How did we survive?
 

I don't know who put this together to give them credit, but here it is.......

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning. My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't remember getting E-coli.

As children we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. Our baby cribs, toys and rooms were painted with bright colored lead based paint. We, often chewed on the crib, ingesting the paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. 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. We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We played with toy guns, cowboys and Indians, army, cops and robbers, and used our fingers to simulate guns when the toy ones or my BB gun was not available.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we were always outside playing. 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 or didn't work hard so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. That generation produced some of the greatest risk-takers and problem solvers.

We had the freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), the term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now. Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system. Speaking of school, we all said prayers and the pledge and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention for the next two weeks. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.

I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was anyway) but they did give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if we started getting the sniffles. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything. I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital cable stations. I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some guy's vacant 20, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger.

What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot. He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm. Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent bottle of mercurochrome and then we got our butt spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked (physical abuse) here too ... and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home. Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks (remember why Tonka trucks were made tough... it wasn't so that they could take the rough berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.

Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.

Summers were spent behind the push lawnmower and I didn't even know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive.

How sick were my parents? Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off.

Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck..

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac!

How did we survive?


And here we are today

Correct--today everything's a Federal case with 20-year prison sentences [DNO]
 

dno
> I don't know who put this together to give
> them credit, but here it is.......

> My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and
> spread mayo on the same cutting board with
> the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't
> seem to get food poisoning. My Mom used to
> defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used
> to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't
> remember getting E-coli.

> As children we would ride in cars with no
> seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back
> of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a
> special treat. Our baby cribs, toys and
> rooms were painted with bright colored lead
> based paint. We, often chewed on the crib,
> ingesting the paint. We had no childproof
> lids on medicine bottles, doors, or
> cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had
> no helmets.

> We drank water from the garden hose and not
> from a bottle. 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. We played
> dodge ball and sometimes the ball would
> really hurt. We played with toy guns,
> cowboys and Indians, army, cops and robbers,
> and used our fingers to simulate guns when
> the toy ones or my BB gun was not available.

> We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank
> sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we
> were always outside playing. 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 or didn't work hard so they
> failed a grade and were held back to repeat
> the same grade. That generation produced
> some of the greatest risk-takers and problem
> solvers.

> We had the freedom, failure, success and
> responsibility, and we learned how to deal
> with it all.

> Almost all of us would have rather gone
> swimming in the lake instead of a pristine
> pool (talk about boring), the term cell
> phone would have conjured up a phone in a
> jail cell, and a pager was the school PA
> system.

> We all took gym, not PE... and risked
> permanent injury with a pair of high top
> Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having
> cross-training athletic shoes with air
> cushion soles and built in light reflectors.
> I can't recall any injuries but they must
> have happened because they tell us how much
> safer we are now. Flunking gym was not an
> option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE
> must be much harder than gym.

> Every year, someone taught the whole school
> a lesson by running in the halls with
> leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting
> the wet spot. How much better off would we
> be today if we only knew we could have sued
> the school system. Speaking of school, we
> all said prayers and the pledge and staying
> in detention after school caught all sorts
> of negative attention for the next two
> weeks. We must have had horribly damaged
> psyches.

> I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer
> 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we
> wouldn't have known what either was anyway)
> but they did give us a couple of baby
> aspirin and cough syrup if we started
> getting the sniffles. What an archaic health
> system we had then. Remember school nurses?
> Ours wore a hat and everything. I thought
> that I was supposed to accomplish something
> before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

> I just can't recall how bored we were
> without computers, PlayStation, Nintendo,
> X-box or 270 digital cable stations. I must
> be repressing that memory as I try to
> rationalize through the denial of the
> dangers could have befallen us as we trekked
> off each day about a mile down the road to
> some guy's vacant 20, built forts out of
> branches and pieces of plywood, made trails,
> and fought over who got to be the Lone
> Ranger.

> What was that property owner thinking,
> letting us play on that lot. He should have
> been locked up for not putting up a fence
> around the property, complete with a
> self-closing gate and an infrared intruder
> alarm. Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl
> and sterilization kit when I got that bee
> sting? I could have been killed!

> We played king of the hill on piles of
> gravel left on vacant construction sites and
> when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent
> bottle of mercurochrome and then we got our
> butt spanked. Now it's a trip to the
> emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of
> a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom
> calls the attorney to sue the contractor for
> leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel
> where it was such a threat.

