Posted on 08/04/2026 7:49:37 AM PDT by BusterDog
Whenever I think back to my childhood, everything seems fairly joyful and innocent. And then, one day, my mother told me that I once got locked in a bathroom with a bucket full of water as a kid. That was scary, but thankfully, nothing happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at buzzfeed.com ...
Nothing better than drinking water straight from the hose.
Does REM therapy work?
Pretty much up to the “Green” album.
I didn’t know that. Scientology is a dangerous cult.
I presented at conferences jointly with Dr Jim Dincalci who was L Ron Hubbard’s personal private nurse for 14 years. He was with him in France, when he was hiding out in NYC, and the years on his yacht. His insights of the top administration of Scientology were eye opening.
He observed what was happening first hand and shared many of his personal experiences and observations with me. It is a dangerous cult. We jointly presented a program on “Mind Control and Manipulation.”
The Childhood Moments They Thought Were Normal.
But now people ride around in convertible cars without roll bars where nobody survives in a roll over.
It’s truly wonderful: we’ve traded occasional playground injuries for widespread obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and psychiatric drug addiction.
Your opinion probably differs, I see it as a very bad trade.
I remember as a kid opening up several firecrackers and placing the powder on a rock and smashing it with another rock.
Fun times.😇
None of the “stories of excitement and adventure” that you “civilians” can tell compare with the dangers your typical teenage farm boy dealt with in a single summer in the 1960s/70s.
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Sheesh... that sure is the truth but I’d add the 40s and 50s on to that comment. And why did you start with teenage years?
I recall being invited along for dinner once with a bunch of ‘civilians’ when I was in my 20s... somebody in the group was intrigued that I was raised on a farm and after I told a few stories about growing up, one of the others said with amazement “it’s a wonder that any farm kids ever survive!” In thinking about that years later and in discussions with siblings, that statement was absolutely right and the only thing I can suggest is Godly parents praying every night for our survival.
I could tell endless stories of total unmitigated wild risk but I’ll only do this one.... Amongst other things, our farm was mainly a cattle operation where steers would be fed until they got shipped to market. My Dad would do about 100 or so at a time until they were about 1,200 to 1,400 pounds or so.
When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I was playing upstairs in the barn and while running around on the barn floor, I fell through the 2 foot by 2 foot opening where straw is put down for bedding in the steer pen.... older teenage brothers had not bothered to put the ‘door’ down to cover the opening and instead had just covered it with loose straw. Well anyway, I fell the 12 feet or so down on to the floor of the steer pen...
- Fortunately, the steer pen hadn’t been cleaned for a while so I fell on to say 12 inches or so of manure. Very fortunately, the manure broke my fall and so I was unhurt.
- Unfortunately, the steer pen was full of full sized steers.
- Fortunately, it was dinner time for the steers and my older brothers had just finished dumping wheelbarrows of ensilage into the feed trough. They were all hungry and lined up along the sides of the pen gulping food out of the trough that ran around the outside. So, I was in the middle of the pen and they were all lined up around three sides of the pen with their backsides toward me. The fourth side of the pen went to the outside but there was a large roller door on it and I was too small to move it.
- Unfortunately, as I got to my feet in the manure and walked along behind the steers, I couldn’t find a single spot where I could access the feed trough. As my older brothers told me years later, I walked back and forth behind the steers about 4 times but no opening showed up.
- Fortunately about this time, one my older brothers had an idea and managed to get one of the steers to back up... probably gave it a boot in the head. It backed up although it didn’t really want to go anywhere since it wanted to get back to eating.
- Fortunately, with this one steer backing up, it gave me a very small opening to access the feed trough.... and once I got up to it, my brother reached down and grabbed me to pull me into it.
In looking back at this, this was all of extreme risk and at any moment, a stampede could have been triggered. However, I don’t recall that my Mom and Dad were even told about this... it was just another normal day on the farm.
Don’t get me started on some of the other risks we had... I’ll be here all day!
Cornhole from 100' with pointed spears and tail-fins. Cornhole is for sissies.
Then there was our real favorite, "Archery Golf". Night-time favorite was running the horses on trails in the woods in pitch black. The horses can see, but you can't, so you just kick em to a canter and hang tight with your arms around the neck.
Funny irony is we all survived until we got behind the wheel. The outliers came to reality pretty quickly. Sadly, a few were lost.
My first six years were in Sydney Australia. My mother told me that at one point I had wandered away from the house and she immediately panicked and started to search for me. She eventually found me down at the ferry dock sitting on the edge with me dangling my legs. I have no recall of this so I was probably 3 or 4 at the time.
That's the Post Hoc Argument - the fallacy of concluding that just because something happens after something else, the first thing is caused by the second. Correlation does not equal causation.
That's also the fallacy of Appeal to Tradition - that a standpoint, situation, or action is right, proper, and correct simply because it has been that way, because people thought that way, or because it was that way (most often meaning in their childhood, not before).
What did people do to avoid obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and drug addiction prior to the growing up in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s? What do people do to avoid the same when growing up in foreign countries?
You said that very well. I couldn’t put what I felt into words as well as you did. There but for the grace of God...how many times in our lives do we say that? I fear most of our parents are gone before we realize how fortunate we were and told them so...Must be true “youth is wasted on the young.”
“”I pulled the tag off of a mattress once.””
This thread has been fun and sobering...lots of food for thought....
“”helped us more than they could know.””
They did know and expected no thanks. They were doing what Christ had taught..
God bless you, 4yearlurker. You survived. I hope you also thrive. None of it was your fault. Demon rum.
I agree with your sentiment to Menes!
Mine were pretty tame by comparison - I was a big time tree climber and more than once my mom would look for me and I would be at the tip top of the tallest tree in our yard just swaying back and forth (had to be at least 40 feet up there!)
The second thing is my parents let my brother and I take the horses and ride far away and camp out under the stars. I was probably 8 and he was 12.
Of course all the other things that were the norm in the 70s, riding in the back of pickups with the softball coach after games, no seatbelts, driving at 14, etc.
Oops! My brother and I broke the glass thermometer—again!—so we could drain the mercury out and roll it around in our palms, and play with it on the floor. We’re both still here and neither of us had any six-fingered children or grandchildren, but hey...
That’s an experience most people can’t claim. After Lea Remini had her TV series focused on Scientology, I checked out several books from the library written by different EX members of the “cult.” Don’t remember any of them now but they certainly captured my interest at the time. One covered the Clearwater, FL location that Remini didn’t cover but was very interesting and clearly criminal actions/behavior. Forgot the name of the guy who presented the material with her for the show...both credible eyewitnesses...
Their best was with IRS records, but “Out of Time” and “Automatic for the People” were good as well.
We went outside and played. Or worked. Or both. And some of it ... in many cases, much of it ... was far too "dangerous" for today's overprotective bubble-wrapped helicopter parents to comprehend. Which is exceptionally weird, because the first group of helicopter parents DID NOT grow up (to the extent that they actually grew up) under the watchful eye of helicopter parents.
I know.
I was there.
You want to judge the past by the standards of the present. That's your prerogative ...
I judge the present by the standards of the past, and I find the present largely deficient.
I'm sure you disagree with me. That's not my problem.
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