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A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 6:20:13 AM   
MistressYlwa


Posts: 263
Joined: 8/25/2005
Status: offline 		A Goody For The Oldtimers
 
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 icepack 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 Donny Reynolds 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- SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING
 
Pass this to someone (over age 40, of course), and
brighten their day by helping them to remember that life's most simple pleasures are very often the best!
 
Mistress Ylwa
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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 6:51:20 AM   
LadyEllen


Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		Hey - I'm only 39 and I recall those times, even I was only 10 or something.

The 70s - aside from the fashion and musical crimes of the decade, the best ten years ever. Its all been downhill since then.

It was a much simpler life, and we were all much happier I'm sure for it. We used to ride bikes out into the country, play proper real life games, run about and only come home for tea and to watch an hour of kids TV which was high quality and almost technology free.

My kids now, sit and play on the PC, they have bikes that have hardly been touched, and will gladly watch 16 hours of kids TV a day, if I let them.

Its a virtual childhood today for them, and a virtual life for me too I guess, otherwise I'd hardly be here writing this. But then again, how could I converse with so many interesting people every day without technology? And believe me, compared to the people amongst whom I live, you all are far more interesting!

E

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 7:01:52 AM   
sleazy


Posts: 781
Joined: 11/23/2006
From: UK
Status: offline 		A slightly younger still Brit, but it hits home for sure.

Doing my homework, racing out on my bike to be told be back by bedtime, and with no watch all I could do was stop a stranger and ask the time.

I should have been murdered long ago (suspect theres mant wish I had been)

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 7:02:39 AM   
marieToo


Posts: 3595
Joined: 5/21/2006
From: Jersey
Status: offline 		42 here. lol.  That was a fun read.  thanks for sharing.  :)

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 9:00:47 AM   
MistressYlwa


Posts: 263
Joined: 8/25/2005
Status: offline 		Got this email and told I could share. Was an eye opener for me, as it has been many, many years since I was in school.

I swam in a lake plently of times, still do when I get the chance.   My brother failed PE because now a days you don't get the luxery of having the school maintain your gym clothes.  You get two pair of shorts and two t-shirts, so we hoped we didn't grow too much, or accidently forget our clothes at school, for which the punishment was after school detention.

Everyone at my school got detention because our school had almost twice the amount of kids allowed by federal law because they postponed making a new school so long for fear of being bumped down one level in football.  So getting to class in the 8 minutes that were given was practically impossible because you have to fight through the crowds.  If you had to pee any time between 9 am and 4 pm you'd have to accept detention.  There's a no tolerance rule for tardiness and going at lunch time isn't an option because if you have to buy lunch, the lines are so long, you hardly have enough time to scarf down your meal, much less go to the bathroom. I never owned any kind of gaming device.  My brother did, but I wasn't allowed to use it, and the tv was then occupied. P.S. I'm 21, so this stuffed happened about 4 years ago, in a middle-upper class neighborhood. Makes me glad I am not in school today! Mistress Ylwa

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Mistress Ylwa

You see what power is - holding someone elses fear in your hand and showing it to them! - Amy Tan

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 12:53:53 PM   
CalliopePurple


Posts: 2539
Joined: 11/29/2004
From: SeaTac area
Status: offline 		I'm only 21 and I'm glad my parents aren't as "modern" as most because they still don't use separate cutting boards or make sure they put the food right away. Hell, my mom's cutting board also works as a paddle when you really screw up. The only time I ever failed PE was when I had a knee injury. Before I started favoring books over people, I did my share of getting torn up on everything I could find outside.

But what really confuses me is rewarding kids for everything. I got little certificates in fifth grade for being "prompt". Who needs to be rewarded for turning their schoolwork in on time? I don't even wanna know what it's like for my littlest sister, who is in fifth grade now. Kinda makes me wish for some things to change back to how they should be.