> We didn't act up at the neighbor's house
> either because if we did, we got our butt
> spanked (physical abuse) here too ... and
> then we got our butt spanked again when we
> got home. Mom invited the door to door
> salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down
> the dust from the gravel driveway while
> playing with Tonka trucks (remember why
> Tonka trucks were made tough... it wasn't so
> that they could take the rough berber in the
> family room), and Dad drove a car with
> leaded gas.

> Our music had to be left inside when we went
> out to play and I am sure that I nearly
> exhausted my imagination a couple of times
> when we went on two week vacations. I should
> probably sue the folks now for the danger
> they put us in when we all slept in
> campgrounds in the family tent.

> Summers were spent behind the push lawnmower
> and I didn't even know that mowers came with
> motors until I was 13 and we got one without
> an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive.

> How sick were my parents? Of course my
> parents weren't the only psychos. I recall
> Donny Reynolds from next door coming over
> and doing his tricks on the front stoop just
> before he fell off.

> Little did his Mom know that she could have
> owned our house. Instead she picked him up
> and swatted him for being such a goof. It
> was a neighborhood run amuck..

> To top it off, not a single person I knew
> had ever been told that they were from a
> dysfunctional family. How could we possibly
> have known that we needed to get into group
> therapy and anger management classes? We
> were obviously so duped by so many societal
> ills, that we didn't even notice that the
> entire country wasn't taking Prozac!

> How did we survive?

Thanks C....
 

You spelled out everything GREAT about "my" upbringing. It never occured to me that Canadians had the same wonderful "growing up" experiences.

It's a shame but, my 15yr old grandson is so "screwed up" from his mother reading every imaginable ding-a-ling book on 'How To Raise Children"....and implementing the crap presented.

Half the kids in his class are on Riddlin or some other drug that makes them walk around in a stupor. Talk about Mind-Numbed Robots.

Kids do NOT have a "Base" anymore. They are told one thing then a few hours later, told something else.

My mom let me know EXACTLY where I stood, on EVERY matter. She made sure me and my brothers knew the difference between right and wrong AND, if we did something wrong (in her opinion) we were disciplined immediately. And, not only did we love our parents, we RESPECTED THEM and wanted them to be PROUD of us.

And...if our feelings were hurt for any reason (like not making the starting lineup in Little League) we "accepted it" and realized that our INDIVIDUAL EFFORT was not good enough...so...if we wanted to excel we'd have to WORK HARDER.

Sure is gonna be an interesting country in another 30 yrs when this group gets into gummit offices.

What a GREAT piece Cornell. It is going into my archives and being sent to my family members as we speak.

Thanks much....Don Alm

> I don't know who put this together to give
> them credit, but here it is.......

> My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and
> spread mayo on the same cutting board with
> the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't
> seem to get food poisoning. My Mom used to
> defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used
> to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't
> remember getting E-coli.

> As children we would ride in cars with no
> seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back
> of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a
> special treat. Our baby cribs, toys and
> rooms were painted with bright colored lead
> based paint. We, often chewed on the crib,
> ingesting the paint. We had no childproof
> lids on medicine bottles, doors, or
> cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had
> no helmets.

> We drank water from the garden hose and not
> from a bottle. 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. We played
> dodge ball and sometimes the ball would
> really hurt. We played with toy guns,
> cowboys and Indians, army, cops and robbers,
> and used our fingers to simulate guns when
> the toy ones or my BB gun was not available.

> We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank
> sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we
> were always outside playing. 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 or didn't work hard so they
> failed a grade and were held back to repeat
> the same grade. That generation produced
> some of the greatest risk-takers and problem
> solvers.

> We had the freedom, failure, success and
> responsibility, and we learned how to deal
> with it all.

> Almost all of us would have rather gone
> swimming in the lake instead of a pristine
> pool (talk about boring), the term cell
> phone would have conjured up a phone in a
> jail cell, and a pager was the school PA
> system.

> We all took gym, not PE... and risked
> permanent injury with a pair of high top
> Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having
> cross-training athletic shoes with air
> cushion soles and built in light reflectors.
> I can't recall any injuries but they must
> have happened because they tell us how much
> safer we are now. Flunking gym was not an
> option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE
> must be much harder than gym.

