A fun read, when you've got the time.
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Thank you.
For later.
For later.
I'm a Gen X closer to the Boomer gen than Gen Y and we had freedom that later generations will never know. I pity them. There is no way that this generation of transgendered safe-zone dwellers will survive when the SHTF.
There were a lot of boomers, that rendered some expendable.
Seatbelts????
My folks had 8 kids and I was the youngest so I had (actually got to ride) to ride on the deck behind the back seat next to the rear window! All my brothers and sisters were crammed in the front seat between my folks or in the back seat!
Yes we did live dangerously ... and ... a number of us were injured or died in the process. But that’s the way it was!
I’m not sure how we survive. I used to practice moto cross in a pair of jeans and t-shirt, biked without a helmet, skateboard without knee pads, picked tobacco, drove when I was 12, swam nude in a mud hole, hiked in sneakers, smoked from 12 to 19, drank wine and beer, played tackle football without pads and helmets, played baseball in a vacant lot, played ice hockey in a backyard with trees in the way, snowmobiled in jeans and shirts and built tree forts. And more things...
I recall riding my big fat American bicycle down a long flight of granite steps routinely for fun. If my mother found out she would have beaten me to death with a wooden spoon.
Because they had tough minds, and wouldn’t give up.
Pic at article of kid with electrical cord in mouth and outlet reminds me of an incident.
My sister was about 1 and I was 4. Someone gave my sis a kiddy electric clothing iron. It had a cord and plug and would heat up. Dad bent the prongs so it couldn’t be put in a socket and heat up. I picked it up and experimented — stuck a single prong in the outlet. ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP!
I only did it once. I was a quick learner.
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Rode many a mile without seatbelts. Even rode many of a mile in the back of a pickup on the highway. Used to play behind the DDT truck as it sprayed for mosquitos.
Hated school yards and parks that had those ‘safety’ seats on swings.
“We crowded into cars that had no seat belts — or, if they did, had them only in the front seat, while we sat in the back. There were car seats for toddlers, but they were designed to hold the kid upright, not to offer any protection.”
They forgot the worst part of riding in a car back then. Being the youngest, and having to sit in the back seat where the “hump” was. (curse you, rear-wheel drive!)
Yes it was dangerous times.
Ha, ha, I’m still amazed I lived to be a teen considering the stuff I did before I was ten. Parents today would be shocked at the things we did at very young ages. With no parents around. I’m wondering if some parents with a lot of kids i.e. mouths to feed hoped a few wouldn’t come back. Just kidding.
My friends and I used to travel miles on bicycle, into areas I’d be afraid to drive through today. No helmets, no knee pads, and for a while in my case, no brakes. My parents would be locked up today.
It’s a wussy country now.
Boomers grew up in a golden age. Testosterone met technology, and the result was a LOT of good times.
The girls were just as bad-ass in their own ways.
No computer-phone will ever out-cool a hot rod.
I'll remember that photo until the day I die.
And I'll always wear my seat belt even if it's not required.