To all the kids who survived the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

[Slone Stranger]

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were 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 children, we would ride in cars with no 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.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, 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 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet 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!

This generation has 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!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

 

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

[Big John Denny]

I've done all that stuff. That doesn't make me old does it?

Heck, I even remember if you failed a test, that was the grade you got. They didn't let you try again.

[litl rooster]

You forgot Yawn Darts (Jarts)....and every boy carried a pocket knife without the fear of some teacher having him arrested nor did they threaten anyone with them.


Can I re take those 50 years.

[Advertising]

[Doc Neeley]

I did all those things. My friend from Nebraska said when he was in grade school they would take their shotguns to school so they could pheasant hunt on the way home, They did have to keep them in the coat room.

[Arcey]

In and along the salty marshes of the LaFayette River I learned most of my bad shooting habits.

I also learned how to pick up live crabs with my bare hands.  More importantly, I learned how NOT to pick up live crabs with my bare hands........................

[Cyrille]

Yep. I kinda remember fallin outa trees, off horses and houses, latters etc. didn't break a bone though (landed on mah head most of the time).  My first rifle, a Remington single shot .22  got it when I was 12, I still have the little lady still shoot it too. I remember roller skates that attached to your shoes not rollerblades! and a single speed "Paper-boy"  bike w/ coaster brakes. You can still get them too,  but they a'nt $55.00 anymore!
  We played "kick the can", "cable" that's when you throw a baseball at a telephone cable n if you hit it you "score" a run if it's not caught by the other "team". Great thing about "cable" is that you could play one on one. Thanks fer wakin the memories!!
                                                                                                                                 Cyrille

[Hemlock Mike]

WOW -- is this a trip back or what !!!  Also - where did you dad or neighbor stash a bottle of hooch outside ?? 

It's a damn miracle we are still here to talk about it

Mike

[Toccoa Kate]

This is a great trip down memory lane!!!  I remember catching soft crabs out of the Chesapeake Bay (I grew up in Annapolis, MD), wrapping them in seaweed, and walking around the neighborhood with it till I found someone to buy it from me!!!  Winter time we could prove how "great" we were at sleigh riding by showing how many "cinders" we had in our knees!!  Ahh, that was the life....
Toccoa Kate

[Wildcat Will]

How about frisbee baseball/football.  

Going out on Halloween night and eating the candy before ya got home.  Not only the candy but the popcorn balls, candy apples and collecting for UNICEF.

Getting a paddling from the coach for talking in class and then when you got home got it again from your dad because he got called about it.

You did what was right because it was the right thing to do.  Afterall that is what Hoppy, Roy and the Lone Ranger would do!!!!

[Forty Rod]

Most of those apply to me.

I died at an early age.

[Slone Stranger]

forgot one...how about all those baseball cards that were put in the spokes of bicycles!
Must have wasted eleven million dollars in cards.
"Hank who? Aaron? aww, he'll never be nuthin! But I'm keeping my Marvelous Marv Throneberry card!!"

[California Lawdawg]

Been there, done that, and yes, I was around during that fun time.



Lawdawg

[Singing Bear]

I know for certain, Mrs. Whang would be in jail for the kinds of stuff she used to do to us for discipline in school, by today's standards.    Mrs. Johnson used to use her yard stick on the tops of our heads and if she couldn't reach us she'd throw the eraser.  Lots of kids around school with a big chalk mark on their backs or back of their heads.    Mr. Chun, our P.E. teacher in middle school used to turn the firehose on us if we played too much in the showers, as well as using that huge paddle.  He even drilled holes in it so it would "whistle" as it was speeding towards our butts.  We all thought, that's the way it was, tried to stay on the straight and narrow to avoid them and never gave it any thought that it would be illegal one day.  

Don't forget a lot of mothers were also used as guinea pigs for fertility drugs and such without their knowledge.  Still, we're all normal.  

I remember polio vaccinations.  They used to give us a sugar cube laced with the vaccine.  Here in Hawai'i we also had to take annual TB tests.  We also had weekly DDT spaying on our streets.  Kids used to follow the truck on bikes zig zagging in and out of the "toxic" fog.  For some reason, we also liked the smell.  

