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!

[LisaMalia]

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.

On those days, if we had been good, Mom would let us put on our swimsuits and hook up the water hose. Then we'd spray each other. That was a blast!

[missyme]

Mercurochrome because of it's imaginary danger to humans.

Yeah right....How many "Moms" used it on there kids were still here in fact my grandma used it on my mom... Clinton is full of BS

[Vic3O3]

ping!

[JoeSchem]

This is why we must colonize Mars, because those days aren't coming back to America any more than they've returned to post-Christian Europe. The frontier is always moving on, and if you want to live free, you have to move with it.

[missyme]

Water Ballon fights, Slip and Slide and running through the sprinklers! great for "Hot" Days.

[LisaMalia]

In the early sixties, my uncle was a Staff Sgt. in the AF and stationed in Tucson, Ariz. Dad and Mom scrimped and saved so we could go visit him one summer. He arranged for us to stay in base housing, so we didn't have to pay for a hotel.

We all piled in the 58 Merc and made the trek from Ohio. How we fit 7 people in that car for a 3 day trip and survived, I'll never know!

I'd never been out of the state before (I think I was 6 or 7), and what an experience that was.

[Riley]

The beach was a rare treat for us. We went down to Santa Cruz once on the fourth of July, and watched as a bunch of yahoos with a HUGE carboard box full of illegal fireworks put on their own show. Then one of them thought it'd be cute to drop a firecracker in the box. It exploded. The box exploded. Stuff went everywhere. A cop drove down the beach to them, not to do a felony arrest with submachine guns pointed, but to tell these goofs to knock it off, or they'd get a ticket.

On arriving on the east coast though, I spent a couple of days in Myrtle Beach, SC right after the 'season' ended, so the weather was beautiful, the ocean water warm, a motel room so close to the beach you could throw a nickel into the ocean from your balcony was about $35/day. And NOBODY was there. The place was a ghost town. It would have been a lot of fun, with a few friends...

[missyme]

I know it seemed you could go so many places and not have to deal with the insane traffic and masses of people that you see everywhere. Plus things were affordable I mean I remember as a kid all the mothers were home for the most part Dad at work and all the kids I played with had at least no less than 3 kids per family, yet they made out and were able to take family trips during the summer, things might of changed with the curse of the "Credit Card"

[zip]

ping

[LisaMalia]

I'm not sure when things changed. When I was raising my kids, I did encourage then to enjoy the simple things. I think they did to a certain extent.

Virtually everytime I'd take them through a McDonald's drive-thru, I'd remind them that a trip to MickyD's when I was a kid was like a trip to Disneyland!

[Riley]

I remember going to A&W drive ins. Man that was some good junk food!

[missyme]

Well I think T.V had something to do with it....I just know we were never allowed to sit in front of the T.V all day it was outside my brothers had to push that push cart lawn mower that you had to empty the bag and somehow I always got stuck de-frosting the frig what a job that was.

[missyme]

Our junk food places were Pup'N Taco, Jack in the Box Bob's Big Boy and Foster Freeze.

[Riley]

Well I think T.V had something to do with it....I just know we were never allowed to sit in front of the T.V all day it was outside my brothers had to push that push cart lawn mower that you had to empty the bag and somehow I always got stuck de-frosting the frig what a job that was.

That's it exactly- lying around in front of the tube was frowned upon. There were chores to be done, but defrosting the refrigerator was a treat! It was full of ice and snow that could be creatively misused, and you were actually expected to break stuff! (the ice)

[Riley]

I have to really wonder what the current crop of kids will reminisce about when they are our ages, and what behavior in their kids will worry them?

[missyme]

Hahaha You are so right! breaking those huge peices of the ice in the sink. I hated the part of having all that stupid newspaper on the floor while water was dripping all over it.!

[LisaMalia]

Do these faces bring back the memories, or what????....:)

[latina4dubya]

your son sounds like my sons... we moved from the burbs to the country (just 10 minutes away)... what a blast our boys are having... plus we homeschool, so we have a lot more freedom in deciding what are kids can and cannot do... and getting together with other families who also value this for their families is beyond great!

[missyme]

I just know that for all the problems they had through-out the 60's and 70's it was the best time to grow up, I was able to see the changes in the world some for the good and some for the bad that happened. Our Junior High School was one of the first schools that had BUSING from the inter-schools what a mess, parents fighting with the school board, I had gone to an all White School to 50% Black it was hard at first but we all ended up making Peace with each other becoming friends and teaching our folks something about how to get along without killing each other.

[missyme]

Oh My God! Jughead and Veronica!