TO THOSE WHO SURVIVED the 50's, 60's and 70's! My comments are in parethesis?

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. (This was before your freaking blood test ticket looked like a multiple choice test!)





Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints. (House pipes were constructed using lead solder; the water going through them didn't pick up lead or what it did we pissed out!)





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. (When we fell we fixed it, with spit, bandaid, T-shirt w/e, no Mommy crying, "Oh my kid fell down. In fact Mom said, "it serves your dumb asz right!")





As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. (If I wore a freaking seat belt I wouldn't be alive today, and an 'airbag' was somebody who never STFU!)





Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. (Pick ups and convertables were hot, cool w/e before the goddamn monster truck tires so popular today; and gasoline cost less than fifty cents a gallon then.)





We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. (F*ck paying a buck for stuff that has traveled through the mountains for thousands of years. So where the did the water in the hose first come from? DUHHHH)





We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. (Condoms, or 'Hudson River Trout' were only used with 'strange' stuff!)





We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! (We found friends the 'real' way no searching through profiles, email dating services, or in chat rooms. Some of them we're still friends with!)





We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. (And if we came home to late dad did 'capital' punishment they smacked or spanked us. No kid EVER wanted to take his parents to court; we knew the judge would say, "you didn't hit enough!")





No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. (A cell phone was hanging on the freaking county jail wall!)





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. (Or skateboards were made from old skates -- and you wondered why they were called that? No "Official authorised by XWA on sale only $199.95 plus shipping!')





We didn't have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms...WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! (And of couse, some times we fought, we either won or lost. No running and telling Mommy; "Oh ___ was so mean to me." We knew Mom would first ask, "who started the fight?" Then say, "so what?")





We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. (See above)





We ate worms and mud pies we made from dirt, and  the worms did not live in us forever. (The body passed a lot more than worms and dirt too!)





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. (Some times the eyes we did poke out were done on purpose, but of course; we pretended they were accidents!)





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! (No freaking IMs or txt messages!)





Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that! (Dad didn't buy the coach drinks he had enough stuff, of his own. to do!)





The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! (And with teachers in fact EVERYBODY against us!)





This generation has 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. (Now kids can look stuff, if they want to, up like the original patent applications for every-FREAKING-thing made since the time began. But today's kids think if they build a 'better mousetrap' they'll be immediately famous. Fat f*cking chance!)





We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL. (And NO freaking bragging or crying in chat rooms!)





(The thing I'm most grateful for is; I was born before 'virtual' music, almost, virtually eliminated musicians. In those days music like many things was taught no PDF files. Just because you owned a f**king Fender Strat made you a musician the same way peeing in the bathroom made you a plumber! If you sucked people weren't embarrassed to say so! And I'm also grateful I was able to hear, and see, some of the music school failures and drop outs; some them boys ROCKED!)





(In New York the drinking age was 18 -- gee imagine that the fed's hadn't, yet, turned the whole country into the same goddamn thing coast to coast! And, of course, people drove in from Jersey and Connectict and got drunk here, the breath-a-liar wasn't invented yet! Smoking, in some places, was frowned upon but no freaking alarms were triggered when you lit up! You weren't asked to leave a bar, if you can't smoke in a bar where can you? The people who didn't like it got up, left or moved. Second hand smoke wasn't invented yet. If you grew up in an 'Ethnic' family; Italian, Black, Greek, Puerto Rican, Jewish or Ukrainian like me, beer, wine and whiskey were on the table. NOT locked up in a safe until you're 21. Like 18 really makes a difference? It's a freaking number that's ALL!)





And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS! (Now don't let this sh*t go to your f**king head; remember you AIN'T the ONLY one!)





You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the freaking government (Mommy) regulated our lives for our own good. (Hell send it to the f**king geeks and nerds too, let em know what to shoot for in a 'virtual' life simulation! Yeah like life can be simulated? YOU gotta live it! "There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." -- Robert Heinlein)





And while you're at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were. (Just change the subject; this one will, probably, be deleted immediately) Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?! (Or naked! he-he)





http://www.total-knowledge.com/~willyblu...