> Every year, someone taught the whole school
> a lesson by running in the halls with
> leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting
> the wet spot. How much better off would we
> be today if we only knew we could have sued
> the school system. Speaking of school, we
> all said prayers and the pledge and staying
> in detention after school caught all sorts
> of negative attention for the next two
> weeks. We must have had horribly damaged
> psyches.

> I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer
> 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we
> wouldn't have known what either was anyway)
> but they did give us a couple of baby
> aspirin and cough syrup if we started
> getting the sniffles. What an archaic health
> system we had then. Remember school nurses?
> Ours wore a hat and everything. I thought
> that I was supposed to accomplish something
> before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

> I just can't recall how bored we were
> without computers, PlayStation, Nintendo,
> X-box or 270 digital cable stations. I must
> be repressing that memory as I try to
> rationalize through the denial of the
> dangers could have befallen us as we trekked
> off each day about a mile down the road to
> some guy's vacant 20, built forts out of
> branches and pieces of plywood, made trails,
> and fought over who got to be the Lone
> Ranger.

> What was that property owner thinking,
> letting us play on that lot. He should have
> been locked up for not putting up a fence
> around the property, complete with a
> self-closing gate and an infrared intruder
> alarm. Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl
> and sterilization kit when I got that bee
> sting? I could have been killed!

> We played king of the hill on piles of
> gravel left on vacant construction sites and
> when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent
> bottle of mercurochrome and then we got our
> butt spanked. Now it's a trip to the
> emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of
> a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom
> calls the attorney to sue the contractor for
> leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel
> where it was such a threat.

> We didn't act up at the neighbor's house
> either because if we did, we got our butt
> spanked (physical abuse) here too ... and
> then we got our butt spanked again when we
> got home. Mom invited the door to door
> salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down
> the dust from the gravel driveway while
> playing with Tonka trucks (remember why
> Tonka trucks were made tough... it wasn't so
> that they could take the rough berber in the
> family room), and Dad drove a car with
> leaded gas.

> Our music had to be left inside when we went
> out to play and I am sure that I nearly
> exhausted my imagination a couple of times
> when we went on two week vacations. I should
> probably sue the folks now for the danger
> they put us in when we all slept in
> campgrounds in the family tent.

> Summers were spent behind the push lawnmower
> and I didn't even know that mowers came with
> motors until I was 13 and we got one without
> an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive.

> How sick were my parents? Of course my
> parents weren't the only psychos. I recall
> Donny Reynolds from next door coming over
> and doing his tricks on the front stoop just
> before he fell off.

> Little did his Mom know that she could have
> owned our house. Instead she picked him up
> and swatted him for being such a goof. It
> was a neighborhood run amuck..

> To top it off, not a single person I knew
> had ever been told that they were from a
> dysfunctional family. How could we possibly
> have known that we needed to get into group
> therapy and anger management classes? We
> were obviously so duped by so many societal
> ills, that we didn't even notice that the
> entire country wasn't taking Prozac!

> How did we survive?




22 Ways To Make $50,000 Starting with $50

How Quick We Forget! Great Post! Thanks (DNO)
 

Re: How did we survive?
 

As idyllic as all that sounds, there was another side of the story that needs to be told, if for no other reason than to balance things out a bit for those who didn't live through it.

I was offered a drink out of one of those garden hoses and refused. My neighbor didn't and ended up in an iron lung and leg braces from polio.

Many of my friends were minus fingers or partially blinded by those 'fun' firecrackers.

Some of us were allergic to the shoes we were forced to wear for PE. We also wore PE shorts and short sleeved blouses to run the track without coats or sweaters and told we'd 'warm up' if we were really exercising. Runny noses, sinus problems, and perpetual earaches (sometimes resulting in diminished hearing capacity) were the result.

No, maybe our parents couldn't reach us all day but the abusers who teased smaller kids into tears and rage sure could. Only when we fell down abandoned wells or mine shafts or into the berry patches from the vines overhead, did we get attention. When our bikes were stolen, we didn't dare go home until they were 'found' again.

Every year during dog days our parents worried and fretted over every ache and pain we had always wondering if we'd be the next polio victim.

Our smallpox vaccinations made some of us sicker than the disease would've (well, almost). If the vaccination sore got scratched before it healed and the scab fell off, we risked having more 'vaccinations' anywhere we touched before washing our hands.

