Cool Born Before 1980 Joke
 

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

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 would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

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. And we were O.K.

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 did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, 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 YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

Amazing - and to think we all lived :)
Not to mention the fact that we didnt have honor students, graduation ceremonies for elementary school and if you wanted a car when you turned 16 - you went out and got a job to pay for it - then you got it - and most amazing of all - we did all of our own homework and projects in school!!! Its amazing what I hear from kids these days where the parents do their homework for them so that they can be on the honor roll in trade for the kids doing chores in the house??????What a bunch of pussies parents are these days

Oh Yeah - forgot - if we had to walk to the bus stop - we didnt have a car to sit in while waiting for the bus - if we even took a bus

I'm glad I'm only 25 :D

My brothers and I used to stand at the bus stop with our 35 cents and hitchhike to the boardwalk/beach. If we got a ride, we could buy a drink with our money. Else we took the bus.

God I miss those days!

/Thomas

|thumb It was a great time to be growing up!! Watching my daughter raise my grandson now, geez....what a difference! I'll never forget tin can alley and hiding deep in the woods after dark! Would I want my grandson to go in the woods after dark?? Doesn't matter there are no woods for him here... |angry|

Don't forget there was respect for the elderly, TV's didn't have remotes, am/fm radio was not that bad, corduroy was kind of cool, motown had soul, rock had roll, saturday morning cartoons were worth watching, first kisses were big deals, station wagons were ALL the rage, and soda pop was a treat.

Shoot - saturday morning was cartoons at the movie house - till the afternoon - all for 6 pepsi bottles (empties) - no such thing as cartoons on TV then - and FM radio was just starting to get off the ground when I was a teen - didnt even have a TV till I was 16 - I bought it with my savings from working since I was 12.

Of course the best part was the great candy you could get at the store - yeah you could even walk there with your friends when you were 10 - and then Saturday afternoons hop on our bicycles and head to downtown Wash DC to hang out around the Smithsonian and get lost in the halls - and we lived up in Chevy Chase so it was a good 15 mile ride on DC streets - and park our bikes outside and loe and behold they'd still be there we we came out 7 hours later with no lock.

I think we are all "at fault" for not bringing up our kids better and making sure their kids weren't put into this mess - but then I guess Dr Spock had the effect he wanted :(

Extremely entertaining...and so very true!
It's really quite sad that "we" have let things get like this.
:(

Let's hope that some of our children can correct the huge mistakes made by their parents.

Ramster...that was brilliant and thank you! |bananna|

I remember a man showing up at our front door when I was young. He had my little brother gripped in one hand and my little brother's bicycle gripped in the other. He informed my father that said litle brother had ridden his bicycle out in front of his car. My father thanked the man, shook his hand...and what he did to my little brother doesn't bear thinking about. I think about that often with parents today.

Lest anyone think we are all pining for the "good old days," I'm going to tell a story with a touch of sadness. My mother said when I turned 14 I would be old enough to babysit. We lived in an apartment at that time, as my father was doing his first tour in Viet Nam. I was sitting on the back stoop talking to a woman and watching her kids play. She asked me if I knew anyone that babysat. I eagerly said "I do!" and told her that my mother had said I could at 14. She looked at my so sadly and said "you'd better ask your mother if you can baby sit for me." Well, of course I had to ask my mother. (I had to ask my mother for permission before I did anything whatsoever.) I didn't quite understand her sad expression, though. So...I asked my mother. She took a deep breath and said "is that the lady that's married to the colored man?" I nodded. My mother took another deep breath. (Yes, I was totally clueless about the sad face and the deep breathing. Word hadn't quite reached my young brain on the state of the world.) She asked "do you want to baby sit for them?" I couldn't say yes fast enough. My first baby sitting gig was for two wonderful children with skin a different color than mine. I didn't realize that was a big deal for a long time.

So much of my childhood was infinitely better than things are today. However, I don't want anyone to ever forget there was a time when a very, very nice woman (my mother) knew of no other way to refer to a loving husband and father than "the colored man."

I like the stories you guys tell. Very cool memories.

How the times have changed. :(

Actually my cousin almost lost his eye and spent 2 weeks in the hospital when his brother poked him in the eye with a stick while we were playing in a forest :)

I grew up playing street hockey and tackle football with the neighbourhood boys. There was only one other girl on the street, and she was too much of a girly girl, who wasn't allowed to do anything but shop anyway. I had a paper route at 10. Can you imagine sending a 10 year old girl to people's doors nowadays to collect $1.10 every week? We climbed apple trees till we were so high that we were scared to come down, I made Chris Gorton eat yellow snow, and regularly broke windows playing baseball in the old lady's yard down the street. When she asked us to repair and paint her fence one summer, we were all happy to oblige, and no, we didn't ask for money. I know far too much about how houses are built, because the new subdivisions going up were our playgrounds- they were awesome to play hide & seek in. Now they are gated, with security guards worried about people burning them down.

Progress...

Nice one, Ramster

The girls curfew was 10PM on the weekend. After taking our date home, us high school boys would drive 20 miles to the bootleggers to get hot beer in quarts, go to someone's pasture, open the car doors and listen to Wolfman Jack out of Del Rio, Texas. Actually, I think the tower for the powerful AM station was in Mexico. We could pick up WNOE from New Orleans during the day but not at night. Finally WRBC out of Jackson finally started playing some rock.

You always had to 'double date'. Guess the parents thought that the girls would be modest and not fuck in a group, Hell we use to fight over who got the back seat -did not have to worry about getting tangled up in the steering wheel.

On my honeymoon night, my wife had trouble having sex in the motel bed. I went and grabbed the back seat out of the car and threw it on the floor. Hell, she tricked fucked all night long.

Ramster you summed up my early childhood to a tee. I did all those things.

I miss staying up late on a Friday night to watch Johnny Carson followed by the announcement that the station had come to the end of it’s day of programming and was signing off.

I miss the milkman coming to the door to drop off your order and take your order for the next delivery.

I miss packing something to eat and piling into the car with my folks and my brother and going to the drive-in movies.

I miss the elementary school lunches tasting so damn good because they were made by moms who worked there. And all you had to do was bring a nickel for milk money.

As a teen I miss rolling a few up on the way to see Led Zeppelin, The Who & Aerosmith and flirting with all the girlies wearing faded jeans and tube tops.

And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

oh yeah I remember how I stood up at 5 or 6 am when I was at my cousin's house just to watch cartoons because I didn't have a tv at home lol

Awesome post! I remember everything on that list, and my parents never even sued or got sued by anyone :) It's truly disturbing to me that the generation of whining, sissified little shits that are being born today will be running the world I'm an old man in.

I got that list in an email a couple of years ago from a friend who found it. Very accurate for old folks our age :D