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 ...
I never did understand that. We did the same in Science class and even into adulthood heard all the dangers of doing such a thing - one even from a scientist who refused to let his wife have any leaded glass in the house; glasses, vases etc..too dangerous! But what did he know? He was a schizophrenic..truly! Moved the family from the US to Australia - not once but over and over and over...return to US, go back, return to US, go back, return to US, go back..the poor wife (my best friend) said, “I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK”...tough, she had to go. They’re both gone now. She was a special friend - even through all the moves - from 1957 until they both passed away a couple of years ago - IN THE US...In all those years, they moved so many times even in the US, that she and I were unable to name them all...from coast to coast in the US and everywhere in between - always to pursue MORE DEGREES!!!!
Well, I certainly changed the original topic of this thread but it’s been enjoyable....
I do have experience here. I long time ago, more than 50 years, I got waylaid by two beautiful young girls passing out books on Scientology.
In the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which was the book they gave me, L. Ron Hubbard wrote that fetuses are fully aware of — and harmed by — the mother’s emotions, arguments, pain, and even nearby conversations. This is one of the book’s most controversial ideas.
I read the whole thing, just to have an open mind about it, and how they would process your fears by having you hold a tin can on a string.
In the early days (1950s), Hubbard used literal soup cans with wires soldered to them. People held one in each hand while the auditor asked questions meant to “run” fears, traumas, or prenatal engrams. The cans were connected to a primitive galvanometer — basically a needle that twitched when skin resistance changed.
They claimed your fears, anxieties, memories, and prenatal trauma were supposedly processed by holding two tin cans.
Okay, I thought it was hokey. But I did read it. They never stopped calling and mailing me after that. I joined the Air Force and left home forever. My Mother tells me she was getting mail from them until the early 1990s.
That's projection. At no time have I judged the past by standards of the present.
I judge the present by the standards of the past...
And that's fallacious. Because the standards of the past, of the past before that, and before that, were all based on different conditions - such as the standards of clean drinking water and written language.
My time is long before the ‘70’s but on a farm also - I climbed to the top of the silo - probably 7 years old - I was too afraid to climb down so my dad had to climb up to bring me down...probably the most daring thing I ever did unless shooting snakes with a .22 rifle from the bridge so we could go swimming counted...harmless water snakes but that didn’t matter...I think once the kitchen door closed behind us as kids, my mother took advantage of the lull and just figured we’d stay out of trouble...mostly we did............
You’re just a survivor. God bless you, yours, and those who helped you like that.
That's precisely what you did in Post #49.
You applied the present highly risk-averse standards to a past which viewed risk entirely differently.
based on different conditions
Human nature hasn't changed since Cain slew Abel ...
That's a wonderful story—and you were big stuff!
My grandpop was orphaned and was raised by his oldest brother, who worked on the railroad. My grandpop went to work at the rail yard at age 7 as a mechanic's helper and retired at 65 after many years as a master mechanic. He never learned to read, except the horse racing charts in the newspaper. He was a loyal husband, father and grandfather if not particularly effusive. All of us grandchildren received handmade toys and birdhouses from him, and we still have many of them.
In old age he sat in his rocking chair, rubbing the paint off the armrests while waiting for the next train to pass over the trestle two city blocks away and visible from the upstairs window of their rowhouse. He knew the schedules and would expectantly consult his gold retirement pocket watch.
Occasionally he would hike one or more of his grandchildren up to the rails when he knew a train was due. He would place a penny on the rail and we would hold our ears as the engine and a long train of cars ran over the penny. It would be oval, and hot, when he picked it up after the caboose was out of sight, with the inscriptions and the profile of Lincoln just flattened traces of black, distorted like images in a funhouse mirror. I still have one of those pennies. I also have the rocking chair.
I have a 45 of Radio Free Europe on Hib-Tone Records.
Saw them for free once in the daytime during the Piedmont Arts Festival in ATL.
LOL!
Yup!
HMMM. Tempting offer but someone wants to trade me an “Easy Bake Oven’’ for some “Mars Attacks’’ cards. Hmmm. Decisions....
Oh yeah. “How many targets, *urp* Watch this.. hold ma beer...*urp*
Like launching mortar rounds.
And “Johnny Human Torch’’!
do you use NLP?
???
Present standards?
Lawn darts were banned almost 40 years ago, and product safety studies existed prior to the when the lawn dart injuries started in 1970.
The temporary National Commission on Product Safety (NCPS) was established in 1967 and the Consumer Safety Act was enacted in 1972.
I was a passenger in the front seat,
changing the radio station by pushing
the buttons, and was burned by my
mom‘s cigarette as she changed gears.
I still have that scar at 66 but you can’t
see it anymore.
It’s under a dermatologist appointment scar.
I didn’t learn that history by looking it up on the internet or reading about it in school.
I lived it.
I saw where it was going at the time, and I was right.
The present highly risk-averse society is inferior to the risk accepting society I lived in 40 years ago.
I close where I started: I knew America was doomed when Jarts were banned.
when I was a kid (7 and up) everyone carried a knife. we played a lot of knife games. The riskiest one that I remember was called “stretch”.
When I was MUCH younger & had a Daisy pump BB gun (remember those?)I put my finger on the end of the barrel & pulled the trigger. Boy! Did that smart! I have a permanent mark on one finger that I’m pretty sure was from that.
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