Schools didn't offer condoms but fifteen year olds became mothers because no one told them coke wouldn't prevent pregnancy.

While drugs weren't on every street corner, they did exist and woe to those who tried to resist the drug pushers (often found in the corner grocery or pharmacy) because they didn't have the knowledge to refute the arguments.

We loved to kiss our dogs, and some parents encouraged us, but we then ended up taking worm pills for pinworms or scratching our bottoms raw before we finally got help.

We were encouraged to love all animals...and some of them carried rabies. One year our local hospital was full of children (and adults) getting treated for possible rabies. That was 21 (yes, 21) long needles in the abdomen (at least after the 'cure' was found) so we didn't get rabies. It was NOT a rare site to see an animal frothing at the mouth, children being shuttled inside, and the gun taken down from the wall to dispatch the unfortunate animal.

I didn't cover the whole ball of wax, of course, but this ought to give some food for thought. As good as the old days were, they had their down side just like today's living does.

I'll take the best of both worlds. We have gone too far with punishing childish infractions. We've also become suit-crazy these days. On top of that we overload young minds with information they can't really absorb, appreciate, and use properly. Information overload begins in infancy so is it any wonder that, when the information is truly needed, it's old-hat and loses it's effectiveness? Try some good anti-drug or anti-premarital sex arguments on the kids sometimes if you want to see what I mean.

The good old days were good in many ways...walks in the cool of evening, listening to the peepers and greeting neighbors on their front porches as we ambled along. We could do with more of that these days. But, like anything else, they weren't perfect...and we need to keep that in mind, too.

Sandi

> I don't know who put this together to give
> them credit, but here it is.......

> My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and
> spread mayo on the same cutting board with
> the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't
> seem to get food poisoning. My Mom used to
> defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used
> to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't
> remember getting E-coli.

> As children we would ride in cars with no
> seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back
> of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a
> special treat. Our baby cribs, toys and
> rooms were painted with bright colored lead
> based paint. We, often chewed on the crib,
> ingesting the paint. We had no childproof
> lids on medicine bottles, doors, or
> cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had
> no helmets.

> We drank water from the garden hose and not
> from a bottle. 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. We played
> dodge ball and sometimes the ball would
> really hurt. We played with toy guns,
> cowboys and Indians, army, cops and robbers,
> and used our fingers to simulate guns when
> the toy ones or my BB gun was not available.

> We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank
> sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we
> were always outside playing. 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 or didn't work hard so they
> failed a grade and were held back to repeat
> the same grade. That generation produced
> some of the greatest risk-takers and problem
> solvers.

> We had the freedom, failure, success and
> responsibility, and we learned how to deal
> with it all.

> Almost all of us would have rather gone
> swimming in the lake instead of a pristine
> pool (talk about boring), the term cell
> phone would have conjured up a phone in a
> jail cell, and a pager was the school PA
> system.

> We all took gym, not PE... and risked
> permanent injury with a pair of high top
> Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having
> cross-training athletic shoes with air
> cushion soles and built in light reflectors.
> I can't recall any injuries but they must
> have happened because they tell us how much
> safer we are now. Flunking gym was not an
> option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE
> must be much harder than gym.

> Every year, someone taught the whole school
> a lesson by running in the halls with
> leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting
> the wet spot. How much better off would we
> be today if we only knew we could have sued
> the school system. Speaking of school, we
> all said prayers and the pledge and staying
> in detention after school caught all sorts
> of negative attention for the next two
> weeks. We must have had horribly damaged
> psyches.

> I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer
> 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we
> wouldn't have known what either was anyway)
> but they did give us a couple of baby
> aspirin and cough syrup if we started
> getting the sniffles. What an archaic health
> system we had then. Remember school nurses?
> Ours wore a hat and everything. I thought
> that I was supposed to accomplish something
> before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

> I just can't recall how bored we were
> without computers, PlayStation, Nintendo,
> X-box or 270 digital cable stations. I must
> be repressing that memory as I try to
> rationalize through the denial of the
> dangers could have befallen us as we trekked
> off each day about a mile down the road to
> some guy's vacant 20, built forts out of
> branches and pieces of plywood, made trails,
> and fought over who got to be the Lone
> Ranger.

