THOSE BORN 1920-1980
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 Kool-aid 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 OK.
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 computer! s, 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 poke out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house 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.
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 .
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?!
I loathe shit like this...What's really being said in a nostalgic piece of crap like this is, "Remember the Good Ole Days, when Women knew their Place and Stayed Home in the Kitchen, and the Darkies knew to stay at the Back of the Bus, and Faggots only lived in a couple Big Cities and worked as Hairdressers or Florists, and White Heterosexual Men could safely and confidently Rule The World without any Interference? Do ya? WELL, DO YA!?!?!?!?!?"
But, I will say, I do miss the Good Ole Days when I would hitchhike to Grade School with that kindly ole bachelor who lived down the street...However, I hated Go-Carts and only Retarded children would actually eat a worm or a mud pie or a Clark Bar.
I also remember, as a kid, being bored out of my mind because there wasn't anything interesting to do, just like kids do now, and would have given my left nut for Nintendo or a DVD player.
Oh, and, I still have my BB Gun...it's in the closet of my ultra-fab apartment on Capitol Hill but I never take it out for fear that my more mean-spirited neighbors would want to borrow it to shoot the pesky squirrels that live in the eaves above their apartment. I only used my bb gun to shoot beer bottles, in the house, when my parents weren't home...It was hella fun.
1 comment:
Michael,
I can only tell you this: Not all the time, and not every time, I am reminded that this is the world I dreamt of when I was a kid. It's already here. My dreaming was not perfect; this has troubles all its own. But it is a freer place, and the struggles that should have made themselves clear by now and lost, persist in more modern forms, if anything more deeply argued and more clearly thought. The arts and the people who love them are hanging on, which is just what they do, no matter what, it seems. We are hearing more from our most oppressed minority, the Press. Some of them are actually running from their recent pasts as they try to escape what they can only sense is about to come. It's like the behavior of certain animals before an earthquake or a storm. So goes the cautionary statement with subtle reason: Be careful what you dream for. You just might get it.
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