O/T: Our Childhood In Black And White

[Lew Hodgett]

Enjoy

Lew =======================================

Our Childhood in Black and White.

(Under age 35? You won't understand.)

You could hardly see for all the snow, Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go. Pull a chair up to the TV set, 'Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet.'

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 ice-pack 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 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.

Thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was

allowed to be proud of myself.

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 14-day dose of a

$149 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.

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.

[Rick Samuel]

Amen! I kinda feel sorry of the younger generations. When a new cell phone with the latest and greatest bells and whistles is the highlight of this month?.tells me you haven?t a clue as to what life is.

The sad thing is it?s our fault. We sure fu*ked up.

[Charlie Self]

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

We turned responsiblity for child raising over to experts, while mothers took jobs outside the home so families could have more "stuff." Then we turned our society around so it becamse "child centered," meaning that everything that could be done for kids was done.

Ye reap what ye sow. Today, kids are told they're wonderful, even with rolls of fat at the waistline at 12, poor school attendance, no progress in any subject, and an attitude that would have gotten their asses stomped flat in school, or spanked at home, 50 years ago.

Yup. They're better off today.

Want to have some fun? Look at the faces of youngsters in the malls after they sit and relax and quit gabbling and texting. Look at the clothing worn by the fat little girls.

You see built-in sullenness and a lack of happiness in those relaxed faces. You see fat little girls wearing clothing that is super tight and that stops 5-6" north of their belt-lines.

The fortunate thing is that not all of them are like that. A goodly percentage retain their youthful right to wear idiotic clothing and hair styles without falling into the trap of thinking they're the sunshine of the world. If you check, I believe you'll find their parents make them hew a more definite line.

[Hammer Hands]

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in news:JdgYl.1975$u86.1654 @nwrddc01.gnilink.net:

Thanks Lew for the trip down memory lane :)

[Scritch]

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in news:JdgYl.1975$u86.1654 @nwrddc01.gnilink.net:

Wood cutting boards harbor fewer bacteria than plastic, the few studies seem to show. Also, there was less harmful bacteria around. The overuse of disinfectants and industrial farming techniques are breeding more and tougher harmful bacteria. Also, you were probably lucky.

As before, industrial meat farms create and spread more harmful bugs than when the operations wer smaller, and more frequently inspected. That being said, you still can eat steak tartare if you wish, and you probably won't get sick, assuming you get your meat from a reputuable source (not Armour). Also, you were probably lucky.

Also, you were probably lucky, but your sandwiches dried out. Mine still do if I use wax paper.

If you could get to a lake. I grew up in San Jose, and San Francisco Bay, the only "lake" you could swim in (reservoirs were off-limits) was difficult to get to and freezing cold all year. And what about things like smog so bad you couldn't see five blocks? And how about the "down- winders" from A-bomb tests who are suffering now from thyroid cancer and other radiation-induced ailments? And how about mesothelioma from asbestos?

What about the First Amendment?

Yeah, I had the whooping cough and almost died becuase they didn't have antiviral medicines then. I guess I wasn't tough.

They still couldn't give you anything except a Bandaid.

Instead you were ignored by the teacher if you were a girl.

Can't argue with you there. We played war and threw rocks at each other until someone got hurt.

You could have. Like my cousin.

Lucky you didn't get tetanus, because there was no vaccine.

Also, you were lucky.

I bet you would trade the beatings.

[Larry Blanchard]

Remember when "go play in the street" wasn't a sick joke?

[Lew Hodgett]

I grew up in the country, what's a "street"?

Lew

[Mike O.]

Around here we had family operated sand pits where everyone went to swim. About 25 years ago insurance rates took care of that.

Don't forget senior vs freshman dodge ball. Way more fun as a senior!

Been there...more than once.

Mike O.

[Larry Blanchard]

A flat stretch of dirt between two cornfields :-).

[Lew Hodgett]

Touche.

Lew

[charlieb]

I grew up in what was formerly the Panama Canal Zone so I must ask "What's a cornfield?" "Street" I'm familiar with, paved either with asphalt or concrete. Flat paths cut through the jungle were called trails while those that also had a layer of gravel were referred to as roads, though they quickly disappeared if the bush wasn't kept at bay.

