How Did We Survive?

Stewart · 09-26-2002, 02:52 PM

Just got this today from a friend of mine and thought there is quite a bit of truth to this.

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 painted with bright colored lead based paint. We often chewed on the crib, ingesting the paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.

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

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.

We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we were always outside playing.

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.

That generation produced some of the greatest risk-takers and problem solvers. We had the freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all!!!

Stopper · 09-26-2002, 03:48 PM

Simply amazing we are alive - but someone had to be the guinea pig for all the madness we have to deal with today.

It was so much simpler back then - wreck the go-cart, fall down, take a ball in the kisser, whatever - then you go crying off to mama and she sprayed Bactine all over it and you screamed again and then it was all over - back to whatever troubles you could get yourself into again, and again.

Calvin · 09-26-2002, 04:38 PM

Don't forget real glass bottles, too. I remember trying to pick up an 8-pack of Pepsi in the 16oz. glass bottles for the first time to impress my Mom. Glass went everywhere. Cut my feet a little was all. As Stopper said, pour on the Bactine and it was over.

PAPA G · 09-26-2002, 06:27 PM

yer lucky!!! mom used IODINE!!! ya know that hot pink liguid, with the glass rod applicator in the cap. stung worse than the injury!!!

Mon Bathan · 09-26-2002, 07:00 PM

Life back then was simple with less technology but it was also slow. Family values were more intact before than now. The streets and the neighborhood was more peaceful and unsaturated.

As we move along we see the downside of advancement. We now live in a fast paced and continually changing environment that some of the things we used to have done before are less approprite now.

For me, the good old days though slow was still a better place for me. Given the option, I wish my kids could have experieced the same good old things we have grown with.

Mon

Dale · 09-27-2002, 12:04 AM

I remember shooting arrows into the air and looking around to see where they land.

Merthiolate was a killer too, Papa.

My grandma used to make me cut my own switch.....out of rose bush twigs. She made me leave the thorns on (removed them without me knowing though)......ouch!

I remember being caught by ol'man Toro in his store looking at Playboy centerfolds.....heck, now you can't find them out from behind the counters.

I stuffed a potato up the tail pipe of a cop's car long before American Graffitti gave anyone ideas.

I snuck my grandad's White Owl cigars a time or two.

The worse a kid could get into when I was growing up was drinking beer underage.

I built a bomb or two out of old black pipe and black powder......ruined my dad's apple tree and blamed it on lightning (they were out of town that weekend).

I snuck out in the old shed with Judy K once and got stung by a gazillion yellow jackets....left the barn running, naked.

I got mad at my dad once and put pepper in his Prince Albert.....kicked my azz.

I carried around a condom in my wallet just to feel 'big'.

I threw a chunk of sodium in the Chem class's fish tank and blew the crap out of it.

I smoked in the restroom at school.

I drag raced my dad's Chrysler 413 and whooped some 283's and short block 305's.

I put salt in the sugar shakers at the diner when no one was looking.

And, that was just one weeks worth of fun, lol.

AH!!!!!! the old days.....but, I'm still here as is the case with most kids then.

Now, you try some of that stuff today and someone might be going to jail...dang!

Big Dog · 09-27-2002, 08:50 AM

I like to think those of us forty or older didn't just have fun, we went through "survival training" for life. Life ain't always fair, and we learned to deal with it, without crying for Govmint intervention.
I broke a toe once, I bandaged it and hobbled on in to work. I broke my collar-bone (stupid bicycle stunt!) and it was healing nicely by the time Mom dragged me to the Doctor - a week later.
Our "unsanitary practices" gave us a natural resistance to disease. We settled our differences with other kids using our fists - our pocket knives were tools, not weapons.
Being bigger than most kids gave me a bonus. Once a bully messed with me. I picked him up and dropped him over the second-floor railing at High School - into a rose bush. He never bothered me again!
If I missed the bus home, I walked home by way of the Black neighborhood. Never had a problem - we didn't have much racial tension then.
We kids knew all the neighborhood dogs, and they were our friends.
We could take our twentytwos out into the woods any time of year. Just don't kill an animal out of season and you were okay.
Ah, life was certainly simpler then.

NRAJOE · 09-27-2002, 02:18 PM

Maybe thats whats wrong with all of us?

oneastrix · 09-27-2002, 03:24 PM

Ya know, I'm only 26, and I too, remember these things.

I skipped school with my high school girlfriend. Gt back to school, and both the principal and my football coach were waiting for me. They gave me the option of letting my girl off the hook and taking her punishment for her. I said OK and they proceeded to whip my ***** right in front of her. Then the coach ran me into the ground during practice.