> What was that property owner thinking,
> letting us play on that lot. He should have
> been locked up for not putting up a fence
> around the property, complete with a
> self-closing gate and an infrared intruder
> alarm. Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl
> and sterilization kit when I got that bee
> sting? I could have been killed!

> We played king of the hill on piles of
> gravel left on vacant construction sites and
> when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent
> bottle of mercurochrome and then we got our
> butt spanked. Now it's a trip to the
> emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of
> a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom
> calls the attorney to sue the contractor for
> leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel
> where it was such a threat.

> We didn't act up at the neighbor's house
> either because if we did, we got our butt
> spanked (physical abuse) here too ... and
> then we got our butt spanked again when we
> got home. Mom invited the door to door
> salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down
> the dust from the gravel driveway while
> playing with Tonka trucks (remember why
> Tonka trucks were made tough... it wasn't so
> that they could take the rough berber in the
> family room), and Dad drove a car with
> leaded gas.

> Our music had to be left inside when we went
> out to play and I am sure that I nearly
> exhausted my imagination a couple of times
> when we went on two week vacations. I should
> probably sue the folks now for the danger
> they put us in when we all slept in
> campgrounds in the family tent.

> Summers were spent behind the push lawnmower
> and I didn't even know that mowers came with
> motors until I was 13 and we got one without
> an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive.

> How sick were my parents? Of course my
> parents weren't the only psychos. I recall
> Donny Reynolds from next door coming over
> and doing his tricks on the front stoop just
> before he fell off.

> Little did his Mom know that she could have
> owned our house. Instead she picked him up
> and swatted him for being such a goof. It
> was a neighborhood run amuck..

> To top it off, not a single person I knew
> had ever been told that they were from a
> dysfunctional family. How could we possibly
> have known that we needed to get into group
> therapy and anger management classes? We
> were obviously so duped by so many societal
> ills, that we didn't even notice that the
> entire country wasn't taking Prozac!

> How did we survive?

Nothing is more responsible for the good old days...
 

Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.
-- Robert Benchley

Or....and also an anecdote from 3 decades in my life....
 

> Nothing is more responsible for the good old
> days than a bad memory.

Or looking around at the way things really are...

I guess this may date me somewhat but what follows here is something that transpired in the mid 50's, the mid 70's, and then in the mid 90's.

In the mid 50's we played...raised in the country and with not many homes around, the neighbourhood yielded a grand total of 10 kids (6 boys and 4 girls - ages from 6-13). After doing our chores we played....we invented our games. We played innocent games - baseball, football, 21, soccer, tag, hide and seek, in the winter hockey and skating in backyard rinks. Also were the building of the treehouses, climbing trees, playing in the sand, bike riding, swimming, and on special nights the bonfires with the hotdogs and marshmallows...life was innocent and good.

Then I grew up! A family came along.

In the mid seventies I had 2 boys aged 8 and 5....the neighborhood boys would come to the door to get my two boys. What they hollered through the screen were things such as get your gloves we're playing ball, or get your toys were building a city - yes there was skating but in an arena, swimmming but in a pool...not quite the same but still pretty innocent and still kids using a lot of imagination to amuse themselves.

And then we hit the mid 90's....and I was into a second family with 2 girls aged 7 and 5. Life really hadn't seemed that much different....it had evolved slowly and I didn't realize the changes until one summer evening the lights went on....

....the neighbour kids came to the door and yelled through the screen: "Get your weapons and let's go!"

No get your bikes, or bring out your gloves, or let's go swimming, or lets play tag...just...

"Get your weapons and let's go!"

And all I could do was shake my head and wonder where in Heavens name society is really headed to.

Cornell

Chicago childhood
 

Loved the post!!!!

My wife just finished a book about her childhood in Chicago...Without being too blatant...Here's a release about that book....

Coming through the door after school, seven year old Britanny and six year old Cody complain that there’s nothing to do. They don’t want to watch TV because nothing good is on. Music is an option, but Mom doesn’t want blaring sounds of the newest boys’ group playing, not after the day she’s had.

“Go play outside, Mom yells as she grabs for the super-size Tylenol bottle. Too bad she didn’t have any Calgon to “take her away,” she thinks.

Cody and Britanny seem doomed to a whole afternoon of boredom.

“Wadda we do now?,” they chorus as they sit with their heads on their hands at the kitchen counter, legs kicking at the chairs.

