Posted on 02/06/2010 8:02:54 AM PST by Dallas
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No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us, WE ARE AWESOME !!! OUR LIFE IS LIVING PROOF !!!
To Those of Us Born 1925 - 1970 : At the end of this email is a quote of the month by Jay Leno.. If you don't read anything else, please read what he said. Very well stated, Mr.. Leno. ~~~~~~~~~ TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930s, '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s!! First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets, on our heads. As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes. Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And we weren't overweight.. WHY? Because we were always outside playing...that's why! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. --And, we were OKAY. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them 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 did not have Play Stations, Nintendos and X boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
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Mysteriously, my mother always knew where we were. A kid would show up at the empty lot where we were playing and tell us our mother wanted us to go home for supper. We were always outdoors. Loved when the seasons changed and we could go out and play after supper. (Newark, NJ)
1952 here, small town in central Ohio.
My first two bikes were hand-me-down beaters that barely rolled. The first one didn’t have fenders or a chain guard, and I am fortunate to be here speaking with you today as my pants cuffs once got caught in the chain, bringing me to an abrupt stop while I was in traffic. I nearly got hit by a car coming up behind me, and I was saved only by the car swerving one way while I managed to topple over the other. When I got a paper route in 1965, my second beater-bike’s brakes were failing, so a new bike was needed. I was a working boy now and spending long evenings in the saddle disseminating the news to the masses, so I needed dependable — and safe — transportation. I should have gotten a proper working boy’s heavy-duty bike, but I was seduced by the sports-car appeal of the Schwinn Sting-Ray. I even thought it was practical for the work, since I’d drape the newspaper bags over the banana seat. In the event, sitting on the papers wasn’t that convenient, and it turned out to be a fairly bad choice of bike for the job at hand.
Also — small-wheeled bikes were something new in the world then, and reports came to my ears that the cool kids (who all had ten-speeds) thought I looked “dorky” riding that dinky little thing. All these years later, it seems as though small-wheeled bikes are now pretty much the common type.
Some great memories hereon.
I remember riding down the new freeway towards Adelaide with a mate of mine.We both had an air rifle and a 22 strapped across our backs in a big x shape.We thought it made us look like cool mexican bandits.A traffic cop pulled us over and showed us the sign just up the road that said "no bicycles on freeway" and made us get off and walk the last 1/4 mile till the freeway ended.No mention of the guns!
Can you imagine the scenario today.Good grief we'd have helicopters and half the force after us!
We practically lived on our bikes.
They were great days,not a worry in the world.
Like my Mom once told me: “We don’t go on vacations because we LIVE where people go on vacation.”I can say that now. I live in Las Vegas. ;)
BTTT!
Used to ride wheelies for hundreds of yards.
I see that one has a “Slick” on it. Butterfly handlebars,banana seat!
I used to build my own from scavenged parts.
1957 here.
Let me outdo your story.
Many years ago, my Best Friend gets Married. He was working in a Grocery Store and took a part time job working for a Pool Cleaning Service to make extra money.
He is helping unload Pool Chlorine off a flat bed truck. The 5 gallon Chlorine bottles were in boxes of four. As he was sliding the boxes toward the back of the bed, he tripped on a warped board and flew off the truck.
His Wife of one month calls me to tell me he is in the Hospital. I walk in the room. There he is with two broken arms smiling away.
While his Wife was working, his Mother In Law came over to help him out. Needless to say, he suffered with painful “digestive” issues until his Wife got home. He had amazing mind control. LOL
His wife proved her love for him then and there. She was and is a Princess.
And yes, I remember the Stingray with the 3 speed stick shift on the crossbar. A buddy of mine had one and hit a pothole, sliding him off the seat into the stick shift. It was not pleasant to see or hear his reaction...
How in the world did we survive such obstacles in life?
I did my first paper route on a Stingray too. I delivered the Glendale News Press. The worst part of the job was collecting the money, not delivering the papers.
Indeed! My parents got me my only "store-bought" full size (26") bike when I was far too short to reach the pedals. So -- I rode it with no seat, sitting on the luggage rack.
I recall a few painful incidents like your friend's, but I must have survived OK... We have three kids and six grandkids... '-)
(BTW, 1937 for me...)
we survived cause no one told us we couldn’t !!!!!!
I was born in 1948. I remember my mother washing out my mouth with soap for using a swear word and being punished with a switch across my backside and on the back of my hands for being late for dinner...today, that would be child abuse! There was a DDT truck that came around the neighborhood spewing out the white DDT fog and we would run in it and laugh. I’m still alive! I don’t ever remember locking the door to the house .. no need! Things are “uglier.” today. My grandchildren live a very different world than what I knew and it saddens me. I was told that I would need to get a permit for my son to have a treehouse ... how absurd I complained ... so, my kids did not have a treehouse because the Nanny State had arrived. I watched the younger generation tell their children not to walk on a ledge because it was dangerous ... I was considered dangerous for saying that children can’t learn without testing their boundaries. Yes, we had the fear of socialism/communism ... and today we live in socialism/communism.
LOL...I put baseball cards in my spokes. Those cards are probably worth a fortune today.
Oh man...I did that too. Who knew?...LOL
You are on a roll...LOL
We never locked our doors.
bfl
All of this is true, but it was also us that let the pansy assed, litigious, politically correct, tree hugging hypocrites, hoplophobes, and progressive Marxist scum take over our universities and government.
So ... until we take out that trash, we really haven’t accomplished as much as we might like to think.
1949 checking in here. I loved the "fog machine." No one ever told me not to chase it. Mom would say my clothes smelled bad afterwards, tho.
Of course Mom had some wonderful advice over the years, too. She wasn't sympathetic to my complaints that the boy two doors down was bullying me. She said that I needed to stand up for myself against him. (I was all of 8 years old at the time.) She certainly wasn't going to do it. When I finally took him on and ground his face into the gravel alley next to our house, I can still remember looking up and seeing her smiling through the window above the kitchen sink.
Needs to be more of this
We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand, and no one would call child services to report abuse.
1954 here... I have so many memories of those times. Nothing like baseball on a handheld AM radio back then.
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