TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930s, 40s and 50s !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who may have 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, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets, on our heads.

As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no airbags, 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 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.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, Only to find out that we forgot about brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not Have Play Stations, Nintendo and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, 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 lost teeth, and there were no lawsuits from those accidents.

We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand, and no one would call child services to report abuse.

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, 22 rifles for our 12th, rode horses, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and although we were told it would happen - we did not put 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.

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.

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

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.

"With hurricanes, tornadoes, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of coronavirus and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

Yes, it was. My parents grew up in Oak Cliff, too, and graduated from Adamson. Every so often our high school football team would play at Cobb Stadium. That was the only stadium in town when my parents were in school (other than the Cotton Bowl). They also used to go dancing at LouAnn’s. Mr. Claret and I did, too, although we didn’t know each other at the time. (He went to Richardson.) My grandmother worked as a telephone operator at the phone company downtown. She met my grandfather, who was a pharmacist at the Medical Arts Building, when she went to lunch there at the pharmacy. Did you go downtown to see the Christmas displays at Titche’s? We did, every year. So magical! I loved downtown.

Born in 1955, still remember a lot of that. Also remember the milkman came by every week, milk was in glass bottles, including half pint size at school, had a cardboard top you’d pull off. First time I saw a bicycle helmet I didn’t know what it was, found out and thought what the hell???? people actually wear those damn things????

After riding in cars that had no seat belts for years, it took me probably 10 years to get used to the idea and actually remember to put one on. Never bothered much till they made it a law...didn’t want a $125 tiket so I started wearing one. Knew a kid in high school (notice past tense) had a wreck, riding in the back seat, seat belt cut him almost completely in half. No he didn’t live through it. Only a lap belt in those days. guy in front seat wasn’t wearing one, threw him out the window, he was busted up a bit but lived.

Some idiot talked me into jumping off a barn roof with an umbrella...No, it didn’t work like it does in the cartoons...fortunately it didn’t involve a trip to the hospital...

6 oz Coke, nickel. Candy bar, nickel. Gas $0.199 a gallon. Fill the car for $5 and get change. And not these tiny, sheet metal death traps wee have today, they were heavy duty CARS made of steel... usually weighed as much as 2 cars today. No way you could kick the door and leave a dent half the size of Rhode Island...

Plastic sandwich bags originally had foldover flaps, NOT zip lock...before that we used wax paper. Red solo cups...thermos bottles had glass vaccuum bottles inside and a cork stopper. Kept coffee hot maybe 3 hours, but first time it was opened, got cold in a half hour. drop it once, break th little glass nib at bottom, had to replace the glass insert.

Typewriters weere not electric...want it reheated? Fire up the oven, microwave didn’t exist.

My grandparents still had a hand pump water well in 1970. worst thing you could ever do was walk away from that pump and forget to fill the primer bucket with water. My grandfather had to drive about 10 miles to get water to fill it...AFTER he whipped your ass...

Kids today are way too protected. I got cut, scraped, whaever, wiped off the blood and kept playing. Maybe a band aid if it didn’t want to stop bleeding. And right back out there in the dirt with it. OK if my mother didn’t come up with work to do...which is why if I ever managed to get outside, I made sure I stayed there.

They need to get outside, roll around in the dirt, eat some of it. Make mud pies. You get immunity from a lot of stuff that way.

I still refuse to wear a helmet when I ride my bike.

nostalgia...it ain’t what it used to be...

A trip down memory lane....

Get Smart
Beverly Hillbillies
Petticoat Junction
Mayberry RFD
The Rifleman
Wild Wild West
Mission Impossible
The Saint
Peter Gunn
The Lone Ranger
Bat Masterson
Green Acres
Perry Mason
Bonanza
And of course, Johnny Carson...

Like an earlier poster here, I’m a War Baby (’42).

I’ve really enjoyed the memories on this thread.

Anyone else remember the guy that pushed a special cart down the street about once a month that we called the “Sharpener Man”? He had rigged up a seat and pedal that would turn a grindstone. He sharpened knives, scissors and axes.

How about the guy that would walk a Shetland pony through the neighborhood so little kids could get their pictures taken while sitting on the pony?

Horse-drawn watermelon wagons and farm vegetable wagons?

Small dump trucks full of manure? Folks could buy a half load or all, depending on size of yard and Victory Garden.

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