Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Whomever wrote this, described childhood to a T.
Hope you enjoy it.
Black and White
(Under age 40? You won' t understand.)
"You could hardly see for all the snow,
Spread the rabbit ears 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 everything
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 Greg Agee from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front step, 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; SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING. "
I thought it was interesting to see the differences. I am happy I grew up in a time where we spent most of our time outside playing. And we had no bike helmets.
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 grew up with wonderful parents, but I ALWAYS had the understanding that if I failed to respect them enough to act correctly in public or private.....there was an end result that did not include a diagnosis of any sort.
Oddly enough, their response seemed to work much better than all the psychology, excuses and crap I tried to use while raising my own kids. If I had to do it all over again, I would have cut a little switch like my mom used to do and save myself a WHOLE lot of teen problems later.
Whomever wrote this, described childhood to a T.
Hope you enjoy it.
Black and White
(Under age 40? You won' t understand.)
"You could hardly see for all the snow,
Spread the rabbit ears 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 everything
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 Greg Agee from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front step, 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; SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING. "
I thought it was interesting to see the differences. I am happy I grew up in a time where we spent most of our time outside playing. And we had no bike helmets.
Very, very well said! I can remember talking one-on-one with a school counselor about something, in his office, with the door closed. These days if a 16 year old female student even got within a 100 ft radius of a male counselor at school, the poor guy would be considered a pervert......
Ahh yes...THANK YOU Younglisa for a wonderful reflection of the good ol days. I'm glad I got to live them as well.
I also remember Families did things together and kids were never just hangin out.
Neighbors knew one another, kept an eye out for each others children, if you did something dumb or wrong, your parents knew it before you walked in the door. They also knew just as quickly if you did something smart or helpful.
Community socials and most everyone brought food and refreshments. It was a big party.
It'll be interesting to see who can add more memories of the nice times that have gone by.
Location: Everybody is going to hurt you, you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for-B Marley
9,516 posts, read 20,005,830 times
Reputation: 9418
That's very good. But I'm 51 and our school called gym "PE" and I don't ever recall getting spanked after getting hurt while out playing. LOL
I was thinking of something along these lines yesterday--how today's children couldn't possibly imagine life without the internet and their expensive electronics, what would they do if the country completely collapsed and it took several years to afford any luxuries?
Heck when i was going to high school, algebra was just an elective you didnt have to take, to graduate. Now theyre teaching it in jr high....and yet there are students who cant even read, that are graduating? Whats up with that??
Location: Everybody is going to hurt you, you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for-B Marley
9,516 posts, read 20,005,830 times
Reputation: 9418
Quote:
Originally Posted by Livewire
Heck when i was going to high school, algebra was just an elective you didnt have to take, to graduate. Now theyre teaching it in jr high....and yet there are students who cant even read, that are graduating? Whats up with that??
No kidding? It must depend on where you grew up. In junior high--excuse me, it's "middle school" now, isn't it?--we had to take allgebra.
It's kind of sad. Although we had different upbringings, I personally was never spanked and I didn't have religion in school, it is sad how much children of today have lost.
My step grandson who is 10 stayed over the other night. I asked him what he liked to do. Just video games. He likes to read which is good but he doesn't like anything that requires being active. I was using the binoculars to look for wild animals on our land. I asked if ever used binoculars and would he like to see. He said no and no. What happened to curiosity about the outside world?
Location: Everybody is going to hurt you, you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for-B Marley
9,516 posts, read 20,005,830 times
Reputation: 9418
Quote:
Originally Posted by younglisa7
It's kind of sad. Although we had different upbringings, I personally was never spanked and I didn't have religion in school, it is sad how much children of today have lost.
My step grandson who is 10 stayed over the other night. I asked him what he liked to do. Just video games. He likes to read which is good but he doesn't like anything that requires being active. I was using the binoculars to look for wild animals on our land. I asked if ever used binoculars and would he like to see. He said no and no. What happened to curiosity about the outside world?
Yikes! I remember being curious about everything. The day wasn't long enough for exploring.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
