As several others have said,
This CANTEEN is FOR our Veterans; moreover, THIS CANTEEN IS FOR OUR TROOPS!
Quoting Tonk:
Feel free to e-mail me at seaside611@hotmail.com your ideas about what you would like to see in the Canteen.
A reminder to Canteen Crew NOT to post any responses they get UNLESS the person asked them to.
Somehow we survived
Well you are over thirty five if you get this.
You lived as a child in the 60s or the 70s.
Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as
long as we have.................
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
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 hitchhiking to town as a young kid!)
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.
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 streetlights came on. No
one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable.
We played dodge-ball and sometimes the ball would really
hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth
and there were no law suits 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 ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but
we were never overweight.........we were always
outside playing.
We shared one grape soda with four friends,
from one bottle and no one died from this?
We did not have Play Stations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video
games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies,
surround sound, personal cellular phones, Personal Computers, internet chat rooms,
............... we had friends. We went outside and found them.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on
the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them.
Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent!
By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian.
How did we do 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.
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.
No one to hide behind.
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 has 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 that have had the luck to grow up as kids,
before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
Randoph W. Blayone
President
Noran Tel Communications Limited