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1) Boredom was the birthplace of creativity
2) Failure was allowed to sting
3) Waiting was simply part of life
4) Unsupervised play was the norm
5) Adults weren’t always available
6) We witnessed real consequences
7) Resources were limited, so we got resourceful
8) We learned by doing, not by being told
9) Community was a safety net

Thank you for doing a better synopsis than I did!!

In my neighborhood in West Nashville, we didn’t SEE adults during the day really. Us kids roamed the neighborhood, dug through the business dumpsters, played in the creek, jumped things with bikes, had crashes. Shoot, I remember wiping out on my bike and having to pull gravel out of my knee.

“1) Boredom was the birthplace of creativity”

Unfortunately sometimes I got a little too creative.

I grew up in the 50's and 60's...a whole different world...and a better one. I can attest to those 9 lessons and more. My mother did not work outside the home. My father wouldn't let her, so she was home when we got home from school. I was the baby, and in grammar school, went home for lunch every day.

We were never bored. We were either in school, outside playing with the neighborhood kids, or we'd go to the local playground. On the weekends, we went to the movies at the local theater. I was an avid reader, so always had books to read.

There was no such thing as instant gratification back then. We didn't have a car, so we either walked, or took the bus to get where we needed to go. My Dad worked on the NY Central Railroad, so the family could ride free on the train. We'd take the train to visit family a couple of hours away, or the family would take the train on a Saturday, to the Buffalo Zoo, spend half a day there, get back on the train and go to Niagara Falls, returning to Rochester that evening. Once a year we took the train to Syracuse to the State Fair. It was always the last day of the fair because my father liked to watch the stock car races. While my father was at the races, my mother took us kids to the mid-way.

We were made to accept responsibility for our errors in judgement. As well, my mother continually reminded us to have respect for our elderly neighbors, making sure we said hello to them first. She also told us to be respectful of other people's feelings...not to make fun of people who were different from us, and to put ourselves in the other person's shoes to see how we would feel, if we were them. My mother was born in Canada. My father was born in Holland. He came here with his two brothers and their parents in 1913, and was naturalized in 1920. My father loved this country. Always told us kids not to do anything bad that would cause us to lose our freedoms.

We knew everyone on our little street in Rochester, and we'd been in just about every one of the homes on that street. Our neighbor across the street had an old Chevy, and was always available to take my mother grocery shopping at one of the bigger stores in the area, as well as taking us to doctor appointments when the doctor couldn't make a house call. It was to my father they came to when my friend's grandfather had a stroke while in the bathtub, and they needed help lifting him from the tub. It was a Sunday. We were seated for Sunday dinner. I remember it like it was yesterday.

There was a funeral parlor on the corner of our street. Everyone on the street that passed, ended up in that funeral parlor...my father included. Being the baby, my mother always dragged me along to those affairs when someone on the street passed, so I was introduced to that setting quite early in life.

I was fortunate in that I had two older sisters who were already out of high school and working when I entered high school. Every Christmas they bought me lovely clothes for Christmas, a new winter coat when I needed it, and a prom dress. My only brother was a Vietnam vet, U.S. Army, Cu Chi, Vietnam '66-67'. I'm the last one left in my family...my last sister having passed in 2013. I have two sons of my own, and my brother's family, whom I visit regularly. I'll never be sorry I was born when I was, or had the opportunity to experience America at her greatest. My only goal now is to not outlive my sons.

Indeed now that I look back to then I think I was a Beaver Cleaver twin.

Somebody was watching out for me.

10) Disco sucks

And a main cause is the embrace of contraception, along with the media, and parents surrendering their child to be raised on it.