they just don't get it. Every generation will get more adjusted to the conviniences and idiocies of the modern times, and some of life's charm will get lost in the shuffle. |
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January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | Spot on Muzza. I've seen this before but it's all so true. Oh for the good old days.....oh god!!! I'm turning into my father :eek: |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | My son is 26 and probably never remembers what the inside of a library looks like, or why anybody ever owned a set of encyclopedias. In his defense, he says he can find anything and everything he ever needs or wants online. As a recent example, he showed me his folder of about a thousand funny video clips. I once asked him what was the most profound information he'd ever researched on the Internet. Without hesitation, he said the complete instructions on how to build a potato launcher that would fling a spud 300 feet. No wonder he grew up to be a drummer. |
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Posts: 799
Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | Now we are a world of Wussies!!! |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I've seen this before, too. Coincidentally, I was reading the morning paper (which most people don't do anymore) and there was an article on a British book called Dangerous Games for Boys, about how to build tree forts and do all those things that we used to do. It's a best seller across the pond and is about to be released in the States. It will need to go online before any American kids read it, though. |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Yes, times change and not always for the better.
Water from the hose always tasted sh!tty though. |
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March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | ". . It will need to go online before any American kids read it, though . ."
No.
It will need a "reality" TV show based on it . . . |
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January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | Originally posted by cliff:
". . It will need to go online before any American kids read it, though . ."
No.
It will need a "reality" TV show based on it . . . That's really interesting Cliff. Just to get off topic for a second, I've been playing music with an 18 year old lately. He's a drummer but he can strum a few chords on the guitar.
He wanted to try and write a couple of songs so we sat down and tossed a few ideas around. At 42 I just can't write about the whole boy meets girl thing because it's part of a distant past. But for him, that's what life is all about.
Once we had a few ideas down though, instead of thinking about melodies or chord sequences or anything relating to music, he was picturing the video clip.
It was one of those moments that made me feel just that little bit older. |
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September 2003
Posts: 782
Location: Waurika OK | Phil,
You really had a disadvantaged youth, still riding a bicycle at 15! Around here the kids have their own vehicles at 15, and we are not a rich community.
Muzza, thanks for posting.
Speaking of lead paint, in our apartment in Oakland, CA the window sills were painted and were just the right heighth for me to stand looking out of the window and teeth on them. I gnawed most of the paint off. In the middle 40's I'm sure it was lead based paint. Didn't affect me me me me. |
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January 2005
Posts: 640
Location: boulder | How about when I tell my god-kids "when I was your age , we only had cartoons on saturday morning and there were only three channels!!"
I sort of miss singing the national anthem when the channel shut down for the night.
But brainslag said it well I think. peace |
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February 2004
Posts: 548
Location: Up North | Three Channels! Man you were spoiled! All we had were 2 channels, black & white.
I didn't know there was such a thing as coloured television until I was 14 (1977).
We only got to watch TV on weekends "The Tommy Hunter Show" and "Hockey Night in Canada" on Saturdays was family TV time (small bowl of potato chips and 3 marshmallows each).
The rest of the time, my mom would kick us out of the house and tell us "not to come home until it was dark".
Good times! |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Stop it! You're making us all feel old, well me anyway. |
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May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | In the future the kids will be saying, how quaint, they ate food, grown out the ground, instead of soylent green?! They had sex instead of an orgasmatron?!! They used a keyboard (remember that scene from Star Trek and the whales?)
Que sera, sera. |
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November 2006
Posts: 2241
Location: Simpsonville, SC | Firecrackers and Frogs..now that brings back some memories! |
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Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | . . . not for the frog. |
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March 2005
Posts: 2793
Location: Atlanta, GA. | Silver Salutes and Back Bay catfish was always entertaining. |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | Grif, I was 24 in 1977, the year we got married. I had seen color TV before that, but didn't own any TV at all until 1987. We figured our daughter would be an outcast when she started school if we didn't have a television.
It's been all down hill since. We were much better off without TV, but I'm kinda liking the flat panel LCD we just got. |
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November 2005
Posts: 4833
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Originally posted by Grif:
Three Channels! Man you were spoiled! All we had were 2 channels, black & white. Hey Grif, remember watching an oh-so-young Anne Murray on Singalong Jubilee?
1977:? I was 23 and had just quit trying to entertain for a living, put my guitars in the back of the closet and forgot about them for a year, until New Wave & Punk reinvigorated my interest.
Met the woman who became my wife, and the poor thing didn't know about the guitars until it was too late. |
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February 2004
Posts: 548
Location: Up North | Don Messer's Jubilee! Oh man, I had completely forgot about that! I don't think they ever broadcast that in colour, even when they could. |
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November 2005
Posts: 4833
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Those people were not IN colour.
Or at least colourful....
Not to forget, The Country Gentleman
Tooooommy Hunter!
Still playing, last I heard.
and one of my favourite all time vocal groups.
The Rythm Pals
Mike, Marc, and (?)Jack! |
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November 2004
Posts: 4413
| This was a brilliant post. My childhood to a T. Except fireworks and frogs. I always liked exploding milk bottles. |
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December 2004
Posts: 2150
Location: Orlando, FL | Great post. Except growing up in Florida we used to play in the orange groves and have wars with rotten citrus. Nothing like getting pegged square in the back of the head with a rotten grapefruit.
Nowadays you can barely find oranges in the grocery store here. |
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November 2005
Posts: 4833
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | And, according to my wife's family, out in the prairies...kids were strapping the Eatons and Sears catalogues to their shins before going out to play pond hockey. |
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OT I had to share this with you.