Our summer job was picking pineapple.  Kids nowadays don't know what hard work is.  That's what Dad would say.  He worked the fields using a canvas bag, filling boxes to load on trucks.  We had the "luxury" of mechanical booms that carried the picked pine to the truck.  Nowadays, I say, "Kids nowadays don't know what hard work is."     You know what?  Sad to say most don't.  

[Texas Tall]

Yeah this is bringing back a lot of fond memories of the early days of my 68 years,and we managed to survive and also seemed to gather a lot of common sense ( sadly lacking in a lot I see to-day).but fun seemed to be our main aim in life.
Good manners and respect for your parents ( although we also thought we knew more than them) I think was part of that era and I would have got one around the ears from Dad had I tried to push thru a door in front of Mum or failed to give up a seat for someone older on public transport.

Great great days....................Texas Tall.

[Mogorilla]

Cutting the corn out of beans, bucking bales, and detassling corn for money in the summer.  Starting working in the field by 5:30 so you could get home by 2 and go to the public pool.   Tennis ball cannons, gigging for frogs, yup good times.   A good friend and I have talked numerously about making an online computer game to Kick the Can.  Figured mostly adults would play it though cars to steal in it.

[Blondetta]

You forgot-

  Learning to roll your own cigarettes and other things, by your older sisters.

  Taking your older sisters skates & making yourself a skateboard, with them.

  Always ready to bike 5 miles for a swim, in an old gravel pit.

  Playing poker with the nieghborhood kids and getting their allowances.

 

[Russ T Chambers]

In our neighborhood, we made our own gunpowder, filled pieces of ½ thin wall, crimped the ends, then drilled the fuse hole.    (Lucky we were, we weren’t allowed the use of power tools.  Had to use a hand drill!)
Used then to put out neighborhood trash fires people used to have in 55 gal. drums.  Everyone came away with all eyes and extremities intact, though I sometimes wonder how!!! 

We also used to swing out over the basement holes of new houses on ropes from nearby trees.  I had the stick used as a handle break in the middle of a swing, and after getting up and outta’ the 8 foot plus deep hole, the only thing we did was find a bigger stick to use as a handle for several more swings!  Never broke a bone! 

[Coop Trawlaine]

Sliding down the dry tall grassy hill, loaded with rocks, on flattened cardboard boxes....A lot of bruises from the hidden rocks but couldn't wait to climb the hill to slide down again.

The local police officer WALKED the beat and knew every one of the children and their parents and he LIVED in the neighborhood and we all went to school with his children. 

How about mowing all the neighbors lawns, and heaven forbid we used push mowers, a rake for the cut grass and the contraption like a metal star attached to the side of a wheel to trim the edges by PUSHING.  On a good week we might have even got paid $5.

Movies were the Sat. Afternoon must, .25 to get in and you got a small (the only size) popcorn and a soda.  Two Cowboy pictures, 4 serials, and 12 cartoons...The cheapest babysitter for our folks...   Yeah, we watched a lot of shooting, punching and some killing in these movies, but the only thing sexual in them was the hero KISSING the lady.  Funny thing about those movies, no one ever took their clothes off.   Heck, the men would even pick up a blanket or their shirt to cover a bare male chest.

We all survived.  Now how could that happen?

[Silent Joe]

Kids, all over the world, are the same. I did the most of this by myself. Playing wih a wooden boat by the water and let your coat fell into the water. How tell I my Mom? Playing cowboy and Indian by the age of 12. Going on camp with the boyscouts and sticked by a hundred of horseflys on my back. But, the most importend thing, we learned respect for everyone and everything.

[mtmarfield]

   Greetings!

 Ah, the good ol' days. There were some really great chemicals, readily available; blew a hole in my bedroom wall.
 Shooting flies off the mint plants in the backyard with my Webley .22 air pistol; it freaked the upstairs lady out a bit, but her son informed her & set her at ease{?}.
 Lawn Darts! A couple of buddies used to play "chicken" with those; Paul's big toe got skewered to the lawn.
 Dad & I used to hunt rabbit on the east side of Edwards AFB... Hell knows what'd happen nowadays!
 
               Be Well, All!

                                  M.T.Marfield
                                     2-12-06