I was coming home late all the time, after curfew. Been out with the same girl. My mom went to the same coach and told him about it. I woke up the next morning and my jeep wouldn't start. Coach came up there in the night and took my battery out, with mom's permission of course. Gave it back to me three weeks later when I broke up with the girl. Then proceeded to run my ***** into the ground.

Things just aren't like that anymore.....

DANA · 09-27-2002, 03:52 PM

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GIRL?

DANA

oneastrix · 09-27-2002, 05:08 PM

Who knows. She sure was hot though! But not worth me having to walk to school. As I recall, she was a real jealous type....I think that made up my mind for me....

alan c. · 09-27-2002, 07:20 PM

1 * all that for a female--I don't think so.

oneastrix · 09-28-2002, 12:45 AM

Roger that Alan! D a m n she was hot though! One of those who matured like a son of a gun early in life. Usually means she got ugly in the end, as the legend goes!

FEG · 09-28-2002, 01:11 AM

I am only 30.

When we were kids...

We had REALLY dangerous toys like the Creepy-Crawly and Thing Maker. Electricity would heat those plates REALLY hot. The girls had their version: the Susie Homemaker Eazy-Bake Oven. One made REAL plastic toys, the other REAL cakes and what-not. It was TOTALLY OK that one was obviously marketed to boys and the other to girls...

If we got in trouble in another neighborhood, a mother there would call OUR mothers. (Since everyone went to church, you actually had connections with other neighborhoods.) No one called the cops, and no one would think to cop an attitude if another mother called complaining about your kids...

We never would have used foul language in front of a girl, becuase our mothers would have found out and beat the snot out of us...

We didn't collect things; we USED them. Hot Wheels were for racing. Baseball cards were for putting in your spokes or trading back and forth to figure out Mike Schmidt's lifetime and current average (no ESPN). Comic books got handled by everyone in the neighborhood, because you might only have the money to BUY the X-Men, but you still wanted to READ Spider-Man, etc...

We took candy from strangers and didn't always wash our hands, but NO ONE got sick...

Even relatively nerdy guys like me (glasses, contacts came much later. Try 16 in high school) played tackle football with no supervision or protective equipment...

We thought "soccer" was the follw-up to Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots...

oneastrix · 09-28-2002, 01:18 AM

Tackle football in the street, mind you. No law suits were filed for a skinned knee!

Remember the, "No Blood No Foul" rule?

NRAJOE · 09-28-2002, 06:47 AM

Any one remember the "Screaming Mee Mee" rifle? It was a big well made toy rifle that shot a big red plastic projectile up in the air and it would emit a "screaming" noise from the air passing through vents in the projectile. The projectile would go a good 75 feet into the air. Myself and a friend had these and would shoot each other in the head with them when the other least expected it. I can't tell you how many times that thing got taken away from me. Everything was fair game, the neighbors cat, dog,pesky kids I didn't like,etc. My dad somehow "accidentally" ran over it with the car and never got me another one!

oneastrix · 09-28-2002, 10:38 PM

Anybody remember that stuff we called, "monkey blood?" I think it's what was earlier posted as iodine. My Dad used to use that on me. Glass vile, cotton at the tip of it.....

NRAJOE · 09-29-2002, 12:14 AM

Oh yeah, had ALOT of stuff like that applied when I had my mini- bikes. I was always trying some Evel Knieval crap with those things!

09-26-2002, 02:52 PM	#1
Stewart Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Calhoun, Georgia Posts: 675	How Did We Survive? Just got this today from a friend of mine and thought there is quite a bit of truth to this. 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 painted with bright colored lead based paint. We often chewed on the crib, ingesting the paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. 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. We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we were always outside playing. 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. That generation produced some of the greatest risk-takers and problem solvers. We had the freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all!!! __________________ "You can sleep well at night because rough men are willing to commit violent acts on your behalf" George Orwell

09-26-2002, 03:48 PM	#2
Stopper Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Kansass Posts: 2,212 Images: 1	Simply amazing we are alive - but someone had to be the guinea pig for all the madness we have to deal with today. It was so much simpler back then - wreck the go-cart, fall down, take a ball in the kisser, whatever - then you go crying off to mama and she sprayed Bactine all over it and you screamed again and then it was all over - back to whatever troubles you could get yourself into again, and again. __________________ They should have stopped at "Congress shall make no law"

09-26-2002, 04:38 PM	#3
Calvin Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Columbus, Ohio Posts: 2,038	Don't forget real glass bottles, too. I remember trying to pick up an 8-pack of Pepsi in the 16oz. glass bottles for the first time to impress my Mom. Glass went everywhere. Cut my feet a little was all. As Stopper said, pour on the Bactine and it was over. __________________ If you don't like cops, call your local crackhead for help next time!