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Kimi ni aitakute dare yori mo aitakute
hajimete kimi ni atta hoshizora no shita de.
Kimi ni tsutaetai todokanai omoi demo
boku no kokoro wa mada kimi o sagashiteiru.

Gackt - Kimi ni Aitakute

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 1:06:58 PM   
meatcleaver


Posts: 9030
Joined: 3/13/2006
Status: offline 		I'm 51 and I can remember playing on bomb sites in the street I lived in Liverpool, (that was twelve years after the war) but we all survived the unexploded bombs. And there was one, a 500 pounder! Found 4 years later on the site I used to play on.

Deadly chickens, we used to eat them!

Iodine used to cure everything, including ulcers but only whimps used to get them anyway.

School was a Stalag.

The headmaster was a paedophile and the local policeman a thug.

Aaah those were the days.

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 1:20:22 PM   
QuietlySeeking


Posts: 297
Joined: 5/5/2005
Status: offline 		Hey, I'm only 35 and I remember those days.

Walking to the local 7-11 (which was out of sight lines from my parents' house) with a group of friends to take our money and buy candy.

Filling a paper lunch sack with candy for around $1.00....when some candy was multiple pieces for a penny.

I can remember the first time I was *MADE* to wear a seatbelt, of course I also remember climbing around in the back of my parents' full size station wagon and never worrying about any injuries.

I remember wandering in my grandmother's neighborhood, climbing railroad bridges and not getting home until dark...just before the sun set over the hill, and pleading "but Dad, the sun hasn't completely set yet...see the sky is still purple".

Bicycle riding without helmets...going over the handlebars and dusting yourself off, laughing at your stupidity, checking yourself for bloody spots and then setting off for several more hours of riding...

Sigh...and now, I'd be a "bad father" if I let my son do any of that...

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 1:24:03 PM   
Kalira


Posts: 954
Joined: 10/9/2006
From: Fort Wayne Indiana
Status: offline 		I can remember at age 6, walking by myself 9 blocks to go the local convienence store to buy a pack of cigarettes for my mother ( and they were only $.49 at that time )
We did not get rides to school from our parents, neither did we take a bus. We walked every day of the school year the 15 blocks or so; to and from.
Come home from school, do the homework, run outside so that we could dig a tunnel in the back yard before we were called in for dinner.
No computers, no game systems; just that little thing they used to call imagination to grow on

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We are more easily led part by part to an understanding of the whole.
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Damnant Quod Non Intellegunt

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 1:35:15 PM   
seeksfemslave


Posts: 4011
Joined: 6/16/2006
Status: offline 		Loved the first post and those times can be described by the wording of an advert for beer here in the UK....

UNSPOILED by PROGRESS.

< Message edited by seeksfemslave -- 12/29/2006 1:40:00 PM >

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 2:02:58 PM   
windchymes


Posts: 9410
Joined: 4/18/2005
Status: offline 		Every time I attend a baby shower, I am amazed that my kids lived to adulthood.  I didn't have the walkie-talkie baby monitor, I ran up and down the stairs every few minutes to check to see if they were awake and breathing.  I didn't have the special feeder chair to hold the baby at the perfect angle for proper feeding, I held them in one arm and held the bottle with the other hand.  I didn't have a $300 "travel system", I had a $10 umbrella stroller that pinched the hell out of my fingers when I folded it up. We were told to put them to sleep on their stomachs because sleeping on their backs could kill them, so we did.  Now, sleeping on their stomachs could kill them, so they sleep on their backs. 

We didn't have baby gyms or Baby Einstein, but they somehow developed muscles and coordination and learned to read.  We didn't have diapers that hold twice their own weight in blue liquid but yet keep the baby's skin dry, we just checked them to see if they were wet and changed them when they were.  No Genie worked magic on the diapers, the trash worked just fine, if the dog didn't find them first.

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Pick-up artists and garbage men should trade names.

