Born before 1979?

[oneno]

First, we survived being born to mothers who 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, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking .

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up 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.

I remember riding our bikes in the cool fog behind the truck spraying mosquito killer.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-Ade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because. . . . . . . . .

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING !


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 O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride 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 Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no! 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound , CD's or Ipods, ! no cell phones! , no personal computers , no Internet or chat rooms.......


WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!


We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house 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. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.

They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, 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!


If YOU are one of them . . CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.


Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

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[ben_at_work]

wow! That is so true. I remember always being outside playing baseball or kick ball in the street. The manhole cover was home plate and the cracks in the curb were 1st and third. We played guns,cops and robbers and reenacted scenes from Star Wars with broomsticks and we would have dirt clod fights, god i mis dirt clod fights it was a blast. We also played the now politicaly incorect "Smear the Queer" or snake in the grass. When it rained, I would put on my worst clothes and me and my friends would go to the park and play football in the mud for hours. I did have my shows i liked to watch though. Saturday morning cartoons and the little rascals on the UHF channels. My son isn't as much a slave to the video games or tv as some kids. Thank God for organized sports [;)]
My son fell on the street the other day and skinned his knee. It was his first knee scab. I remember always having an elbow scab or knee scab from playing to rough in the street. They were always fun to pick at and itch around. You'd try to peel it off only to get stuck at the one edge where it wasn't ready to come off. I bet the video game industry has put a serious financial hurt on the folks at Bactine.

[zill]

Yeah, I remember I was 15 years old before we ever locked our doors...we used to just walk into our friends' houses.

This reminded me of an article I read recently...

http://www.vanmag.com/_articles/06nov/Wiredhigh.shtml

[hutter]

My childhood friends and I always had bloody knees, had dirt in our hair and played with strange animals that could of had rabies. One of our favorite playgrounds was the old abandoned school building, broken glass, flooring and all, and one of us never failed to get cut by a rusty nail or piece of glass every time we'd horse around there. There we were, our knees bleeding from jumping and playing, frothing at the mouth from rabid animal bites, with infections from rusty nail wounds, our bodies covered in dirt from God knows where, and pieces of broken glass sticking out of us, and that's the way it was and we LIKED it! We loooooved it!
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Flabertyfloop!

[MikeP]

[quote][i]Originally posted by hutter[/i]
<br>My childhood friends and I always had bloody knees, had dirt in our hair and played with strange animals that could of had rabies. One of our favorite playgrounds was the old abandoned school building, broken glass, flooring and all, and one of us never failed to get cut by a rusty nail or piece of glass every time we'd horse around there. There we were, our knees bleeding from jumping and playing, frothing at the mouth from rabid animal bites, with infections from rusty nail wounds, our bodies covered in dirt from God knows where, and pieces of broken glass sticking out of us, and that's the way it was and we LIKED it! We loooooved it!
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Flabertyfloop!
[/quote]
Playing a gum-shredding game of "Chew the Bark off the Tree" was always a fave of mine. Nibbledyfoo![:D]

[WolverineSyr]

I remember playing in the barn with no adult supervison, around very large animals who could probably kill me with one kick.

I'd spend hours roaming around knee-deep in the swamps behind the house catching frogs. I would wander off in the woods for hours. On one trip when I was 4 or 5, I found a stray dog & brought it home. She turned out to be an awesome dog too (without rabies.)

We'd jump off the hay mow into piles of hay, never worrying about getting splattered, digging holes in the yard & never washing our hands afterwards. I remember that one bath a week thing was pure torture too - having to take 20 minutes out of my busy schedule to sit in a tub!

Oh yeah, I had a pet raccoon for one summer & no one worried about it being rabid or ripping our guts out either.

Yep, things have changed!

I wonder what our grandparents said about us though? We had Telephones, tv, cars, records, etc, etc. that they probably didn't...

[DonGately]

We rode our bikes all over the place - no helmets. We lived at the base of a mountain and it was a great downhill ride to school and long walk pushing the bike home at the end of the day.

I was left behind in little league one year because I wasn't good enough to advance. It was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, because the next year I learned how to hit, and I became competitive. I think a lot of life lessons were learned through that experience.

On our street, we sometimes stayed out as late as midnight or one in the morning, playing "Chase" on full moon nights.

