Posted on 05/18/2022 7:03:46 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Black and White TV
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)
You could hardly see for all the snow,
Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.
Pull a chair up to the TV set,
'Good Night, David.
Good Night, Chet. ‘
My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.
My Mom used to defrost hamburgers on the counter and I used to eat it raw, sometimes. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the river instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym, not PE...and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having to cross-train athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built-in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.
Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than a gym.
Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem. And staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
,P>We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses?
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of me.
I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box, or 270 digital TV cable stations.
Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either; because if we did we got our butt spanked there and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home.
I recall a kid from down the street coming over and doing his tricks on the front step, just before he fell off.
Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house (no lawsuits back then).
Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It wasa neighborhood runs amuck.
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family.
How could we possibly have known that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes. We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac!
How did we ever survive?
LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA; AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, SORRY
FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!
Raw cookie dough was the best.
“WAS”??? What’s the past tense stuff?
It still is.
Good memories
There was a Tupperware full of bacon grease that was seemingly used to fry everything.
Wherever a foundation etc was being dug > dirt clod wars !
The good ole days — in reality, they were not that good.
Nostalgiac, many of those ole days were rough.
Humid summer nights with sweat dripping — no air conditioning.
Picking green beans from sun up to sun down for 1-cent per pound.
And you had to be quiet so you didn't miss anything...
These days...you talk and watch at the same time...while eating chips and drinking soda and texting your best friend.
You could see the signs of the upcoming storm when they had “smoking areas” set up out side High School. So if it was illegal to purchase cigs under 18, then why allow kids to smoke. It was a sign of the breakdown of authority and messaging.
“I just can’t recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box, or 270 digital TV cable stations.”
But we did have Etch-A-Sketch!
Bro and myself picked worms for a penny a piece. Walked to the bait shop and collected our $3. Provided regular income all summer long. Irondequoit Bay and Lake Ontario area.
Honeymooners started out in black and white.
The men were idiots while the women were smart. One of the first shows that did that. Early feminism.
Checkers and cards...
Our middle school gym teacher was an ex-Marine with a buzz-cut like Johnny Unitas.
He would line us up for inspection. One kid got dressed-down for having some decoration or emblem glued to his Keds. If you couldn’t do a pull-up or climb the rope, you also got an earful. You didn’t mess with Mr. Miller. He wasn’t a total hard-ass though. He would encourage you if he thought you were putting in extra effort, even the fat and slow kids.
And everyone did not wear a bike helmet back then.
I’m our house, it was a frozen orange juice can.
*In
My high school swim coach was one of those. A former Parris Island DI. Our workouts could be brutal, but he was a great guy and we were in really good shape.
There was a Tupperware full of bacon grease that was seemingly used to fry everything.My mom had a 1 pound coffee can under the sink, with no lid, for grease. I don't think Tupperware was invented yet.
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