Has this happened at your home? Do your kids complain that their lives are humdrum and a drag from the time they get up right up to bedtime?

Debbie Grubb reflected back to the fun she had as a child playing in the sixties and thought other baby boomers would like to reminisce with her, remembering those good times as well. Her thoughts take us back to the time when we played Running Bases in the streets, skinning our knees with no thought to dinnertime or the next music video, except of course, it was time for The Monkees on TV…

She tells the story of the many games she used to play with her brothers Billy and Mike, and little sister Kathy (who was acquired from a band of gypsies, or so they used to tell her). She recalls the crush she had on the older man of 22, Paul, the tenant when she was 8. Read about Aunt Bonnie, “She-Devil,” Skinny Tommy, Crazy Marty, and the other kids in the neighborhood, and exploring her, “Band-Aid Rating System” for the games she played.

And let’s not forget her dreams of becoming a nun at age 6 and being magically transformed into Sister Deborah of Montclare Avenue (thanks to Grandma Paul’s Singer sewing machine).

Here’s an excerpt from her new book, Wanna Play: Games of the 60’s as Seen Through the Eyes of a Catholic Grammar School Diva…

I often sit back and wonder why I don’t see a flock of kids outside anymore playing games. Is it due to too much homework? After school daycare? The disappearance of the Good Humor truck? There was no sound in the world like that familiar jingle, jingle, jingle and that ice-cream-a comin’ music to get kids in a brain freeze frenzy, just begging their parents for change. ‘Mom… hurry ...Mom… he’s going… Mom… Mom…MOM!!! A quarter_I’ll never ask for nuthin’ again, I promise! That’s all….ooooh….ohhh…Mom hurry!’, we’d screech over and over again until we had money in hand or a shoe up our keister - which ever came first.

Or has TV and video games so inundated our lives that kids don’t know what lurks outside their door, or better yet, what they’d do if they were banished to the land of grass, trees and that gravel-tottin-knee-skinnin cement? Ahhhh, to be the first kid on the block to have a knee covered with orange stains from Mercurochrome, although we hated it being put on…

As we held the wound that we thought would kill us, or at least keep up home from school for a month, our mom would appear with the familiar orange bottle and that “remember when you wouldn’t listen to me in the grocery store and embarrassed me in front of all those people and I vowed to get even with you…well, your time has come, smartie-pants” look? She carefully placed the glass rod on our wound, which usually sent us sailing off the toilet seat lid (it’s a law – that’s where you had to sit while Mercurochrome was applied) into an ancient Indian pain dance. We hopped around on one foot fanning the wounded area until our mother said, “Oh stop crying…It will only sting for a minute!” I think they learned that lie in Mom School with the infamous “Sure honey – you’ll grow into those feet someday” lie.

But, she was right and after a few minutes the sting was gone and I was equipped with a new battle scar AND a Band-Aid! I WAS the Queen!

Remember when you used to wear your skinned, bandaged knees like badges? “Yep, I sure saved myself in Dodge ball…did you see me slide across the cement on my knees? Didn’t even skin my hands…yup, that was me!”, I’d say. I was the original Band-Aid Queen – Ruler of the Mercurochrome Kingdom!

From that point onward, Debbie takes us on a wild ride through her childhood with games she played in Chicago during the sixties.

You’ll recall the joy of playing with friends amid the grass, trees, and playgrounds.

You’ll remember about long-forgotten games that just took a bit of imagination, a willingness to get dirty, and a few friends, or crazy brothers and sisters, to make the games fun.

Travel back with Debbie into a time of innocence, laughter, Catholic school humor and best of all the world of Mercurochrome, Band Aids, and The Beatles!

You can get Wanna Play: Games of the 60’s as Seen Through the Eyes of a Catholic Grammar School Diva by sending $7.00 plus $3.00 postage and handling and your old roller skate key, (Hey, I’m kidding about the skate key) to Debbie Grubb 2511 W. Schaumburg Road, #348 Schaumburg, IL 60194

The grass is greener
 

The new XBox, Nintendo and Playstation now have green grass and more realistic trees.

We had that when we were young. We called it

Outside.

Michael Ross

Hee, hee, hee...so true, so true
 

Hi Michael:

So true, so true....wonder if these will come up with interactive grass stains to transfer to the players clothes for even more reality :o)

Cornell