How Did We Survive?

[JeffL]

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. Our houses and 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 slept without flame retardant pajamas, without air conditioning, with doors and windows open. Our dogs did not have rabies shots, distemper shots, parvo shots, and we didn't pour chemicals on them or on us to repel fleas and ticks and mosquitoes. We followed along in the big white clouds sprayed out by the city trucks to kill mosquitoes breathing in the wonderful smell of DDT.

We raced around town without adults on Halloween shouting "Trick or Treat for UNICEF", collecting treats and eating them as we went along without having them x-rayed first. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. 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 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. We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, fried foods and biscuits made with pure lard, and drank sugar sodas, but we were never overweight....we were always outside playing.

We played with cap pistols and toy rifles and rubber knives. We took snakes or frogs or lizards to school, but never real guns. We waded barefoot through muddy water in ditches catching tadpoles and crawdads. We cut the grass with push mowers, climbed trees, and walked along the top of fences like they were tight ropes. We petted stray dogs and cats and took them home to see if we could keep them.

We shot off fireworks without supervision or safety precautions and without getting arrested. We made match guns out of clothes pins and shot flaming matches at each other and at passing cars. We walked or rode our bicycles to and from school in the flaming heat, in the freezing cold, and in the pouring rain. We were not afraid to accept a ride home from a total stranger when it was raining. We knocked on strangers' doors without fear when we were searching for our missing puppy or kitten.

We left our bicycle lying in the middle of the front yard at night, and it would still be there in the morning. There were tryouts for cheerleader and Little League, and not everyone made the teams. 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 as many times as necessary.

We didn't wear designer clothes to school or drive shiny new cars to high school. If we had a car to drive, we were happy with anything that would run no matter what it looked like. We had never even heard of seatbelts or airbags, which probably would not have done any good anyway with ten people packed into a Volkswagen.

That generation produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

[philly]

Jeff,

Where did you grow up? Were you my neighbor? Your childhood sounds parallel to mine. I love to reminisce about my childhood.

Walking threw the fields with my friends and brothers. Building forts out of any material we could find. Jumping fences to pick fruit from the trees. We carryied buckets of crawdads from the creek to our home. Our parents didn't mind. Watching guppies swim around in our buckets and knowing they'd turn into frogs someday was neat. Oh, how I remember those times. Kids, today are missing out on great fun. Occasionally, my 11 year old will go down to the same creek with his buddies and catch crawdads, but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking there might be a child abductor lurking in the area...

[JeffL]

Chapter 1: GAMES FOR WHEN WE ARE OLDER

1. Sag, You're it.
2. Pin the Toupee on the bald guy.
3. 20 questions shouted into your good ear.
4. Kick the bucket.
5. Red Rover, Red Rover, the nurse says Bend Over.
6. Doc Doc Goose.
7. Simon says something incoherent.
8. Hide and go pee.
9. Spin the Bottle of Mylanta.
10. Musical recliners.

Chapter 2: SIGNS OF MENOPAUSE

1. You sell your home heating system at a yard sale.
2. Your husband jokes that instead of buying a wood stove, he is using you to heat the family room this winter. Rather than just saying you are not amused, you shoot him.
3. You have to write post-it notes with your kids' names on them.
4. The Phenobarbital dose that wiped out the Heaven's Gate Cult gives you four hours of decent rest.
5. You change your underwear after every sneeze.
6. You're on so much estrogen that you take your Brownie troop on a field trip to Chippendales.

Chapter 3: SIGNS OF WEAR

"OLD" IS WHEN......

Your sweetie says, "Let's go upstairs and make love," and you answer, "Pick one, I can't do both!"

Your friends compliment you on your new alligator shoes and you're barefoot.

A sexy babe catches your fancy and your pacemaker opens the garage door.

Going bra-less pulls all the wrinkles out of your face.

You don't care where your spouse goes, just as long as you don't have to go along.

You are cautioned to slow down by the doctor instead of by the police.

"Getting a little action" means I don't need to take any fiber today.

"Getting lucky" means you find your car in the parking lot.

An "all-nighter" means not getting up to pee.

Your new bra size is 36-long.

[JeffL]

I want to be a kid again. I want to go back to the time when...


Decisions were made by saying, "Eeny-meeny-miney-mo."

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do over!"

"Race issue," meant arguing about who ran the fastest.

Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly."

Catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening.

It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.

Being gay meant that you were happy.

Being straight meant that you were honest.

?Being old,? referred to anyone over 20.

The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties.

Experiencing the unfathomable fear of being rejected when asking the prettiest girl in school for your first date.

