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Most of you should appreciate this...some won’t have a clue what it’s all about!

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids
in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s probably shouldn’t have survived.

Our baby cots were covered with brightly colored lead-based paint which
was promptly chewed and licked.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent ‘clackers’ on our wheels.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding
in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the same.

We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop
with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one
actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top
speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running
into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were
back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.

We did not have Play-stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99
channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones,
no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again.

We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we learned to get over it.

We walked to friend’s homes.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and
although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out,
nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They
actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of
innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and
responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you’re one of them. Congratulations!

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as real
kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
_____

The aspiring student psychiatrists from various colleges were attending their first class on emotional extremes. “Just to establish some parameters,” said the professor, to the student from the University of Houston, “What is the opposite of joy?”

“Sadness,” replied the student.

“And the opposite of depression?” the professor asked of the young lady from Rice.

“Elation,” said she.

“And you sir,” he said to the young man from Texas A&M. “How about the opposite of woe?”

The Aggie replied, “Sir, I believe that would be giddy-up.”
______

Subject: Memory Lane

Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan, or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me,

For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.

We learned to gut a muffler, we washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the lawn.

We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz , and no one’s seen him since.

We danced to ‘Little Darlin,’ and sang to ‘Stagger Lee’
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney .

And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie, they never made it twice..

We didn’ t have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T,
And Oprah couldn’t talk yet, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had our share of heroes, we never thought they’d go,
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.
We’d never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren’t named Jefferson, and Zeppelins were not Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived in trees
Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We’d never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and ‘gay’ meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We hadn’t seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.

And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Buicks came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for those dysfunctions in the Land That Made Me, Me.

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda , and cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three,
And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.

But all things have a season, or so we’ve heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.;

They send us invitations to join AARP,
We’ve come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.

So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they’re using smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children’s children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.

If you didn’t grow up in the fifty’s, you missed the greatest time in
history.

AND NOW........For those of you too young to remember
Ask your older brothers or sister or grandparents!!!