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?