All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took five minutes for the TV to warm up?
Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
Nobody owned a purebred dog?
DO
YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?
All
the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took five minutes for the TV to warm up?
Nearly
everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
Nobody owned a purebred dog?
When
a quarter was a decent allowance?
You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
All your male teachers wore neckties and female
teachers had
their hair done every day and wore high heels?
You
got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped,
without asking, all for free, every time?
And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?
Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner
at a real restaurant with your parents?
They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . ..and they did?
When
a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise,
peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?
No one ever asked where the car keys were
because they were always in the car,
in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
Lying on your back in the grass with your friends
and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a ..."
and
playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals
because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once,
you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace,
and share it with the children of today?
When
being sent to the principal's office was nothing
compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?
Basically we were in fear for our lives,
but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.
Our
parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.
Send
this on to someone who can still remember
Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy,
Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery,
the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows,
Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk.
As well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games,
Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool,
and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"?
I
am sharing this with you today
because it ended with a double dog dare to pass it on.
To remember what a double dog dare is, read on.
And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between
old enough to know better and too young to care.
How many of these do
you remember?
Candy
cigarettes
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum
Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
Newsreels before the movie
P.F. Fliers
Telephone numbers with a word prefix....(Raymond 4-601).
Party lines
Peashooters
Howdy Dowdy
45 RPM records
Green Stamps
Hi-Fi's
Metal
ice cubes trays with levers
Mimeograph paper
Beanie and Cecil
Roller-skate keys
Cork pop guns
Drive ins
Studebakers
Washtub
wringers
The Fuller Brush Man
Reel-To-Reel tape recorders
Tinkertoys
Erector Sets
The Fort Apache Play Set
Lincoln Logs
15 cent McDonald hamburgers
5
cent packs of baseball cards -
with that awful pink slab of bubble gum
Penny candy
35
cent a gallon gasoline
Jiffy Pop popcorn
Do
you remember a time when...
Decisions
were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
A foot of snow was a dream come true?
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action
figures?
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
War was a card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?
And now, for a different perspective on this same era....
People Over 40
(*complete with the disclaimer for the new millenium:)
" The activities listed below are not
endorsed by the owner of this site. Just because the entire population was not wiped
out by practicing such risky behaviors, does not mean that we should go back to those days
or those practices. In some ways, the world is a safer place for
children than it was 25-30 years ago, because of some of the things that have been learned
and mandated since those days. "
People over 40 should all be dead. According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those
of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's and 60's probably shouldn't have survived either.
Our 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 the risks we took hitchhiking.)
As children, we rode in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were seldom
overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from
this.
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 would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back in front of
our house when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell
phones. Unthinkable!
We did not have Play stations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels
on cable, video-taped or DVD movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal
computers, or Internet chat rooms.
We had friends! We went outside and found them.
We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got scratches and cuts and broke bones and teeth, and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember
accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it
would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or
sometimes 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.
Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to
repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were
our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided
with the law. Imagine that!
The generations of adults spawned from these children of the 40s, 50s & 60s has
produced some of the best risk-takers and 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 if you
are one of them! Congratulations.
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as one of these fortunate
kids.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors.... Wheeeee....
P.S. The next time one of you molly-coddles one of your children or grandchildren and 'cuts 'em too much slack' ask yourself this question: Am I doing this child a favor or would he/she be better off learning a lesson that can be taught best by experience or even disappointment? Please don't make the wrong decision or you may risk more than a bump or bruise or hurt feelings. Many of these things are a part of life. Let our children learn this lesson early so they can learn to cope with what life will throw at them later.
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