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.
Racists History of,,,
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Sam ,
You post some kind
Of “twisty Stuff!”
Some nerdy kids took typing. They were wedded to their Smith-Coronas and Olivettis.
Everyone should have a frisbee. :)
“Hey, my bike!” I hear, as I ride off just as fast as I can.
Didn’t tread over there for a while after that.
I wonder if you can buy one that comes with a dog that can fetch it.
Ha you mentioned the green machine. Had one on Christmas day. Broke the arm of the machine driving it for the first time around the block on Christmas day. Dad tried to fix it, didnt work. Sad day, but it was a POS, Went back to big wheel.
Pther people are counting on you.
People you don’t even know.
“Other people are counting on you.
People you don’t even know.”
That’s a comforting thought. Thank you. It would be nice to know who they are someday.
I recently restored an early 70’s Japanese 10-speed for myself. Riding is still fun and my skills if not my stamina came back after a month or so.
Schwinns were almost indestructible because of how their tubes were made and how they were welded, but that also made them very heavy. The object of bicycle lust in my era was a Schwinn Krate, a flashy stingray with 5(?) gears and an automobile-like shifter. A good one today goes into four figures.
We moved a lot when I was young so my bike was my constant companion and salvation. Being the “new kid” meant coming up short in the peer pressure department - on just about everything. So the miles I rode were mostly solo.
Okay, well that makes me feel better then. I always felt I had a gaping hole in my life just having a Big Wheel and not a Green Machine. LOL
Wow! Memories rushed in from that picture. Just like my kidhood too. I loved my banana bike. My pals and I ran the neighborhood all day long, went home for lunch and dinner, and went home after dark. We had forts and tents and played games and were outside all day long, all summer long. Kids today wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. We were busy all day! Went home exhausted and slept real good.
Those are very nice looking bikes !
My Dad spent over $60 buying me a Stingray when I was eight years old.
I spent over $60,000 buying myself a Stingray when I was sixty years old.
We used to take old bicycles from trash piles and make choppers out of them by extending the forks with electrical conduit. Once everyone in the gang had one we had a demo derby and destroyed them. Great fun!
“Schwinn Krate,”
IIRC those were marketed by fruit color.
Orange Krate, Apple Krate, and I think the yellow one was a Lemon Peeler.
I’m glad it wasn’t just me.
“Do teenagers even have Summer jobs any more?”
Nope. Ridiculously high minimum wage mandates put an end to that.
Simple solution to getting your jeans cuff caught in the chain of a guard-less bike: wear cutoffs!
Those old 26" "stripdowns" were heavy -- but I don't recall ever seeing a frame failure -- no matter how wild the jump... '-)
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