TO THOSE WHO SURVIVED the  50's, 60's and 70's! My comments are in parethesis?
i am totally with you on all of that. i was born in oklahoma in1953. in the winter we would slide donw the hill on a trashcan lid. go swimming in the pond in cutoffs and a tee shirt, no bikini. i'm glad to know someone else remembers the good old days. have a good evening.
Reply:You will remember that there still were a lot of children with severe birth defects from what the mother was doing, or not doing, while pregnant. How many children did you see with hands at their Shoulders, rather than arms. Report It

Reply:Granted, most often they were put into institutions so that the general public would be affected by them, and they were sterilized so that they wouldn't pass on their abnormal genes, but they still existed. Ultimately, luck comes into play when it comes to something happening to any of us. Report It

Reply:Born in 1854 and I remember doing pretty much all that you describe. Report It

Reply:thnak you so much for this trip down memory lane...I absolutely loved being a kid of the 50's and a teen of the late 60's. It was the best time ever. I am surprised how many things I relate to..I didn't realize all the other kids were out playing ALL day long. Report It

Reply:And what great Halloweens--a paper grocery bags full. every house participated (except 1 in 50) Report It

Reply:what was the question?
Reply:Far Out Man, Peace, Love , Stop Disco , Stop War.


from an old Hippie
Reply:You have that right 1957
Reply:All that - and it only goes to prove that it is possible for one person to survive to adulthood.


Not that others, like my cousin, didn't wind up with brain damage from being thrown from a car on his 18th birthday, or others, like a kid I went to school with, weren;t deaf from fetal alcohol syndrome, and I know for a fact that being allowed to run all day put kids in the path of creeps in cars. And I'm sure the kids that lived at Love Canal drank out of the hose, too, at least for a while.





Your good old days are a false perception made possible by distance.
Reply:What is your question ?


(But what you said is all true)
Reply:Yeah, well its not the 50's 60's or 70's anymore. Time to move on. Things change.
Reply:Friend, I can relate to and agree with every thing you said in your comments, with the exception of the worm. I am certain that I never ate a worm, or a bug either. Aslo, it was great fun reading your comments. They brought back a lot of memories.





In all defference to the kids growing up today, however, they may not play outside in the heat, or own BB guns. Their past times may be video games and the internet, and cell phones, which drive me absolutely nuts, may be their primary means of communication, so long as their parents can afford to pay the damn bill. But their also so far ahead of us educationally we couldn't catch up if we wanted to. Youngsters graduating high school today, those who have honestly done the work, are as learned as our generation was coming out of college. Admitedly, there are those who wind up with a HS deploma in their hands unprepared for anything. They stumbled through and either couldn't or wouldn't get it. They're simply that group relegated to employment at McDonalds and Burgar King. But the others, the ones who did get it in HS, will, sooner or later, wind up with a college degree and be prefectly armed to meet life on life's terms.





Like yourself, I wouldn't trade corporal punishment in class rooms or squirrel hunting with my grandfather or cars without air conditioning or any of the rest of it for anything, But, that was our time. I read in a history book one time that an ancient Greek philosopher, I should know his name, was the first person ever to be documented as having lemented the destiny of the next generation for their not having had the advantages of growing up under his circumstances.
Reply:Oh, the good ol' days. I remember when the greatest toy we had was a big refrigerator box. We were satisfied with the simplicities of life and didn't have desires for what our children thing that they 'need'.............
Reply:Everyday thay make new laws that eliminate fredom.





I do not like being told what to do for my own protection.





COPS THAT GIVE OUT SEATBELT TICKETS ARE NOTHING MORE THAN GLORIFIED METER MAIDS.





Cellphone and driving laws should be covered under reckless drivin.


If you are not all over the road the pigs should not pull you over.



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