09-26-2002, 06:27 PM	#4
PAPA G Guest Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: somerset, kentucky Posts: 11	BACTINE ???? yer lucky!!! mom used IODINE!!! ya know that hot pink liguid, with the glass rod applicator in the cap. stung worse than the injury!!!

09-27-2002, 12:04 AM	#6
Dale Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Too Dang Hot, Arizona Posts: 4,284	I remember shooting arrows into the air and looking around to see where they land. Merthiolate was a killer too, Papa. My grandma used to make me cut my own switch.....out of rose bush twigs. She made me leave the thorns on (removed them without me knowing though)......ouch! I remember being caught by ol'man Toro in his store looking at Playboy centerfolds.....heck, now you can't find them out from behind the counters. I stuffed a potato up the tail pipe of a cop's car long before American Graffitti gave anyone ideas. I snuck my grandad's White Owl cigars a time or two. The worse a kid could get into when I was growing up was drinking beer underage. I built a bomb or two out of old black pipe and black powder......ruined my dad's apple tree and blamed it on lightning (they were out of town that weekend). I snuck out in the old shed with Judy K once and got stung by a gazillion yellow jackets....left the barn running, naked. I got mad at my dad once and put pepper in his Prince Albert.....kicked my azz. I carried around a condom in my wallet just to feel 'big'. I threw a chunk of sodium in the Chem class's fish tank and blew the crap out of it. I smoked in the restroom at school. I drag raced my dad's Chrysler 413 and whooped some 283's and short block 305's. I put salt in the sugar shakers at the diner when no one was looking. And, that was just one weeks worth of fun, lol. AH!!!!!! the old days.....but, I'm still here as is the case with most kids then. Now, you try some of that stuff today and someone might be going to jail...dang! __________________ "It confuses me how some people can vigorously go against the 2nd. Amendment and still call themselves patriotic"-me Last edited by Dale; 09-27-2002 at 12:09 AM.

09-26-2002, 07:00 PM	#5
Mon Bathan Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Philippines Posts: 255	Life back then was simple with less technology but it was also slow. Family values were more intact before than now. The streets and the neighborhood was more peaceful and unsaturated. As we move along we see the downside of advancement. We now live in a fast paced and continually changing environment that some of the things we used to have done before are less approprite now. For me, the good old days though slow was still a better place for me. Given the option, I wish my kids could have experieced the same good old things we have grown with. Mon

09-27-2002, 08:50 AM	#7
Big Dog Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Tallahassee, Florida Posts: 10,412	I like to think those of us forty or older didn't just have fun, we went through "survival training" for life. Life ain't always fair, and we learned to deal with it, without crying for Govmint intervention. I broke a toe once, I bandaged it and hobbled on in to work. I broke my collar-bone (stupid bicycle stunt!) and it was healing nicely by the time Mom dragged me to the Doctor - a week later. Our "unsanitary practices" gave us a natural resistance to disease. We settled our differences with other kids using our fists - our pocket knives were tools, not weapons. Being bigger than most kids gave me a bonus. Once a bully messed with me. I picked him up and dropped him over the second-floor railing at High School - into a rose bush. He never bothered me again! If I missed the bus home, I walked home by way of the Black neighborhood. Never had a problem - we didn't have much racial tension then. We kids knew all the neighborhood dogs, and they were our friends. We could take our twentytwos out into the woods any time of year. Just don't kill an animal out of season and you were okay. Ah, life was certainly simpler then. __________________ Moderator of: AR15/M16, M14/M1A, New/Beginning Shooters and Militaria/Collectables.

09-27-2002, 02:18 PM	#8
NRAJOE Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Toledo,OH Posts: 19,252 Images: 3	Maybe thats whats wrong with all of us? __________________ U.S. Army 1976-1979 237th Combat Engineers Heilbronn, Germany

09-27-2002, 03:24 PM	#9
oneastrix Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 5,213	Ya know, I'm only 26, and I too, remember these things. I skipped school with my high school girlfriend. Gt back to school, and both the principal and my football coach were waiting for me. They gave me the option of letting my girl off the hook and taking her punishment for her. I said OK and they proceeded to whip my *** right in front of her. Then the coach ran me into the ground during practice. I was coming home late all the time, after curfew. Been out with the same girl. My mom went to the same coach and told him about it. I woke up the next morning and my jeep wouldn't start. Coach came up there in the night and took my battery out, with mom's permission of course. Gave it back to me three weeks later when I broke up with the girl. Then proceeded to run my *** into the ground. Things just aren't like that anymore..... __________________ There's no one more thankful to sit at the table, than the one who best remembers hunger's pain.

