Posted on 05/31/2013 6:21:29 AM PDT by IbJensen
To: Those of You Born 1930 - 1979
At the end is a quote of the month attributed to Jay Leno.. If you don't read anything else, Please read what he Said.
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!
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-base paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode Our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.
Riding in the back of a pick-up truck 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, real butter and bacon..
We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar.
And, we weren't overweight.
WHY?
Because we were always outside playing...that's why!
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 them 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 and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no 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 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 put out our 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 ?
The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:
"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thund erstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of swine flu and terrorist attacks. Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"
A Small Prayer!
God determines who walks into your life.....it's up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go.
When there is nothing left but God, that is when you find out that God is all you need. Take 60 seconds and give this a shot! All you do is simply say the following small prayer:
Father,
God bless my friend in whatever it is that You know they may need this day!
And may their life be full of your peace, prosperity, and power
as he/she seeks to have a closer relationship with you.
Amen.
IN GOD WE TRUST
The Boy Scouts offer that now on their camping trips, although the method is very different.
The fifties were even better- the trikes were made of steel, not that sissy plastic stuff!
Does anyone remember homemade wooden guns that shot the cross sections we cut out of innertubes?
How about scooters made from pieces of wood with old skate wheels nailed to the underside?
How in God’s name did anyone survive?
They made us eat PB&J and nobody died!
“nobody died!”
Except Barbie ... when we strapped her to a cherry bomb. :)
On the other hand, the life expectancy of an American at birth has increased from 53.7 in 1930 to 73.7 in 1980 to 78.3 in 2010. I have no opinion as to whether the increase in life expectancy is because of the nanny state or in spite of it. I will say, howevr, that I would rather die a year younger than live in a society where government dicates every aspect of our lives from craddle to grave and children are suspended from school for merely pointing their finger like a gun.
And riding in the car while laying across the back shelf of the car under the back window.
I agree completely. References such as those in the cited only dilute the impact. Truth is universal; it needs no attribution.
Poor Barbie! LOL
I remember being four years old and following my older (by a few years) brother all over the neighborhood. My neighborhood was in the process of having many new homes built. So we played in the dug out ground. We had an old farm field next to our neighborhood which was also our ball diamond. The railroad tracks were one block away. We walked the rails many times despite being warned by our mothers.
We climbed the bluffs near our homes...where every year kids fell off and died. Including one kid from my neighborhood. We did all the things mentioned in the article...all without parental supervision. No parents watched either our sandlot games or our city rec league games. No kid wore a helmet when riding his bike. Things were a lot different then.
On the matter of blood brothers.
I am half Irish, 1/4 Welsh,1/4 German and 1/4 Tard
we played in the crik that was basically below the dump and caught minnows...no body has died from that exp...
we stayed thin because we were up early and played outdoors all day unless we had work to do....at supper, we 6 kids would eat several ears of corn at a setting along with other stuff....we didn't get fat.....
I hate the times we live in now....but at least most of us got to grow up as children....
Supervised instruction with stuff like that isn’t a bad thing. Letting your 8yr old have a bagful of leftover fourth of July goods will probably not turn out OK.
It’s not a certain thing but ups the odds. Kind of like wearing seat belts. Or motorcycle helmets. You play actuary with your health and safety.
My friend had a lot of ongoing health issues related to his injury while we were growing up. And he has been prevented from doing a good many things because of it as well. His brother joined the military. He wasn’t able to. etc.
Given my druthers I wouldn’t let kids play with something that might, in fact, kill them until they are old enough to comprehend ‘danger’ and ‘safety’ and ‘common sense’. My friend danged near burned his house down that day as well. The fort was under the carport.
BTW
If you have never seen it, watch the film “october sky”/”rocket boys”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udHB3tftPz4
How can kids ever become adults if you won’t let them grow up?
” I still have scars in my shoulder and back from my idiot friends who broke the “3 pump” rule !”
LOL.
We had the “2 pump rule” but it was easy to get around...pump twice. wait for a few other guys to shoot and pump another two. Sometimes you could get away with that two or three times, really building up the pressure before somebody caught on! Of course we were lucky nobody got seriously hurt but kids used to be allowed to be kids and we did risky things.
These days, even if everyone obeyed the “two pump” rule the cops would get involved and all the kids would be arrested.
Society now operates on the “No fun rule”.
Life was different then.
We would have sent Barbie to the moon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP_OM5VVcSo
1925: and i also survived all that food that was ez to get outta containers w/o injuring myself in so doing; i also managed to buy merchandise w/o detailed assembly involved and w/written instruction obviously written by the enemy.
one thing, though...i can no longer write correctly nor spel rite!
Semper Fidelis
Dick G
*****
Best time to live in America the 30s, 40s, 50s, and early part of the 60s, the 70s, was, well, sort of OK, the music was best in the 70s.
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