The way it was...........

[Guest]

I received this in my email today and thought that this is so true.........


I Can't Believe We Made It!
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's or even the early 80's, probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids or locks on medicine bottles, doors, or
cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.

Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking ..

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.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in
it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one soft drink with four friends , from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode 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 would leave home in the morning and play all day , as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound,
personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.

We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents . They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen , we did not put out any eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home 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.

Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and
were held back to repeat the same grade.
Horrors!

Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.

The idea of parents bailing us out if we got in trouble in school or
broke a law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the school or the law. Imagine that!

This generation has 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.
And you're one of them!
Congratulations.

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before lawyers and government regulated our lives for our own good !!

[Guest]

Not to mention all the Mattel "Fanner 50'"s that fired plastic bullets (10 feet... ), or those lovely wood-and-steel Civil War muskets we used to pepper them "damn Yankees" with (cork balls, range about 25 feet). We grew up hunting, fishing, used .22s and bows, yet NONE of us became mass murderers in our high schools...

What happened to the "good old days"?

(This was a tirade by the "old goat" himself while coppertop was "indisposed"...sorry for the confusion!)

[WidreMann]

And in the ancient days there were diseases galore with no cures for them AT ALL because medical science as such didn't exist. Yet, they survived.

Yes, people survived and even enjoyed life. But don't you like it now that you don't have to worry about dying from tuberculosis or even the common cold? And for that matter, isn't it much better to have the government make sure all meat and other foods are inspected instead of taking your chances? Just think about those things and more before you people go spouting off about how everything's going to hell in a handbasket.

[chadtm80]

Just think about those things and more before you people go spouting off

WidreMann It REALY REALY bothers me when you use the phrase "you people" like you do... Kind of seems derogatory dont you think?

[streetsoldier]

WidreMann, a word...meats have been under inspection since Teddy Roosevelt. YES, medicine has improved, we have wiped out what were once killer diseases...and then produced strains that are incurable.

We also watched thousands of "deaths" on Westerns and war movies, and it didn't "scar our psyches"...yet our kids play with video games that are designed for close-range killing, so much so that the Army uses them for training purposes.

Our music was FUN...we could listen, sing along and even dance to it. Today, every other angry, vicious word in some of the "music" is tripe our mothers would have fainted to hear, and is sold unabashedly to 10-year-olds.

And all of THIS "progress" in the last 30 years or so...fomented by the same tiny minority of @$$e$ that once screamed epithets at policemen and returning servicemen, and are now 'public servants" in Washington, "actors/entertainers" in Hollywood and "reporters" in our daily newspapers.

Get a grip, kid...you have a LOT of growing up to accomplish.

[Miss Mary]

Example of then and now:

Boys played with toy guns, shot eachother hundreds of times (my brothers, all summer long!) and I never heard of any real shootings in schools.

When you'd get very mad at someone, the phrase often used was: I'll murder him/her/you.

Again, no murders/shootings, between kids that is.

We seemed to know how to draw the line between real and fantasy. Bill, your point about watching countless Westerns prompted this post.

[mf_dolphin]

And may I humbly add to Bill's post....

Teachers were treated with respect or you got 2 whippings. 1 at school and a worse one for bringing shame to the family.

Adult were addressed as Sir and Ma'am out of respect. (I still do this to older people for the same reason)

Men opened doors for women out of courtesy.

Love of God and Country was expected not ridiculed.

For every step forward we've made several backwards. JMHO

[WidreMann]

We are doing a well-needed shakedown. ..(edited my mf_dolphin).. I think we are moving towards (but aren't there yet) doing everything for a reason instead of "just because". And once we get there, things will be a great deal better. Having disconnected traditions and manners and so on only works so well, but by covering up the real reasons, invariably, something is lost and problems arise. What I am saying is, it did work to some degree in those days, but not to the degree it could have, and often times problems were swept under the rug and ignored. That's why everything looked so peachy keen.

Interestingly enough, you could have asked slave owners in the old south whether the slaves liked being slaves and they would have said yes. They would have also said that freed slaves would be good-for-nothings and would never amount to anything because they needed the order provided them. Well, they were right at first and I could see that if this messageboard were around back in those days, I would be arguing about how the slaves deserved to be freed and that people of different races should be treated equally and you would say that things were better when they were enslaved and that blacks shouldn't be given equal rights and then would point out all the problems associated with freeing them. I ask you as people of the present, should the slaves have been freed? Should the blacks have been given equal rights?

