Risk-takers!

[trof]

In my morning mail:

We licked the beaters and didn't have anyone telling us we were going to become deathly ill from eating batter with raw eggs in it!

At Easter time, we had our dyed Easter eggs in a nest on the counter and they sat out at room temperature for the week after Easter. We would peel one whenever we felt like it. I Can't Believe We Made It!

If you lived as a child in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's. 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.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.

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 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 when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable.

We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut, broke bones and broke teeth, and there were no law suits 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 ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight ... we were a always outside playing games, we shared grape soda with four friends, from one bottle, and no one died from this.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, video games at all,
99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms . we had friends. We went outside and found them.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell and just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By our-selves! Out there in the cold, cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do 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.

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. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

I ain't saying it was better, but it sure was different.
;-)

[displacedtexan]

1. with the sweet came the sour

yeah, childhood was great...

but did you have to play dodge ball wearing a dress? did you have to use the white school's leftover books? did you have a neighbor who 'went to live with her aunt' for nine months?

while we were having a great time, lots of people suffered and lost all hope. every single day was difficult.

[trof]

2. Your post evokes a smile and

some sadness.
The answer to all 3 questions is "no".
The mental image of me playing dodgeball in a dress brought the smile.
I would have sooner played naked, but that was then.
;-)
There was a big kid named Earl in the first grade who drank ink and ate chalk, among other odd quirks, and got "left back". He'd be in a special ed program now.

I never questioned the fact that there were only little white boys and girls in school. I remember when the Birmingham papers were full of stories about the supreme court and Brown vs. Board of Education. I asked my granny what it meant and she said it meant I would have to go to school with little "nigra" kids. And I remember thinking "So?". Didn't seem like a big deal to me. Boy was I ever wrong.

Yeah, there were things about the good ol' days that weren't so good.