Posted on 07/20/2019 8:16:01 PM PDT by SamAdams76
OK, so I wrote my post about the heat earlier today. Yes, it was a hot day but I went for a second walk around 7PM when the temperature dropped to a more comfortable 85 degrees.
One thing I noticed, as is the case pretty much any day, is that there are zero kids on the streets. Now I know a lot of kids live in my neighborhood because during the school year, as I take my morning walks, all those big yellow buses ply the streets. During the winter months especially, you see all those idling SUV's and minivans with the kids cocooned inside. As the yellow bus pulls up, the kids dash from the heated cars into the buses with their flip flops and pajama pants.
I kid you not. Pajama pants and flip flops are now apparently acceptable for school wear. Even in the dead of winter.
Kids don't play outside anymore. They don't even appear to have bicycles. Now when I was growing up in the 1970s, a bicycle was pretty much mandatory. Especially a Huffy bike with fat tires so that we could go "off-road" and get to our hideaways in the woods and marshes where we had our stashes of Playboy and MAD magazines.
For those who are familiar with the first season of the Netflix show "Stranger Things", that was my childhood. Riding with my friends on bikes and finding exciting things to do. One thing we didn't do was hang out at home because there was nothing to do there. No video games. No computers. No smartphones. We did have TVs but our parents didn't let us watch it during the day. If I showed up at my house in the middle of a summer day, my Mom would put a broom in my hand and put me to work. So naturally I did not go home until dinner time. My breakfast was a couple bowls of Raisin Bran and lunches were sandwiches and glasses of lemonade handed out the window by mothers who didn't want us in the house dirtying things up.
I feel bad for the kids of today because on the whole, they do not have any concept of what it is like to be truly free. To get out of the house in the morning with a bicycle and not return until dark. Every moment of their lives is micro-managed and supervised by helicopter parents who need to have control over every facet of their lives. In my opinion, this does not bode well for our society.
I have not yet seen Seasons 2 or 3 of Stranger Things so no spoilers, please. Based on Season 1, this could be a decent show.
Reading the book this weekend called "Justice On Trial" by Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino. Pretty amazing book about the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Was it only a year ago that this all occurred? Seems like it was 2 or even 3 years ago at this point.
Anyway, it was disgusting how the Left tried to smear Brett Kavanaugh, who is a fine man with a great family. Not only smear him but to utterly destroy his life with false accusations of sexual misconduct. These are truly evil people we are up against. But with President Trump, we have a man who will fight and thus we have Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
No doubt a President Jeb Bush would have tossed Kavanaugh off to the side and selected a "moderate" justice that would turn out to be another tool of the Left. We are so fortunate that 2016 was the year that Donald Trump decided to run for president. The alternative would have been pretty much the end of America.
I’m sorry but how is this related to racism and typing?
There’s nothing more exciting than riding your bike barefoot, and have the foot slip off the pedal, and get stuck between the pedal and the road, with your big toe bent back dragging the pavement.
Kids these days don’t know what they’re missing.
I believe you, my good FRiend, who put it best, something like this:
It was like I went to bed on 11/8/16 with terminal cancer and woke up on 11/9/16 in full remission.
This is a tale from the 50s. In the summer I’d visit my Aunt & Uncle’s place in a small town in Idaho. Since I was from urban SoCal this was like heaven to me. My cousin and I would, like you, be outside from dawn to dusk.
One day we came across a pile of warm tar—they were patching potholes. We found that if we walked through the tar (of course we were barefoot) we could create protective soles on the bottoms of our feet.
It was great. We could walk on stones without them hurting, even the little thorns that a low-growing weed came equipped with.
We couldn’t understand why my aunt was so upset when we came inside and walked across her clean floor.
It was a good time to be a kid.
Oh yes, my best friend had a Schwinn. This was early ‘80s. My dad got me a bike whose name I can’t remember. He liked it because it had long pedal shafts...he said they would give more torque. In reality it just made it harder to sustain a long wheelie. And thus I suffered.
These are the kinds of lessons you learn when you have an actual childhood.
LOL
Streetlights.
When the streetlights cam on time was up.
My first summer job was delivering papers for the Boston Herald American when I was 13. In the 1970s, newspapers were typically delivered by boys (I do remember a girl or two with a paper route). My first week, I cleared about $25 including tips (which were a pleasant surprise to me). Now that was an incredible amount of money for a 13-year-old kid to have in 1976. And I made it week after week that year.
I saved a lot of it but I would splurge too. I'd often take the subway into Boston to Fenway and walk up to the ticket window to get a ticket for the Red Sox game. Felt like such a big shot!
Had a huffy like that but it had shock absorbers on the front forks. I once put baby bike wheels on mine for a couple days.
I loved my Huffys. Probably wore out two of them. In the late 60’s my girlfriend and I would occasionally ride our bikes from Port Huronto Marysville, approximately 6 miles.
I rode my bike all the time. At night I would ride the gravel alleys that split the blocks between Pine and Howard streets that ran East/West between 8th and 16th streets. One night I was going full throttle when a car came onto a street I was about to cross. I hit the brakes and spun a 180. It was an exhilarating experience I will never forget.
My legs got really strong from all that bicycle riding. I continued riding bikes until shortly after I got married in 1974, age 21, when I bought a car.
If, during the summer I was inside I would read...whatever I could get my hands on. But I spent a lot of time outside just to avoid boredom. I got really good throwing a frisbee and on windy days would go play catch with myself if no one was around to play with. I got pretty good at throwing the frisbee into the wind that would blow it back to me.
Great times, great memories.
Now, I fear I’m spending too much time on the wayback machine, spending too much time reminiscing, and not enough addressing what needs to be done here. Been having a lot of health problems...haven’t eaten well in more than a year. No way could I ride a bike right now, but I hope, soon after the day after tomorrow, I will have a better idea what’s wrong with me.
Another great post, Sam. Keep ‘em coming.
I still kick myself for not booking a hotel room in NYC that night so that I could have been one of those out in the street outside FoxNews watching the results. My office is right down the street from Trump Tower and I gave staying in the city that night some serious thought.
Expected to read about how blacks think typing is racist because whites invented it and did it a lot, but got a bunch about going outdoors and zero on the former. Foiled again.
I personally liked the big wheel train down a big hill where the pedals go so fast you cant keep up and end up with one foot under the bottom of the big wheel and end up getting stitches to fix the cut after the asphalt friction burns through your hand me down shoes. Enjoyed every minute and learned a valuable lesson.
I wish you luck but please try to eat better. That has done wonders for me. Don't want to get into details on this thread but diet is the key to good health. I reversed Type 2 diabetes by eliminating added sugars and eating natural foods. For example, today I had two fried eggs, full-milk yogurt with blackberries, almonds, cherries, steak, broccoli, onions, mushrooms and a salad with sunflower seeds, avocado and olive oil. Also a couple glasses red wine. Feel great.
LS turned me on to “The Americans” and I’ve already gotten through the second season. Excellent show so far.
Go throw a frisbee into the wind. Catch it. I say some prayers for your health. If you haven’t already get checked out. They can do some amazing things these days. But... sometime it sucks what you find out.
It gets better with each season. I was impressed.
Oh man we had endless fun with our Big Wheels. You kind of outgrow them and started doing risky stuff that they weren’t really designed for.
We’d wear them out so the wheel would have thin spots and areas where it was completely worn through.
And there was that Green Machine that was the stuff of dreams but nobody ever saw one in real life.
“Go throw a frisbee into the wind. Catch it.”
Haha. I just might try that. I’m not moving very well these days, but there’s a good sized park across the street. Just need a frisbee...
Thanks for the prayers Brother.
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