WidreMann It REALY REALY bothers me when you use the phrase "you people" like you do... Kind of seems derogatory dont you think?

The problem lies with the English language, which lacks a second person plural pronoun (excluding non-standard dialectical forms "y'all" and "youse"). Thus, in order to emphasize that I am speaking to all those who side with that argument, I must resort to phrases such as "you people". I suppose I could use "ye" in the future, but that is more than pretentious in that it just sounds weird, and I could only use it in the nominative (being stuck with "you", etc. elsewhere). So, I'm sorry if that sounded derogatory; it wasn't mean to be.

[Guest]

Thanks mrs Chad and Streetsoldier for bringing back some good memories of a lost era......

[Miss Mary]

WM - oh yeah, I would have been one for slavery way back then.....NOT! How can you even bring up such a point? My God, I'm for civil rights, for everyone. I wish the world was a nicer place, fair to everyone. But sadly it's not. I wonder sometimes about how you were raised - you have such very strong opinions for somene so young. Cold and without feeling.

[WidreMann]

No, I'm just avoiding the "good ol' days" trap that every single generation in history seems to have fallen into. It's an artifact of the way humans perceive their world in different periods in their life and indeed in periods before and after their lives which they become aware of through history and our own native ability to make predictions about the future. It is thus not an objective phenomenon. Truth is, there is an increase in the complexity of the human "system" and that necessarily means two things (or more): increase in the likelyhood of problems and among those severe problems, and increase in future uncertainty. Of course there is always uncertainty in the future and that, I believe, is the key to why the present always seems worse than the past. For in the past, there is no uncertainty. It can be seen the results of the problems and the non-problems of the past and thus everything is known and certainl. But in the present, we don't know what's really going to happen. And the problems seem real and considerable. There problems in the past as well, but they don't seem to be problems because, like I said, the results have come to pass for better or for worse, but often for better. Another reason people look towards the good ol' days is because those are generally the days of their youth and childhood, which generally tend to be looked on with fondness simply because the world was new and there were many, many opportunities and things yet undone (among other reasons). Additionally, children are very often sheltered from larger problems in the society and if they had a good home (like I imagine many here had), then childhood would be objectively better than later periods simply because of lack of exposure to problems.

So the problem is not that society is going to hell in a handbasket. It's not that the kids are just out of control or that lyrics are hateful. The problem is the way people look at history, the present and the future. There is no solution to this problem, except perhaps to realize the fallacy and embrace the increased complexity and uncertainty of the future and go into it at least doing something about the problems (which are always present in all times and places) instead of yearning for the "good ol' days" and pretending that that's the real problem.

[Miss Mary]

Oh I don't know, all I want to say is being born in 1955 and growing up then and into the 60s (before the Viet Nam War started, etc.) when most mom's stayed home and you just played with friends in your neighborhood (no prearranged play dates) was great! No one had much money in my neighborhood, most families for a while there had only one car. Kids were forced to hang out at eachother's homes, play in the woods or creek, get a pickup baseball game going, ice skating in the winter, was almost like Mayberry as I look back WM. I don't think my memory is clouded, it was nice back then! So I beg to differ with you. And that is just my opinion too. Not saying how it is now is bad, it's just different.

[WidreMann]

WM - oh yeah, I would have been one for slavery way back then.....NOT! How can you even bring up such a point? My God, I'm for civil rights, for everyone. I wish the world was a nicer place, fair to everyone. But sadly it's not. I wonder sometimes about how you were raised - you have such very strong opinions for somene so young. Cold and without feeling.

But you obviously missed the point. Some people believed in freeing the slaves and especially few in the south, but they were "liberals". They proposed an idea that changed the social order in many places and there were problems with the freed slaves trying to integrate into society. It reminds me very much of the same kind of flak liberals get today for putting forth radical ideas and supporting activity that many find morally reprehensible. And I'm not saying everything the liberals propose is just the greatest thing since sliced bread. But, honestly, too many conservatives oppose just about anything that disturbs the status quo or the desired status quo (i.e. a return to the "good ol' days") even if such things would one day bear fruit, despite possible negatives especially initially. It is no surprise, of course, that conservatives tend to be associated with the moneyed interests as well as others who win if the system stays the same.

