PEOPLE OVER FORTY SHOULD BE DEAD

EMail | 1/17/2004 | W. Toeppe

[JesseHousman]

People Over 40 Should Be Dead

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even maybe the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, ... and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.) As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes 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 when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day.

NO CELL PHONES!!!!! Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms! . We had friends! We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren't! as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

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.

How fortunate we were to grow up as kids before lawyers and burgeoning government regulated our lives, for our own good. How sorry I am for what those years of meddling have done to our children and grandchildren and even sorrier that we all allowed the government and politicians to get away with it!

[longtermmemmory]

The left needs to eradicate risk takers. This is why they are feminizing manhood. This is why they have given a generation of young boys cocaine (ritalin).

The left/socialists/great society statists know that rugged individualism is the enemy. They want drones to fear the state not a mother or father.

[longtermmemmory]

I find single women are the most in favor of "not keeping score".

Consider the kind of score they want to forget. (how many sex partners got them into unwedmotherhood.)

[BSunday]

I think once he is old enough, he could handle that kind of "ugly"

[SeeRushToldU_So]

LOL.....

[EGPWS]

Excellent read!

Yep, the good ol' days of "sticks and stones" being the words to contemplate has turned into perceived verbal and indirect attacks and emotional letdowns being seen as the destroyer of livelihood and the cause for severe trauma and in some cases lawsuits.

It reminds me of Gump Warsley, years ago when he was a goalie for a professional hockey team. He wore no face mask for he was more comfortable playing without one. AAARRRRGH!! Nowadays I don't believe it would even be allowed.

[longtermmemmory]

Tort reform will not stop the safety nazi's. They have stolen the child hood fun and advendure.

How many kids get to roughhouse with Dad?

[SeeRushToldU_So]

Y'all aint wimps, you can't get outside in that cold up there.

[Mears]

Loved your post. I was a child in the 30's and 40's and had similiar experiences,but since I was a city kid,a bit different.

My mother was widowed in 1938 and left with a 2 year old and a five year old(me).She went to work full time when my brother entered first grade and I was in fourth grade and we were alone from that point on.

We were alone all summer during vacations and just went out and played---we kept a key around our neck on a string. We were latchkey kids before there was such a term.

No one was watching us but we knew the rules and obeyed them(usually). We survived without any government telling us what to do and I think we were all better off for it.

[BSunday]

Does she like pickups ? This one might be his when he starts driving....

Note the tasteful southern designs in the rear window..

[longtermmemmory]

good point, what would the left do if we got a "sticks and stones" law referendum on a ballot? They would have a tought crime poop fit.

[Tall_Texan]

Today, our society is geared towards the level of the most stupid and letigious. And the rest of us must adapt to it.

Want proof? Try donating a hot meal to a homeless shelter of charity organization. Not money. The actual meal prepared yourself. They won't accept it and they'll tell you its for your own good because if somebody ate it and got sick there could be a lawsuit.

[mtbopfuyn]

I cannot under score how right this is and how much today's kids are loosing because of all the mamby pamby BS and PC that is fosted on them.....

But who changed them into mamby pambies? We +40 did.

[NYDave]

<<"Does anyone remember exactly when things started taking a turn toward our current emprisoning lifestyle?">>

I was born in '43 so I can identify with all of the comments of what was our freedom in our youth. Didn't the whole PC thing start to evolve around the time of the "Great Society"? I think the evolution can be accounted for by the increase in the government's invovement in our lives. That certainly escalated back in the 60's. We passed, much needed, civil rights legislation but that has morfed into a society of victemization. If a kid falls off his bike, we have to legislate protective measures. The gov. is just too big and intrusive and the lawyers are out of control. Just give me a home where the buffalo roam and stay the f**k out of my life. Amen.

[SeeRushToldU_So]

She would rather have a pickup than a BMW.

Her 5A squad won their competition today. She is on the way home now.

That is back to back wins!

