Posted on 01/27/2026 10:27:50 AM PST by MayflowerMadam
I was the middle child of five, growing up in Ohio during the 1960s. My father worked double shifts at the factory. My mother stretched every dollar until it squeaked. And most afternoons, my brothers and I roamed the neighborhood unsupervised until the streetlights flickered on.
Looking back, I realize our childhoods looked nothing like what kids experience today. There were no smartphones, no helicopter parents, no curated activities designed to optimize our development. There was just life, unfiltered and unscheduled.
Followed a creek up stream and found a graded field with grade stakes marking off something, but did not know what for. Spent weeks on and off moving the grade stakes about 30 feet and hammered them back in with chunks of concrete.
Found an open manhole in the field that was a junction of three storm drains. Put our bikes inside to ride through and thought was a bad idea after about 20 yards. Spent most of the summer on and off gathering chunks of concrete and filling up the junction to the top of the manhole.
We always found something constructive to spend our time on.
Grew up like this but never made a fuss over hair. My brother had long hair that my father hated. Karma was that my brother was bald by the time he was 30. Just think, that crazy color will be their bell bottoms, long hair etc of our generation. My son grew his hair (but because it was curly—it grew out not down) then I cut a mohawk into it for him (before anyone else did) and then he shaved it. You have to pick your battles and hair was never going to be “it” at my house.
Indeed now that I look back to then I think I was a Beaver Cleaver twin.
Somebody was watching out for me.
“Tough times is the cure for what ails society now. How do we make that happen?”
They’re working on that in the Blue areas.
Reminds me of the time we made a couple of potato cannons.... what a blast. Roman candle and water balloon wars with the neighboring town. Fixed our own bikes when they broke down. Pieced bikes together from two or more different bikes. Those were the days.
Nearly got beat half to death a few times, bore the bruises and deserved every bit of it. Yes I did.
It is not just kids. There are folks in their 70’s that you cannot hold a conversation with because they are too wrapped up in their phones.
And now you’ve added a foreign homonym with a spelling error: Italian “amore”, meaning “love.”
pineapple, red onions, banana peppers, ham and a little BBQ sauce, yum.
33. Oil is a fossil fuel
10) Disco sucks
Yep but that’s just the way I am!
They were definitely primitive. 😆
I’m just grateful I still have a right knee.
And a main cause is the embrace of contraception, along with the media, and parents surrendering their child to be raised on it.
Bingo. We would wile away a whole day with a pile of dirt and our Matchbox cars (except for Tommy who wasn't allowed to get his Matchbox cars dirty - they'll be worth something some day, you know). I know a lady who taught pre-k at a Headstart center for one long, miserable year. Poor, rural kids. She was appalled at the total lack of imagination that the children had. No concept of anything outside of the lives they lived - no dreams, no aspirations, no inner escape mechanism at all. Suspect these are the people screaming at ICE agents today.
I would improve this one.
What is the meaning of work? Does work make life meaningful?
Rest is after work is meaningful.
Rest after work is meaningful.
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