09-27-2002, 03:52 PM	#10
DANA Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: WAITSFIELD VERMONT Posts: 1,604	WHERE OH WHERE CAN YOU BE? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GIRL? DANA

09-27-2002, 05:08 PM	#11
oneastrix Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 5,213	Who knows. She sure was hot though! But not worth me having to walk to school. As I recall, she was a real jealous type....I think that made up my mind for me.... __________________ There's no one more thankful to sit at the table, than the one who best remembers hunger's pain.

09-27-2002, 07:20 PM	#12
alan c. Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Pasadena,Tejas - also known as Texas Posts: 3,769 Images: 15 Blog Entries: 3	1 * all that for a female--I don't think so. __________________ God Bless. From Tejas -- formerly known as Texas.

09-28-2002, 12:45 AM	#13
oneastrix Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 5,213	Roger that Alan! D a m n she was hot though! One of those who matured like a son of a gun early in life. Usually means she got ugly in the end, as the legend goes! __________________ There's no one more thankful to sit at the table, than the one who best remembers hunger's pain.

09-28-2002, 01:11 AM	#14
FEG Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Behind the Iron Curtain Posts: 517	I am only 30. When we were kids... We had REALLY dangerous toys like the Creepy-Crawly and Thing Maker. Electricity would heat those plates REALLY hot. The girls had their version: the Susie Homemaker Eazy-Bake Oven. One made REAL plastic toys, the other REAL cakes and what-not. It was TOTALLY OK that one was obviously marketed to boys and the other to girls... If we got in trouble in another neighborhood, a mother there would call OUR mothers. (Since everyone went to church, you actually had connections with other neighborhoods.) No one called the cops, and no one would think to cop an attitude if another mother called complaining about your kids... We never would have used foul language in front of a girl, becuase our mothers would have found out and beat the snot out of us... We didn't collect things; we USED them. Hot Wheels were for racing. Baseball cards were for putting in your spokes or trading back and forth to figure out Mike Schmidt's lifetime and current average (no ESPN). Comic books got handled by everyone in the neighborhood, because you might only have the money to BUY the X-Men, but you still wanted to READ Spider-Man, etc... We took candy from strangers and didn't always wash our hands, but NO ONE got sick... Even relatively nerdy guys like me (glasses, contacts came much later. Try 16 in high school) played tackle football with no supervision or protective equipment... We thought "soccer" was the follw-up to Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots... __________________ WARNING: CZs MAY BE HABIT-FORMING (Consult a doctor if nursing or pregnant).

09-28-2002, 01:18 AM	#15
oneastrix Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 5,213	Tackle football in the street, mind you. No law suits were filed for a skinned knee! Remember the, "No Blood No Foul" rule? __________________ There's no one more thankful to sit at the table, than the one who best remembers hunger's pain.

09-28-2002, 06:47 AM	#16
NRAJOE Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Toledo,OH Posts: 19,252 Images: 3	Any one remember the "Screaming Mee Mee" rifle? It was a big well made toy rifle that shot a big red plastic projectile up in the air and it would emit a "screaming" noise from the air passing through vents in the projectile. The projectile would go a good 75 feet into the air. Myself and a friend had these and would shoot each other in the head with them when the other least expected it. I can't tell you how many times that thing got taken away from me. Everything was fair game, the neighbors cat, dog,pesky kids I didn't like,etc. My dad somehow "accidentally" ran over it with the car and never got me another one! __________________ U.S. Army 1976-1979 237th Combat Engineers Heilbronn, Germany

09-28-2002, 10:38 PM	#17
oneastrix Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 5,213	Anybody remember that stuff we called, "monkey blood?" I think it's what was earlier posted as iodine. My Dad used to use that on me. Glass vile, cotton at the tip of it..... __________________ There's no one more thankful to sit at the table, than the one who best remembers hunger's pain.

09-29-2002, 12:14 AM	#18
NRAJOE Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Toledo,OH Posts: 19,252 Images: 3	Oh yeah, had ALOT of stuff like that applied when I had my mini- bikes. I was always trying some Evel Knieval crap with those things! __________________ U.S. Army 1976-1979 237th Combat Engineers Heilbronn, Germany