Posted on 06/08/2004 2:03:27 PM PDT by al baby
People over 35 should be dead.
Here's why ...
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.
And you're one of them!
Congratulations!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good !!!!!
People under 30 are WIMPS !
>>booby-trapped the door of my room with it.
Wow you were a terror. We used to bend paper clips around and use rubber bands to shoot at each other in art class. Of course it just started as strips of paper rolled up, but the arms race started soon after, when someone added tin foil to the working end of the paper, then came the paper clips, and finally the lead lined paper with the double long rubber band.
I think the large welt that one left ended the arms race for a while.
Well *that* certainly explains a lot, doesn't it? ;D
Played w matches & set a canyon on fire. Local FD put it out, with no loss & I never got blamed. Later, found a field on fire, called it in, & got blamed even though I hadn't been in that field.
Survived major bike wrecks, BBgun wounds, firecracker explosions, fist fights, falling down rock cliffs, near drowning in irrigation ditch. (the friend who pulled me out 40 years ago, died this year from liver failure).
Haven't noticed any posts citing the fact that back then, Mom was home!
I'll bet you were shocked. (I am not that kind of a girl) LOL
How are you doing Bob?
I have grandchildren & I am so sorry they aren't allowed to live the lives we did. It is too dangerous now. Mean crazy people who will hurt & kill kids for the pleasure of it. Sad times.
My oldest grandson is almost 7 yrs. old and I look back on how much freedom I had at that age, and how he'll never know
that type of freedom. Makes me sad.
It was the DDT.
My husband used to make these little rockets out of his mom's old discarded lipstick tubes...
We used to make match rockets. Just wrap foil around the business end of the match and heat it with another match, and wooosh!
I lived in a valley and one had to ascend the hills to get to town. One road was a blacktopped hill about a mile long. I road my bike with no hands down that hill to a speed of probably 40+ mph. No helmets, gloves, kneepads, or any of that junk. It was several miles from home, too.
We used to bring snakes home in our pockets and sometimes take them to school the next day. I had a couple escape my locker once. Heh. I never found them.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
bttt
Not from street cracks, but my grandpa had tar he used in roofing on his farm. I'd go and break off a piece from time to time :)).
And make things go boom with whatever was available: gunpowder, blasting caps, dynamite...
I THINK I MAY HAVE ACTUALLY SWALLOWED A WATERMELON SEED OR TWO AND ONE NEVER GREW IN MY BELLY.
WE ACTUALLY HAD KIDS DIE OR GET HURT IN CAR WRECKS AND A WHOLE BUNCH OF COUNSLERS NEVER SHOWED UP TO HELP US UNDERSTAND OUR GRIEF. GOSH IM STILL SCARED FROM THAT.>/.
we used to make these tennis ball cannons with soda cans and lighter fuel
then the neighbor kid found his brothers bird shot shells and we proceeded to whack it with a sledgehammer....it never did go off (we were about 10 or 11)
and of course we'd also douse the rear wheel of our stingray with lighter fuel and ride around at nite
but probably my favorite thing was jumping our bikes off ramps like evel knievel
Or being on the seesaw, way high in the air, when the other person abruptly gets off the other end of the seesaw. Ouch.
(mumbles) Cantaloupes, actually :) And, I can attest that a pair of Levis were no match for rock salt accelerated by a 12 gauge cartridge.
LOL... right. And it was funny as we threw them into the bug zapper to hear that neat... zzzztttt!!!
The coolest flashlights ever! And they'd light up your teeth when you shoved them into your mouth and smiled big!
LOL. If only my son could have memories like that.
Oh, and we got spankings, sometimes with the belt. Our parents would go to prison for that today, but we learned right from wrong, didn't we?
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