Remember when?

[spud]

My mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs and
Spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife
And no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

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 or at the beach instead of a pristine pool (talk
About boring), no beach closures then.

We all took PE ..... And risked permanent
Injury with a pair of Dunlop sandshoes instead of having
Cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in
Light reflectors that cost as much as a small car. I can't recall any
Injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

We got the cane for doing something wrong at
School, they used to call it discipline yet we all grew up to accept
The rules and to honour & respect those older than us.

We had 50 kids in our class and we all
Learned to read and write, do maths and spell almost all the words
Needed to write a grammatically correct letter......., FUNNY THAT!!

We all said prayers in school irrespective of
Our religion, sang the national anthem and no one got upset.

Staying in detention after school caught all
Sorts of negative attention we wish we hadn't got.

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. We weren't!!

Oh yeah .... And where was the antibiotics
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 building sites and when we got hurt, mum pulled
Out the 75cent bottle of iodine and then we got our backside spanked.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10 day dose of
Antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for
Leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

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 never needed to get into group therapy
And/or 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.

WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!

AAAAh, those WERE the days!!!!


[pivo11]

Bleach?  On a cutting board?  Have you lost your mind? 

 

[Deleted]

Oh yeah, that one resonates BIG time! Looking at the royal mess we're in now I think says it all about which was better. Excellent piece Spud - thanks.

[archangel1]

The big memory for me was walking to and from school by myself, a distance of about 3/4 mile (1.2 k), starting from around Grade 1! We never worried about perverts or kidnappers or any of their ilk .  It was daring simply to cut across the corner of someone's lawn! Now, too many parents won't let their kids go down to the corner without an escort, or even worse, a chauffeur.  Sad.

Cap guns; chemistry sets; wood burning tools; lawn darts (although that one never made sense to me even as a kid); monkey bars; that infernal device where you spun around and around until you got dizzy (at the least), threw up or got launched into the gravel/asphalt (or all 3 if you were unlucky)...nothing dangerous in that list.

And, whatever happened to the old adage about eating a peck of dirt before you die? The modern rash of deadly allergies (to nuts and such) had to come from something that changed for the worse over the last half century and mollycoddling children is definitely involved.

[pivo11]

You forgot "politically correct".  People are no longer crazy as a bedbug, nowadays they're "neuro-atypical".  Oy vey! 

[Deleted]

What I want to know is, who analyzed the bed bug to find out they actually were crazy??? 

[pivo11]

The itsy bitsy spider. 

[Deleted]

OH YA !!. Would you believe I had breakfast this AM with a 79 yr old pilot at Hanover AP  who flew his 150 Pacer there for our monthly get together.  Years ago we walked together to a one room school for at least 1.5 miles twice a day. ---no problems, just the occasional fist fight with other farm lads. This Am I told him that a certain old gal that often walked with us and that we tried to get into the ditch for a little feeling around was not too well, and I was going to visit her this week. Well he filled up, and all he could say was ' give her a little feel for me' Carm. 

   You know-- I'll tell M---a that when I see her, she stills knows Gord well and I'll bet that will make her not hurt quite as much as she now does.    Today I think those sentiments and expressions have lost something that we had as children in those days-----Too bad .

         

          Got me new machine just about to where I want it.    Took my old Lanc, VRA, for a trip this AFT from Edmonton to Cold Lake.  It felt good.    She sat down on that 12k+ runway like the lady she is.

                         Cheers,  Carm.