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 2:35:34 PM   
NorthernGent


Posts: 8730
Joined: 7/10/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MistressYlwa

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers,
Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
 
So true. The only time mam and dad saw me was when I needed feeding or sleep. Apart from that I was never in the house and this was the 80s. All this kids sat in the house business seemed to take off in the 90s. Don't they have trees to climb and a football to play with?!

 Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization
kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
 
Don't you have dock leaves out there to put on the skin where you'd been stung?! All the old dears used to prescribe it for stings - you know, you'd just been stung about 5 times and they reckoned a leaf was going to do the trick (not surprisingly it never worked!). Old wives tales and all that.

 We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on
 
We had split the kipper, a stoke of pure genius of a game. Basically, it involved 7 or 8 lads all stood around in a circle with feet spread and a knife. One threw a knife in between your feet (the rule of the game was it had to land between your feet) and then you had to place a foot where the knife had landed. Everyone in the circle had a go and it carried on round the circle until people started to drop out as their feet were too close together and they didn't fancy a knife in the foot (which did happen if you had a couple of lads who would rather have a knife in the foot than be seen to bottle it). Kids eh! Sounds stupid and looking back it was but it entertained us no end as with a few other games like the Grand National and Run The Cat (which didn't actually involve cats) which would take too long to explain. Then there was Chicken with an imaginary rope and real cars. This was a long time ago by the way not recent!



Good post and a good read. Jogged a few memories etc.

P.S. so we have your lot to blame for mayo?! I always thought it was the Europeans. These days I can't buy a sandwich for love nor money without mayo on. Once upon a time it was salt and pepper only. When sandwiches were sandwiches eh. Where did it all go wrong?!

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Sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 3:56:29 PM   
juliaoceania


Posts: 21383
Joined: 4/19/2006
From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Status: offline 		I am 38, and yet had many of these experiences, the person that wrote it must have a faulty memory about when things happened and did not happen.

It must be a generational thing (not a baby boomer here, Gen Xer), but I tend to think that people romanticize the past, I surely used to myself. There are some things I would like to have back again, but mostly I am glad the era you spoke of is over

No more "duck and cover", even though anyone with any common sense should have seen jumping under a school desk was not going to save them from an attack

The McCarthy witch hunts are over, and not acceptable in today's society

It is no longer socially acceptable to call me a "broad" (thank God)

My boss can't threaten to fire me for not having sex with him and get away with it as easily

If I am married and my husband beats me, the neighbors will not just look on in pity, whisper behind their hands and ignore it, they may well call the police, and when the police show up they will arrest my husband if I have marks on me

When boys rape girls it is not socially acceptable to claim "she asked for it" or to say "boys will be boys"

Black people no longer have to go to the back of the bus....

I could go on and on about why many things are better now than they were before.. but I think you get the idea.

Thanks for the smile at some of those memories (especially eating raw hamburger... I used to do that myself)

< Message edited by juliaoceania -- 12/29/2006 3:58:49 PM >

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 6:26:07 PM   
petdave


Posts: 2479
Status: offline
quote:

t
quote:

ORIGINAL: QuietlySeeking
Bicycle riding without helmets...going over the handlebars and dusting yourself off, laughing at your stupidity, checking yourself for bloody spots and then setting off for several more hours of riding...


That's always my response to posts like the OP, but then somebody pointed out that, really, a multitude of childhood head injuries really explained a lot about me

i swear, tho... after reading the instructions for cooking my Xmas turkey this year, i've decided to use raw turkey juice if i ever need to poison anyone. Apparently it's somewhat more deadly than strychnine or enriched uranium.

...dave

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 7:18:00 PM   
SaintAllie


Posts: 158
Joined: 3/23/2006
Status: offline 		I grew up in australia .. we had frisbees and kites and yoyo's .. there was even a huge marble craze as I recall.. we'd ride our bikes along the railway tracks .. and go bush all day catching yabbies ( freshwater cray) you'd disappear about 6 am with a piece of mums best steak from the freezer, a roll of string, a bucket, homemade sandwiches and a couple of oranges....turn up about 7pm with about 40 yabbies..your mum would get that green around the gills look as your dad boiled them all and ate them..

