PEOPLE OVER FORTY SHOULD BE DEAD

EMail | 1/17/2004 | W. Toeppe

[drdemars]

who of you had a lead soldier mold in which you could create an army of lead soldiers. I'm 74 and have not expired from the lead. Yes, I remember, but we have progressed. I can remember when face guards were considered cowardly in football. Also, no water during the game. Kinda stupid huh?

[4mycountry]

Dang, that looks EXACTLY like the creek on the property where my family and I lived before we moved.

[BSunday]

"Butts up" went something like this - 2 or more players, preferably 4 or more, 1 tennis ball, and a wall (the higher the better). The ball was placed in play by a player throwing it against the wall. Another player would catch the ball in one hand as it came back, and was also allowed to let it bounce first. If the player attempting to catch the ball dropped it or bobbled it, he would have to make a run for the wall. Meanwhile, another player would attempt to pick up the dropped ball and throw it against the wall. If the player who dropped the ball made it to the wall before the ball, he was safe. If the ball hit the wall first, then he had one strike against him. After three strikes you would have to go to the wall and assume what I can best describe as the "protect yourself from a dog attack" position, with your head towards the wall, on your hands and knees, and your butt facing the rest of the players, who would line up and get a free throw at you. Hence the name "butts up". I hope the DU'ers never hear of this game lest they die of an apoplectic fit. Then again...

[AppyPappy]

Is your dad a doctor?

[BSunday]

I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for reminding me to update it. There are too many under construction signs there. You should've seen the Halloween Safety page I had up. It was hilarious.

[Dane]

Wow, this e-mail describes my childhood and neighborhood to a T.

[depenzz]

I am going to weigh in on this. I was a kid in the 40s and everything that has been said here was true in the 40s. We left the house in the morning and then touched base around noon for a sandwich. Back out we went until dark. We use to swim in an abandoned stone quarry hole and I remember one day there were some baby pink pigs that evidently died and the farmer just threw them in the quarry, we could see them laying on the bottom. We just moved down a little and went on swimming. (hey, it was a hot day)
We use to chew tar, yes tar off the road that bubbled up because of the heat from the sun. Did ya ever cut a limb off of a birch tree and eat the bark off? We did it. I could go on and on but some probably heard all of them. One thing I will say, when I started 7th grade my parents bought a dairy farm. My brother and I milked our 5 cows every morning before getting ready for school (pretty sure we smelled a little like the barn but we were popular so it didn't matter, I guess.We milked the same 5 cows in the evening also.
Oh yea, every morning Mom had at least 3 kinds of meat and we had eggs and pudin and scrapple. My Dad's favorite was buckwheat pancakes and we use to "dunk" the bites in the grease that was in the big ole iron skillet that the meat was fried in. My brother and I are in our 70s and both are healthy, not on any drugs and no health problems. We have the good Lord to thank for that as well as a lot of good luck.
I am not telling this to brag, just to say that something is wrong in this day and age that so many people are dependent on drugs and have so many health problems.
Oh yea, I forgot to mention, we worked our little butts off during the spring,summer and fall. From early morning until late evening. One last thing, I remember one of the happiest days of my life, one day when we got off of the school bus, the DeLavel milk machine man was installing a milking machine in the barn. No more hand milking at our place. whoopee!

[4mycountry]

No. He's the facilities/maintenence manager for Camp Summit in Argyle, TX.

Maybe your creek and my creek are twins or something. :p

[missyme]

Describes mine too!

I remember all our neighbors really loved the kids especially the "Old Folks" they would come out and sit in front of there house and watch all the kids play, summer was like a never ending block party on our street.

Now where I live the neighbors pretty much suck! GOD forbid a child rides there bike on there newly manicured lawn or if a kid makes to much noise Definetly not Kid Friendly!
(Pretty Sad I talk to freepers more than my own next door neighbor!)

My brothers and his friends started a band in the garage, DRUMS GUITARS! NOISE no-one complained no-one. accept my parents :-)

[ladylib]

You're wise to keep them out of public schools run by wussy school administrators with asinine zero-tolerance policies that could turn them into juvenile delinquents if they looked cross-eyed at anybody.

Public school isn't the place for normal, healthy boys today.

[Crawdad]

This is one of the best posts I've seen (and bookmarked) here. Thanks.

[Cpu]

...and our Dads taught us to shoot pop cans with .22s and Ruffed Grouse with the 20 gauge (and not to shoot randomly without a definate target).

[Cultural Jihad]

The Greatest Generation gave the Baby-Boomers 'Father Knows Best" and "Leave it to Beaver." The Baby-Boomers gave the Generation-Xers "The Simpsons" and "Jerry Springer."

[dalereed]

Blame it all on the invention of shrinks in the late 50s and early 60s!

[brooklin]

I was down that way last fall. You people are lucky, it sure is beautiful down there. Of course in the country up here, I can target shoot right in back of my house.

[reformed_democrat]

This is my son playing in a creek on our property.

HEY! I know that spot. You live right up the lane from me, don'cha?

My son knows every inch of the woods around us. He had a friend of his over, and the kid was tying day-glo plastic ribbon on all the trees. My son asked him what the heck he was doing, and the kid said he was marking a path so he could find his way out of the woods.

My boy thought getting lost was a novelty that only happened in adventure stories. I made him wear a whistle around his neck every time he went out until he was 10, but he never had to use it. I finally gave that idea up when I ran out three times in ten minutes, only to find he liked the noise it made.

[Paladin2]

In the 50's we had rubber/plastic green army men to shoot at with BB guns while the older kids had BB gun wars where they wore old winter jackets and actually shot at each other. (My parents didn't let me join, but the older kids' parents ended the wars soon after they began.) I did spend some time soldering up brass tubes (and breathing the lead fumes) to make slot car frames and got to play with the mercury from broken thermometers though. In addition we had cliffs to climb, caves and swamps to explore, steep hills with big trees to sled and toboggan down, miles to ride on bikes all without any supervision other than to be home for dinner.

Now I find that I had a deprived childhood because my parents wouldn't buy me my own supercomputer. So now to (over) compensate I have more computer power in the "lab" than all of the Foutune 500 combined likely had in, say, 1958. :-) A second childhood is a good thing too.

[ArneFufkin]

They could never have anticipated the "Best of Mature MILF 3" boxed DVD set and uttered such nonsense.