When I was 3-4-5, I didn't know there was a difference in boys and girls. One day I was running around outside without a shirt on and someone said I was a girl and should have a shirt on. I went in the house and asked my mother why that person said that. I can't remember when I actually started wearing a shirt.
I first locked the front door in about 1963. One street over, someone broke into a doctor's house looking for drugs, so I started locking the front door since his house wasn't far from ours.
I think the country changed about twenty years ago. Now, it is the pits for personal security. I feel safe in my house because I made it safe. Outside my very small gated community, I am not safe. No one is safe outside anymore. One can have concealed carry but the fact one does that says outside is not safe.
Now, the govn. wants to take our guns. They can go pound dirt. This outcry about guns makes me want to buy some more if there is any left after this past week.
We never locked the door either. Even when no one was home, the door was always open. We got to run around all over town as long as we were home by dark.
We rode bikes out into the country to catch the horses and rode the horses back to town, pausing to eat a picnic lunch next to the creek. No helmets or anything.
Once I failed to get all the air out of the horse’s belly, because we were in a hurry to get in the saddle and start riding. Big mistake. We were galloping up hill when the saddle rolled under the horse, and our heads landed uncomfortably close to where the hooves were landing.
I remember buying bubble gum with mills (worth less than a penny). We said the pledge of alligiance daily and said prayers in school. We got our bottoms paddled if we didn’t do what the teacher said.
Freedom today’s children have never had and will never know due to the larger amount of evil in the world. Our teachers never did the air raid drills, they just did the tornado drills, which were basically the same thing.
When I was in the 8th grade, we had a civil defense training week, where we learned that in our rural area, we would all probably survive the initial attack, and had a good chance to survive, if we used our knowledge and took shelter for the appropriate time.
They even showed us how to peel and eat a banana, if it has radiation dust on it. I never found it the least bit scary: To me it was just life: Prepare for the worst and hope for the best, and chances are good you’ll make it ok, especially if you say your prayers and do what God wants you to. Very simplistic life in our little town.