Posted on 07/06/2009 10:51:37 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Bike helmets? SPF? Veggie meals? No way, if you grew up in '50s, '60s, '70s When Phyllis Murphy's mother was pregnant, back in the 1950s, her doctor advised her to take up smoking for relaxation.
A few years later, that same mom smeared her toddler's skin with a concoction of baby oil and iodine for a deep, rich tan. Now, safely in adulthood in Vancouver, B.C., Murphy fondly recalls childhood as a time of leaping from rooftops and accumulating “more scars than Joan Rivers.” And Tim Palla, a 46-year-old pastor, spent his childhood just north of Pittsburgh where he got just one vaccination, gobbled wild berries and mushrooms, drank from the ditch, and chewed road tar like gum.
Like Palla and Murphy, many of us who were raised in the 1950s, '60s and '70s are survivors. We were tiny daredevils: sun-blasted, pocket-knife-carrying, bottom-spanked, cow eaters. We ran the streets armed with BB guns, boxing gloves and bottle rockets, wholly unprotected by bike helmets, sunscreen or Amber Alerts. Our houses were filled with the blue cigarette smoke of our cocktail-drinking parents and we believed it wasn’t supper without a mountain of red meat.....
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
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I got that set for Easter in 1965! I was worried that the bunny wouldn’t find me since I was dropped off at Grandma’s house the night before. You see my little Brother decided to arrive that morning. I was so innocent at 4yo that since my parents had told me we were having a bunny not a baby that when Dad told me I had a brother I told him I’d rahter have a bunny! Those were the days!
Mothers were probably extremely protective in the 1800s before modern emergency rooms. Post WWII doctors got pretty good which enabled Evel Knievel to break most every bone in his body and live to tell about it. People engage in extreme sports today because of their confidence in high-tech hospitals. But Obamacare will probably put an end to that.
Jim Carroll - People Who Died Lyrics
Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD’d on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys’ Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
“Hey,” Herbie said, “Tony, can you fly?”
But Tony couldn’t fly, Tony died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin’ on some bikers
He said, “Hey, I know it’s dangerous, but it sure beats Riker’s”
But the next day he got offed by the very same bikers
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD’d on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
I'm extremely cut off from TV news. Once in a great while I catch a few minutes of it -- and it's just rapes, murders, arsons, home invasions, and botched surgical procedures. About 500 tragedies a day, I reckon. I live in a small, rural town, with a population that is 98% white. But when I watch the News, I start thinking that some teenage gang is going to jump me on my way to the shed.
Exposure to that melodrama does make one fearful. So I avoid it.
I’m a big Jim Carroll fan. I saw him do several readings years ago. It was always hard to say if they were great or terrible — his performance style was quite unique. I found the readings enjoyble on multiple levels.
LOL! Forgotten that one.
I’m trying to make my kids childhood more “normal” ,, like we had in the 60’s and 70’s ... on the 4th of July my neighbor caught a baby gator (about 3 foot) in the pond and we had him in the swimming pool for a while ... my 5 year old was a bit leery but my 3 year old LOVED holding it...
If I took a picture of my son and his friends yesterday and make it back and white it would be like going back in time. It was drizzling out, they were barefoot and shirtless playing stickball in a grassy area beside the house instead of the street.
My son and his friends fish, race each other on dirt bikes, shoot skeet and target shoot (2 of his friends have their own ranges on their property w/adultsupervision)and play backyard baseball and football. They’ll do all these things in one day, breaking it up with jumps in the pool to cool off. And then camp out in the yard. We just have to check him for ticks.
From the article-
[“The bottom line is that things like bike accidents where a kid died because they didn’t wear a helmet, those rarely occurred. But if your kid happened to fall and was one out of 10,000 who died, you must live with knowing it was preventable,” Berman said. ]
No, today, one of 10,000 is the week’s abortion tally!
Give me the good old days!
We don’t live too dangerously here, but DH has DS1 drive tractors, wagons and equipment on the road from farm to farm.
It’s not unusual here.
A Hispanic man got in a fender bender with an 8-year-old neighbor boy driving a tractor and manure spreader down the road. He argued with the cop that the kid should get a ticket or something, too. Turns out the Hispanic had no license. (Qu’elle surprise)
The cop told him the kid was street-legal, but he wasn’t.
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