We played Smear the Queer, Butts Up (basically handball, where if you lost a point, you stood facing the wall while your opponent winged a tennis ball at you), and Headhunters (think Dodge Ball, but with Frisbees). Wiffle Ball, Football (touch on the street, tackle on the grass). We had berry fights and dirt clod fights and spike ball fights.

The neighborhood weirdo was a tall skinny Bruce Lee freak who made Polish Cannons and lit tennis balls on fire and kicked them around at us.

Our parents knew each other, at least in a cursory fashion.

We were talented: we could either burp or fart at will (the truly talented could do both). I could burp - long strings of burps, the alphabet, the whole bit. At talent I retain today, and cannot resist when I get in an acoustically sound bathroom.

[oneno]

We lived by a rock quarry nesteled in a thick wooded forest with a fast rushing creek, imagine all the adventures and dangers we joyfuly submitted ourselves to. We didn't even have a National Sex Offendor Registry, we relied on good parents and the knowledge of who and what house to avoid.We would dig for iron pyrite (fools gold) and spirochetes (plant fossils)and ride dirt bikes all day.

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[KYYX4ever]

Ha!
I love this list, and lists like it.

I specifically remember and treasure: being able to STAY OUT ALL DAY LONG, as long as you came home before dark/ the streetlights came on. Also, playing in sandboxes and eating our creations (think about how many CATS used those sandboxes! And do they even HAVE sandboxes anymore ?!?)

We were truly lucky. Times were different, and we turned out OK.

[hutter]

[quote][i]Originally posted by KYYX4ever[/i]
<br>...we turned out OK.
[/quote]

Speak for yourself. Eating paint chips as a wee tyke did me no favors.

[MARV]

[quote][i]Originally posted by DonGately[/i]
<br>.....Butts Up (basically handball, where if you lost a point, you stood facing the wall while your opponent winged a tennis ball at you).....[/quote]

Heh, we called it Booties Up. We played stickball, basketball, tackle tag, guns, skelley (anybody else do this?), rode our bikes for hours, hung on the monkey bars and the girls played Double Dutch. When the ice cream man came around, we heard his bell ringing from a good three blocks away. All the kids would run up to the back of the building and call for their mothers to throw down money in a plastic sandwich bag. Remarkably they heard us - this was a seventeen story building mind you.

Funny, I was just telling my son over the weekend as we were coming back from one of his friends' birthday parties about the parties I had as a boy. Our mothers would buy two pies of pizza, a bottle of Coke, a bottle of Sprite, a Carvel ice cream cake, a bag of chips and a bag of pretzels. Set up all the food in the kitchen. And set up the living room with games like musical chairs or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Now they're had at these steroid grown indoor playgrounds and each kid gets a toy to take home so their feelings are'nt hurt. Man, if we got one of those little paper bags wth some candy and maybe a 25 cent gumball machine toy we were happy. All the moms would sit around and talk or help. Things are different now. Just look at some of these cakes you can pick up at CostCo. You cut everybody a gigantic piece, try to give them seconds and still throw half the thing away. Back in the day, the cakes were a quarter the size and EVERYBODY got a piece.

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[Moparmark]

I loved the days when $10 got you a dozen beer a pack of smokes and gas for Fri/Sat night.

[bpdp3]

Wow, this one will bring me off my hiatus. Nice topic and great responses!

Staying out 'til the dreaded streetlights came on - -- that was me, too.

And riding around in our parents car, rolling around freely in the back seat, no "Car Seats/Booster Seats" etc etc... I remember lying in the backseat reading comics all the time.

Anyone with kids can attest to what a pain it is to deal with getting kids in/out of your vehichle.

[phillyidol]

I remember when $10 bucks would get you 5 hores and a bucket of eels.

[ben_at_work]

[quote][i]Originally posted by bpdp3[/i]
<br>Wow, this one will bring me off my hiatus. Nice topic and great responses!

Staying out 'til the dreaded streetlights came on - -- that was me, too.

And riding around in our parents car, rolling around freely in the back seat, no "Car Seats/Booster Seats" etc etc... I remember lying in the backseat reading comics all the time.

Anyone with kids can attest to what a pain it is to deal with getting kids in/out of your vehichle.


[/quote]

I was grocery shopping the other day and thought of this post when i noticed that the shopping cart kid seats have seat belts. I remember riding inside the cart or standing on the front of it and once underneath it when I was a kid. You also dont see the little rides out front of the stores either.