The time came when the most dangerous thing you ever did was to meet your first girlfriend?s father.

It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.

It was unbelievable that dodgeball wasn't an Olympic event.

Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot.

Trying to act cool in front of all the girls when your bike chain broke during one of your most powerful downstrokes. (Why do boy?s bikes have that crossbar?)

You could not imagine being as old as your parents. Ever becoming a grandparent was out of the question.


I have some more. Is anyone interested? :cd:


Jeff

[JeffL]

SIGNS THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER A KID

You're asleep, but others worry that you're dead.
Your back goes out more than you do.
You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
You buy a compass for the dash of your car.
You are proud of your lawn mower.
Your best friend is dating someone half their age - and isn't breaking any laws.
Your arms are almost too short to read the newspaper.
You sing along with the elevator music.
You would rather go to work than stay home sick.
You constantly talk about the price of gasoline.
You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.
You consider coffee one of the most important things in life.
You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
Neighbors borrow your tools.
People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
You have a dream about prunes.
You answer a question with, "Because I said so!"
You send money to PBS.
The end of your tie doesn't come anywhere near the top of your pants.
You take a metal detector to the beach.
You wear black socks with sandals.
You know what the word "equity" means.
You can't remember the last time you laid on the floor to watch television.
Your ears are hairier than your head.
You talk about "good grass" and you're referring to someone's lawn.
You get into a heated argument about pension plans.
You got cable for the weather channel.
You can go bowling without drinking.
You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.

[JeffL]

THE AGE BAROMETER
How many do you remember?

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed bottles
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P. F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive - 6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with levers
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulbs
20. Beanie and Cecil
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

[Tamaroa]

I was talking to a soon to be newlywed the other day. We were discussing our relative situations at the start of our marriages. I am 54. I was married when I was in the Coast Guard. After discharge, we headed south for college. We had everything we owned in a 1971 Toyota and 700 dollars in savings. We rented a student apartment for 75 dollars a month, unfurnished. Our furniture consisted of two chairs bought at a flea market and a table I made from wood I bought at a lumber yard. There were no Home Depots in those days.

This guy who will be getting married shortly needs to have a 25K wedding, a new bilevel home, an SUV and he got his fiancee a rock worth 5K! What is going on here? Why do people feel thay have to start out at a point where it took us 10 or 12 years to reach.

We had some stark times, but I remember them well and mostly with fondness. It really tested our commitment. We have been married 31 years now and my youngest is 21. The one bad thing about those days i remember is that we got through school and every day life on the G.I. Bill and stew beef!!! God, to this day, I can't stand it. That was our staple in the destitute days.

Times really have changed.

Bill

[janecallanan]

Your new bra size is 36-long.
A friend of mine calls hers "tube sox with jello".

If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!
I remember them all. Still have some of em around somewhere too.

15. S&H Green Stamps
One day, my ex sister-in-law had an appointment with her gynocologist. She used the ladies room just before they called her in. The ladies room was out of TP, so she pulled some tissues from her purse. Whileher exam was in progress, the doctor suddenly broke out in hysterical laughter. Tears were rolling down his face, and he had to sit down. Said that it was the most interesting green stamp dispenser he'd ever seen. :ek:

[philly]

I am borderline old than dirt.

I remember the blue/green stamps you'd collect from the gas stations. If you saved enough of them, you could buy something really nice.

NFL logo high ball glasses were distributed when you got a full tank of gas.

How about the drive-in movie theatre's? Weren't they a treat. I never snuck into one, but knew kids that had.

I remember sex & nudity were not ever mentioned. However, one summer night, my friends and our mothers were exiting a movie theatre, where there were also drive-in screens playing, we saw this topless woman bouncing around. I mean she made Dolly Parton look like she wears a size A. Anyhow, our mothers were scrambling to cover our brother's eyes. The boys were trying frantically to get away from them. It was so funny because we never saw anything like it.

[Andy]

I got all 25!
However we did take guns to school, not inside but we took them. While in 11th & 12th grades I got to take Dad's car to school with a 12G shotgun. As soon as school was over two friends and I would go bird hunting. Did that several times. The shot guns were in plain view and no one thought it was unusual. Those hunting trips were the only times we ever locked the car doors.

Bill: We are the same age and have been married long time. However my younger son turned 30 a month ago. I became a cop with a wife and kid and my starting pay was $125 a week, gross.

Jane: We saved green stamps however my story can't come close to comparing to yours. We just bought a card table. Just knowing I'm going to retell your story and maybe more than once.

Stay healthy,
Andy
PS: Mom would always get mad when I took the milk off the front steps. I'd usually lift the cap and sip most of the cream.