On any given Saturday or Sunday, when not paddling a mahogany dugout cayuco (similar to but much heavier than a canoe or kayak) in a lake or up a river running into the lake, or at a swimming hole in the jungle, or lounging on a beach, or fishing off a causeway or dock, we'd grab a face mask, flippers and a glove and go catch lobster - the longostina type - without those nasty claws.

Oh - and we'd run behind the DDT truck that came through the neighborhood once a week and we ate rose apples and star apples and star plums right off the tree we'd be sitting in - without so much as a rinsing. Monkey meat? Ate it. Boa? Ate it. Cat meat? I think I probably did - you never asked what kind of meat was on the Meat On A Stick you could get on every other corner in Panama City - cooked on half an oil drum barbecue. And shoes? Well you only wore them when a parent insisted.

Played pick up football games - tackle with no pads, mouth piece or helmet - hell no shoes either (though "sensitive plants" that had stickers on our "field" were a minor problem.

If you could get your money on the bar or counter, even if you had to throw it up there, and you could drink - beer or rum, usually with coke, or if a twist was added, a Cuba Libre. Sure, out of about 800 high school kids, one or two, always guys, would get wracked up or killed - typically involving a motorcycle and alcohol. Turns out hitting a cow at 70+ mph, at night, isn't good for your health.

Turns out that falling through 25 to 30 feet of tree, before hitting the ground usually wasn't fatal, or even involve broken bones, just cuts and abrassions/

Fortunately, skiing was on water. Fall and you stop - rather suddenly - no sliding down a mountain, head first - with two long pieces of wood attached to your feet. And while you CAN drown in a water skiing tumble, you didn't have to worry about freezing or being buried in an avalanche.

[Stuart]

We did *real* chemistry at school and poured acid out of bottles, put stuff in test tubes which we heated over a bunsen burner with a proper flame. While the teacher was talking we chased little balls of mercury all over the bench with our fingers.

The kids just sit at desks these days, wear goggles and gloves, if they're lucky the teacher performs an experiment behind a safety glass screen and they watch.

We did stuff with chisels and saws in woodwork; drilled holes, turned stuff on a lathe and brazed and forged in metalwork. These days kids are lucky if they get given a pair of blunt scissors to do something.

P.E? In the winter was football with *proper boots*, not the funny trainer like things they wear now, a real leather ball and no shin-pads - sometimes we played Rugby. If it was raining it was "cross-country running" around the lanes and across the field near the school.

Summer was cricket, again with a proper ball, no helmets. Gloves were only worn by the wicket keeper and pads by the batsman. Sometimes we got in the gym if the girls were out playing netball or hockey. If it was raining.....

[Stuart]

There was in the 50s when I was at school (or at least a jab for it)

I would guess it was around 1955/56, I was around 8 or 9. They were building an extension on the school and of course we weren't supposed to go anywhere near. It was winter and it was raining so I was sent to school wearing my wellingtons (rubber boots) and the builders weren't around that day. It was breaktime and a few of us lads were round the building site. I stepped on a plank which had a nail sticking out of it and it went straight through the boot sole and into my foot. I sat for the rest of the day in school in agony because I didn't dare admit to a teacher that we'd been anywhere near the new building.

Anyway when I got home I had to tell my parents and they took me down the hospital because by then it was looking really nasty.

I had an anti-tetanus jab and penicillin injections for the next six days, in my backside. Most seem to be given by a middle-aged nursing sister who seemed to enjoy sticking the needle in my bum with some relish!

I not sure which hurt most, the injections or the nail going into my foot!

[Stuart]

These days everyone uses anti-bac wipes, soaps and lotions and we're so clean that we develop all sorts of auto-immune diseases and allergies because our immune systems aren't kept properly occupied. When something does come along our immune systems are too weak to fight it.

[CW]

The medical community agrees with you. They are saying that average life expectancy is likely to drop due to obesity and weak immune systems.