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!

[missyme]

I also don't know if this is a California thing but when we were kids, we use to have the Helms Bakery truck come down the street like the ice cream truck did anyways you could smell the fresh donuts on the truck "Oh my god! they were so good! fresh bread everything it was great!

[Riley]

Must be another part of California. I was in the SF Bay Area- back before the lunatics overran the place- and don't remember it.

I *do* remember making our own doughnuts, though...

[TLI]

"How do they determine the winner?", and she replied, "They do not have winners and losers in tee-ball", and I said, "Wow, I bet the liberals feel good about that!".

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

When I was a kid (8) in Baton Rouge we would hang out in the back yard till one of the neighbors kid's shot a rock from a slingshot into one of the backyards from down the street (yep, we were that good with slingshots). Early 60's email, I suppose... That was the signal to meet at the (unsupervised) city playground where we played hardball till it got too hot. Then we used our bats (we all had our own bat) to play Combat. About the time we were falling out from that we would go to the abandoned orchard where a few plum trees still produced and ate plums from off the ground. After spending 6 to 8 hours unsupervised (about 4 Amber Alerts worth) we would head home, famished. One of the best times of my life...

[carlo3b]

Hey, I have a question... What do these thing have in common

1) A discarded fruit and vegetable crate, a short 2X4, a few nails and an old broken skate
2) A tree, an old tire, and Dads old rope
3) A newspaper, some paste, and a ball of twine
4) A long branch, string, and a hook
5) A trip to Rome...

They were all different ways to spend a great summer..

Now as for the crate, skate, and nails, what do they have in common with the Indianapolis 500?.. It's were all of the drivers before 1960, got their start!

[missyme]

Disneyland was great! I also was so excited to get there, I even remember going to Knotts Berry Farm with my family, and my folks would buy us the best homemade fried chicken basket with fresh bread and Boysenberry Juice then take us into the park and we were there until closing!

Loved the fake Bank Robberies in the street! I thought those were real guns during the shoot outs!

[Riley]

A little rainy-day fun if you have a *long* living room:

Wind-up, fifty-cent balsa gliders + coffee table dragged to the end of the room = carrier takeoffs.

[missyme]

Yeah it was southern Cal. Lived in in Culver City then moved to Glendale during the 71 Sylmar Earthquake!

[Riley]

Loved the fake Bank Robberies in the street! I thought those were real guns during the shoot outs!

I was convinced that the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' exhibit was using real muzzle-loading artillery. And I wanted to take a slingshot into the "Small World" ride.

[madison10]

After reading most of the posts...I am majorly "home-sick." My parents & siblings are alive & all, but I miss...Can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe childhood?

[missyme]

And what about the Paper Boy there was never the Paper Girl! He rode a Stingray Bicycle, and had his nap sacks on the side of the handlebars and he never threw the paper in the rifht place seemed to land in the gutter alot

[Riley]

I know exactly what you mean. I seem to feel that way a lot lately. I have recently moved to the East Coast, so I am thousands of miles away from the places where I grew up, which seems to make it worse. Sometimes I go onto Mapquest or Terraserver, and look at the old places.

There are parts of that childhood that I most certainly do not miss.
Like most of it.
But there are good memories too. Folks here today have brought back some of them, and I appreciate that.

[Riley]

I thought that Sting Rays were cool. My father thought that they were absurd. Guess who won.

[missyme]

Pirates of the Carribbean was so cool! especially when it was so Hot outside because it was really cool and breezy in that ride.

A sling shot in Small world I see trying to hit one of those Dolls! LOL

Loved the Matterhorn, Bear Jamboree and member Tomorrow Land when they had the show of the future like Microwave Ovens for "Mom" Brings back the best memories!

[Salvation]

** Family was all that matter[ed].**

Agree 100%

[missyme]

Don't feel bad during the course of the day my mind always drifts to the world I knew as a Kid and teenager, what is so sad is that I knew all my neighbors for blocks and blocks played with there kids, ate dinner at there house, had neighborhood parties, my family was always near-by and now I think I talk to 1 neighbor where I live everyone is a hermit, Thank God for FR great freepers!

[ChefKeith]

Now it is almost impossible to get kids to even go outside much less stay out and play. They just want to sit in front of the video games.

[missyme]

Yeah Stingrays with the seat the size of a small surfboard! but I remember they went fast

[Riley]

I remember days that were so hot that all you could do was lay around in the shade wishing it would cool off so you could go do something fun.

The heat, the licorice smell of the (Anice?) bushes, the droning buzz of insects.

[LisaMalia]

In the final power-mad, heady days of the Clinton administration, the FDA (in it's all knowing wisdom) silently banned Mercurochrome because of it's imaginary danger to humans.

Why does this not surprise me? Clinton would mess up a good dream.

[missyme]

We went to the Beach all the time and during those days the beach was always so Sunny and Cool, we spent a month in Manahattan and Redondo Beach on the strand it was fabulous. I now live in San Diego and the beach for the most part is overcast and cloudy.