I remember the day we got a colour TV.. oh and the day the leisure centre got the games you could play on the tv.. remember the tennis game?.. black screen  two rectangular "bats" one on the left , one on the right.. and a "ball'...we lined up for ages for a turn on it.....Allie

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 7:28:32 PM   
cuddleheart50


Posts: 9718
Joined: 2/20/2006
From: Kentucky
Status: offline 		Its official, I'm old!!

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Dance like no one is watching,
Sing like no one is listening.
Love like you've never been hurt
and live like it's heaven on Earth.


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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 7:30:57 PM   
synrgy33


Posts: 61
Joined: 4/4/2005
Status: offline 		And when we were kids (I'm 35) if you got sent to summer school it's because you weren't with it and didn't get it the first time around. NOW if you go to summer school and DONT miss one day you get anywhere from 25.00 to 100.00 gift checks. WHATS UP WITH THAT??????

It's truly sad that my children won't ever know the freedom of leaving the house at 6am and not returning til I hollar IT's TIME FOR DINNER" at 6pm. That the neighbors and those neighbors and those neighbors all watch out for each others kids. And how it passes back down to you. How my children will never be able to earn 5.00 with a lemonaide stand on the street corner, because someone is either afraid they'll be poisoned, or you're afraid they'll be snatched. It's sad my children will never know every police officer in town and know that if they screw up, I AM going to hear about it. (Ummmmmm!)

I could go on and on, but I think you all know where it goes. I couldn't wait to grow up... Now I feel sad for my kids that they'll never know the gifts that I had as a child. Sure they have ps2's and computers etc. But I had the whole world at my disposal and learned many lessons in the woods, and on the streets rummaging around and learning about nature and life.

May I borrow the OP's post to post it on my blog? It's fantastic.
Syn~

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 10:13:28 PM   
Devilslilsister


Posts: 1262
Joined: 8/3/2006
Status: offline 		i'm much younger.. but still........

i remember flash light tag when all the neighborhood kids would get together at dusk.

Races to big rock (big rock was the BIG rock at the bottom of the hill, in the woods behind our house)

i remember walking to school every day of elementry school - keeping my eyes peeled for the big bad drug pushers that were going to jump out from behind a bush and force me to use drugs.  (never saw any)

as for riding bikes.... in middle school i used to ride a bike to school.. no helmet.. no knee or elbow pads.... no brakes and hell i once ran into a stationary car and went flying over the roof.  Yet i lived, laughed and finished getting on to school.

and Adventures........ god i loved those.  Climbing onto the roof of my elementry and some how managing to get my golden retriever up there as we raced around on the roof. 

Having fun and hiding out on the local golf course keeping well out of sight of any golfers!

its disheartening with my own daughter who cant stand taking any adventures into the wild down here in florida and after a 10 minute walk i hear "my legs hurt"  but then again, she loves her computer and learns alot from it.  And their ARE gators around here.. catch 22


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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 10:18:25 PM   
LTRsubNW


Posts: 1604
Joined: 5/6/2006
Status: offline 		I remember none of those things (and I admit to NOTHING!!!!).

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RE: A Goody For The Oldtimers - 12/29/2006 10:32:28 PM   
SweetSarijane


Posts: 3788
Joined: 10/7/2005
From: KC area Missouri
Status: offline 		I'm 36 and I remember so much of what's mentioned in the OP. I used to ride my bike, sans helmet of course, to the next town by myself to visit friends, walk a couple of miles to the historical site in our tiny town when admission was free, and spend hours going through the buildings and walking down 100+ yr old steps on a steep hill to stand at the water's edge of the Missouri River. I'd spend hours sitting in a tree reading, thinking, daydreaming. So many good memories from my childhood among the painful ones. I remember the good and the bad and I agree that it's a sad thing that my kids won't get to experience some of the simple joys I did.

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Deviant Mind
Wild Side Readers KCSass

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