Under 40, You won't understand (free, house, the best, cell phone)

[BrianG]

Black and White (Under age 40? You
won't understand.) You could hardly
see for all the snow, Spread the rabbit ars as
far as they go.Pull a chair up to the TV set,
"Good Night, David.Good Night, Chet."
My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the
same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we
didn't seem to get food poisoning.
My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to
eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in
wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I
can't remember getting e.coli. Almost all of us
would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
The term cell phone would have conjured up a
phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym,not PE ... and risked
permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in
gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air
cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any
injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how
much safer we are now.
Flunking gym was not an option . even for stupid kids! I guess
PE must be much harder than gym.Speaking of school,we all said prayers and sang the
national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught
all sorts of negative attention.
We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic
health system we had then Remember school nurses? Ours wore a
hat and every thing.I thought
that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed
to be proud of myself.I just
can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station,
Nintendo,X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations..
Oh yeah ... and where was the Benadryl and
sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been
killed! We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction
sites,and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle
of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting
like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room,
followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and
then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a
horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
We didn't act up at the neighbor's house
either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then
we got butt spanked again when we got home.
I recall my friend from next door coming over and doing his
tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that
she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and
swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run
amuck.To top it off, not a
single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a
dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger
management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many
societal ills that we didn't even notice that the entire country
wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T;
I amSORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING.

simple pleasures are very often the best.

Author Unknown

[brokencrayola]

So true. Those were the days mother's put pills in honey to give their tiny ones and no one worried about botulism from the honey. There was no Tylenol or Motrin so when a child was ill they were given Bayer aspirin and no one knew or worried about Reyes Syndrome. Poeple hardly ever sued one another. On Halloween we walked the streets alone and didn't worry about child molesters or candy with poison or razor blades. Parents spanked their children in public and never worried about any repercussions from that. If a parent wanted to pick up their child they walked into the school, open the class door, told the teacher they were taking the child and left. Kids walked home for lunch all the time. You didn't have to register for pre-school or pass a test to enter Kindergarden. In Kindergarden you were expected to know little to nothing. The kids took a nap each day, went to school all day, and were not expected to know how to write, or their colors or number or alphabet when entering school. Those were the days you only went to a doctor or a dentist if you had a problem, not for a well-child check or a 6 mo. cleaning and xrays. You only got a few channels on tv but that was ok, you felt lucky to have tv at all. Most people did not use or possibly didn't even have seat belts in their cars and few people use the very unsafe carseats that were available for babies. When my brother accidently cut his finger off in the push mower as a young boy my mom (who did not drive) calmly walked him and his finger (still covered in grass and dirt) to the doctor office where he sewed it back on. No putting it on ice and bringing him to the hospital and having extensive reattachment surgery. If you dog or cat got really sick it would probably die. People rarely brought animals to vets and the mentality at that time was it was "just a dog or cat" and wouldn't spend a lot of money to fix the problem. Children were raised and expected to be polite to any adult. You did not talk back, plain and simple. When kids went out to play they wandered off who knows where and most of the time the parent could not have told you exactly where they were. We used to drive to the ocean and my parents lay sunning themselves all day while us 5 kids, toddler-grade school age would play in the ocean all day. We were not watched and I had numerous close calls in the ocean. It really is a wonder we all lived. It was a whole different time wasn't it?

[zonababe]

I really hope children get to play outdoors again. I think most the Amber Alerts are because a non custodial parent just wants to spend a little time with there kid. People can't seem to work things out for themselves, they have to let a court decide when they can see their kids. Ridiculous times in which we live.

[Miss Blue]

It was also a time when a quarter was a wonderful weekly allowance and if you spent it foolishly, you learned from that and planned the next allowance to make it last the week, because that was the rule.. It was a time when you got in from school and mom would be either in the backyard taking the laundry off the clothes line or she would actually be at the ironing board in the kitchen ironing your jeans and there would be an afterschool snack on the table..You were never given a key to the house, because mom always made sure she was there when you got home..We played in the barn and swung from a rope from the loft and landed in a pile of hay or feed and no one had an allergic reaction..We got one shot before school called a vaccination that we can still show you the scar..Sex education was learned from our parents, not at school with free condoms for the asking..Mom and Dads friends were known only as Mr. or Mrs. We had fearful respect for our teachers, and were afraid NOT to do our homework..Miss those days, yes I do..

[Rance]

And every teacher had their own homemade paddle. And they used them!

[Denise in Fla]

Ah, the memories from the past. Seemed like we didn't have a care in the world, life was fun back then. Thanks for the memories.

[Adream]

Originally Posted by BrianG

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to
eat it raw sometimes, too.

I remember doing that! And I'm still alive.

Originally Posted by BrianG

Our school sandwiches were wrapped in
wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I
can't remember getting e.coli.

I still wrap my DD's peanut butter and jelly sandwich in waxed paper. It makes a nice 'place mat' on the lunch table. Plus, I love waxed paper. I reminds me of 'back in the day.'

This was great BrianG, thanks for sharing it! (And yes, I'm over 40, so I know what this was talking about!)

[virangos]

Great post, If your quarter didn't last you always had pop bottles to find and take to the drug store.

[Huckleberry3911948]

women then would marry to get rich.
now they divorce to get rich.
being involved in an incident in school
meant you failed to raise your hand in class
it did not mean you and your buddies attempted
to rape a teacher in the stairwell.

[Roaddog]

I used to take tuna sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and we never had to worry about keeping them cool, A/C in school was opening the windows.
Lots of good stuff our children and grandchildren missed out on.