[LisaMalia]

Here's a few to add to your list. Some of them may have actually been made up by my older siblings. Our backyard was our playground, and we might go for weeks not going any father than school. So we made our own fun!

Sock War (aka Sock Fights) - Get a bunch of rolled up socks, each team has a fort, and throw the socks at each other until you run out. Then divide them back up and start over again.

Mud Pies - That was the best. Get some old pie tins, dig your hand in that mud and make the pie, and then decorate the top with grass and rocks.

Flies and grounders - This was great when you only had two and wanted to play baseball. The one person thows the ball up and hits it, and the other gets points for catching...2 for flyballs, and 1 for grounders.

Lightening bug (firefly) flashlights - Get an empty pop bottle, and fill it with fireflies. Then wander around in the dark and check out things with your "flashlight".

Junebug kite - Catch one, and then tie one of it's leg to a string. Then let loose, and fly it just like you would a kite.

Just some silly little games, but they sure did entertain us! I wouldn't trade those days for a million video games!

[Mears]

I raised five kids in the late fifties to the mid seventies and then went back to work full time.

I retired in 1996 and remember the first week of my retirement like it was yesterday. I would wait for 2:30 for all the neighborhood kids to come home from school but it never happened,not one child in sight. I was stunned----they were all in after school care or some type of organized activity and there were never any kids out on the street playing kick ball or that type of game.

How sad. They are in supervised play all the time these days and are missing out on some wonderful life lessons, such as how to get along with others without an adult around,how to make up games,and even how to take care of themselves.

[Newtoidaho]

What a great article, brings back a lot of memories. Grew up in the 70s in Washington, in a new housing development, which was surrounded by miles and miles of forest in all directions. We would build tree houses 30 or 40 feet up (no safety devices below of course); climb to the very top of 200 ft Douglas Firs or Cedars (the goal was to touch the very top of the new growth; this was dangerous and I knew it was of course, but that was some of my earliest exposure to no risk-no reward), and organize jungle warfare games with all the kids which could last all day or sometimes all weekend. We'd also jump on our bikes and be gone all day, riding without helmets to wherever we felt like going that day. Another favorite activity was building jumps for our bikes, and seeing who could make the furthest jump. We had a hill we'd ride down, get going as fast as we could and see who could set the record. Safety gear consisted of wearing jeans instead of shorts.
Tackle football games; baseball all day long; basketball games for hours on end; exploring the wilderness in all directions. I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything, and I do think kids today are over-protected.
I sometimes reminisce with my brother, we do occassionally wonder how we survived, but it seemed very natural at the time. Not to say no one never got hurt , I remember one of our friends died when he got trapped in a deep hole he was exploring and could couldn't get out and drowned. Another friend had a spectacular wipeout on his bike trying to set a jump record and knocked every tooth out.
Parents today can be overprotective that is for sure. But kids need to be kids. I remember instinctively sensing something was wrong when the first video games started showing up, Pong, then later Asteroids, and I never liked these games. Some kids started staying inside a lot more. We would rather be out doing something real.
And the best thing was our parents just let us do it; we'd leave whenever, and then come back whenever we got hungry or tired. I think our parents preferred us to be gone, and they seldom asked where we'd been or what we had been doing. We weren't juvenile delinquents, but we knew who was and kept our distance. Our parents told us what was expected, taught us right from wrong, and then let us grow up and learn. Summer vacations were the best.

[EGPWS]

good point, what would the left do if we got a "sticks and stones" law referendum on a ballot?

They would simply create a massive political movement focused on making sticks and stones illegal!

[missyme]

Also WATER BALLONS,HANDBALL AND HITTING SLICERS AND TETHERBALL Great Fun!

Going to the Park on the swings and jumping from the swing when it could go as high as you could take it.

Jumped off my garage too! that kinda hurt.

[Polybius]

Tina Louise is 70.

Please don't tell me how old Mary Ann is. I want to preserve my adolescent fantasies.