[WidreMann]

I don't think my memory is clouded, it was nice back then! So I beg to differ with you. And that is just my opinion too. Not saying how it is now is bad, it's just different.

I rather enjoyed my childhood, and I know a lot of other people who did as well. If things were really going downhill, I shouldn't have enjoyed it at all, or should have enjoyed it less. No, you see, everyone enjoys their childhood (barring some major dysfunction in the family and even then, as in my case, childhood still often appears to be a nice time). It's a function of being a child and not of the problems of society.

[Amanzi]

In My Day


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Note: The Washington Post recently had a contest wherein participants were asked to tell the younger generation how much harder they had had it "in the old days." Winners, runners-up, and honorable mentions are listed below.

And the winner:
In my day, we didn't have rocks. We had to go down to the creek and wash our clothes by beating them with our heads.

First Runner-Up:
In my day, we didn't have MTV or in-line skates, or any of that stuff. No, it was 45s and regular old metal-wheeled roller skates, and the 45s always skipped, so to get them to play right you'd weigh the needle down with something like quarters, which we never had because our allowances were way too small, so we'd use our skate keys instead and end up forgetting they were taped to the record player arm so that we couldn't adjust our skates, which didn't really matter because those crummy metal wheels would kill you if you hit a pebble anyway, and in those days roads had real pebbles on them, not like today.

Second Runner-Up:
In my day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot. In winter, we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction.



Honorable Mentions:
In my day, we didn't have fancy health-food restaurants. Every day we ate lots of easily recognizable animal parts, along with potatoes.

In my day, we didn't have hand-held calculators. We had to do addition on our fingers. To subtract, we had to have some fingers amputated.

In my day, we didn't get that disembodied, slightly ticked-off voice saying 'Doors closing.' We got on the train, the doors closed, and if your hand was sticking out, it scraped along the tunnel all the way to the next station and it was a bloody stump at the end. But the base fare was only a dollar.

In my day, we didn't have water. We had to smash together our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Kids today think the world revolves around them. In my day, the sun revolved around the world, and the world was perched on the back of a giant tortoise.

Back in my day, '60 Minutes' wasn't just a bunch of gray-haired, liberal 80-year-old guys. It was a bunch of gray-haired, liberal 60-year-old guys.

In my day, we didn't have virtual reality. If a one-eyed razorback barbarian warrior was chasing you with an ax, you just had to hope you could outrun him.

Back in my day, they hadn't invented electricity. We had to watch television by candlelight.

In my day, we didn't have Strom Thurmond. Oh, wait. Yes we did.

[Stephanie]

Example of then and now:

Boys played with toy guns, shot eachother hundreds of times (my brothers, all summer long!) and I never heard of any real shootings in schools.

When you'd get very mad at someone, the phrase often used was: I'll murder him/her/you. Again, no murders/shootings, between kids that is.

We seemed to know how to draw the line between real and fantasy. Bill, your point about watching countless Westerns prompted this post.

Now, you'd be arrested for even uttering those words! :o

[Miss Mary]

Stephanie - Oh I know. I clearly remember my brother's saying that phrase a lot, tearing around the house, chasing eachother. They were only a year apart in age, different as night and day. Fought like cats and dogs. They both turned out fine I might add! I muttered that phrase too a few times. Now you couldn't even say that m word.

[azsnowman]

Thanks mrschad for the flashback "Whoa....like wow man, that was good acid!" LOL! JUST KIDDING!

Widreman, you have NO CLUE what it was like do you, I RESOUNDLY back Bill on this one, you have a TOUGH row to hoe in front of you, life is too darn short to take a thread like this and run it into the ground!

Sorry Chad, Marshall, Ticka, I cannot let this one go unanswered, being a admin over at TWC for those 6 months or so, I HAD to bite my tongue, well, it's time I said what I did....."nuff said!"

Dennis

[chadtm80]

Sorry Chad, Marshall, Ticka, I cannot let this one go unanswered

no apology needed bud.. Im with you and Bill

[therock1811]

I'm with you Chad, I may be a teen like WM but I certainly do not go and disrespect others for wanting to relive the "good old days". In fact I would encourage such.