was this the good old days

[peat]

I got this today in my email. Thought it was worth sharing. Don't know who the author is, but they sure deserve credit for these observations.


THOSE WERE THE GOOD OLE DAYS
What Was My Mother Thinking?


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 icepack 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.

Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson [and provided comic relief] by running in
the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we
be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem and staying in detention after
school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.

I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have
known what either was anyway) but they did give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if
we started getting the sniffles.

What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

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.

I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers could have
befallen us as we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some guy's vacant lot, built
forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger.
What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot? He should have been locked up
for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.

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 10-day dose of a
$49 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 (physical abuse)
here too .. and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway
while playing with Tonka trucks (Remember why Tonka trucks were made tough ... it wasn't so that they could
take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.

Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination
a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they
put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.

Summers were spent behind the push lawn mower and I didn't even know that mowers came with motors until
I was 13 and we got one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive.

How sick were my parents? Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next
door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she
could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a
neighborhood run amuck.

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 survive?


Wonder why the dramatic change in our society in such a few short years? Wonder who profits
from these new "regulations"?

[Guest]

aye we lived in cardboard box, in cess pit in middle oh road, and ate stones for breakfast.....IF WE WERE LUCKY>

[Guest]

I had a history teacher ("MAD" Major Mears) used to stand behind the door, waiting for late arrivals with a bloody great hard back book in his hands and when the unfortunates apeared ,he wacked them over the head WACK! he should have been in an assylum. can you imagine in todays climate he'd be arrested.

[nog]

We had a swimming master that was odd. Took too much inerest in people getting dried. One day there was a police car in the car park and we never saw him again,,, oddly hes not on Friends Renuited.

[Mr Potato Head]

Ah yes, I remember the good old days, when physical and emotional abuse went unpunished, and the abused called 'sissies' for not standing up to it.

Let us not forget also that the same generation that used to play outdoors are responsible for the car culture that has resulted in the paving over of the countryside, and highly increased volumes of traffic on the road, fail to provide places for young people to go to, and then complain that the kids are fat and won't leave the house!

As I remember (from my parents recollections) there were plenty of 14 year olds getting abortions - it's just that they were going to a 'friend' of their mothers or a backstreet coathanger wielder.

I'm all for natural selection, but is it really fair for us all to risk food poisoning / anaphylactic shock / permanent disabilites for comic relief?...

Of course, I'm no fan of the nanny state, but if the 'public' showed a bit more common sense, and social responsibility we wouldn't need regulations?...

(I'm a volunteer paramedic support, and some of the things i've seen... people can be really stupid!)

*NB, this post does not necessarily reflect the views of Mr Potato Head, but he's feeling a bit pedantic... )

[lizzie]

I agree that there is no common sense to be found (apart from on here of course.)

At the time of writing there is a prat aged about 30 riding up and down the street on one of those small motorbike things. He is also giving his 18 month old twins rides, leaving one unsupervised while he takes the other. Nobody has on a crash helmet, lights, mot, tax,insurance etc. He's nearly knocked my son over in the past. Of course, if the child comes off or his fathers injured/killed it will be someone elses fault. Not his.

Teenagers seem incapable of doing anything unless they're given instructions. They don't know how to fill in application forms, or how to make a simple fresh meal out of fresh ingredients.

Many children don't know where milk comes from or a spud, carrot etc.

Everything is ALWAYS someone elses fault, never theirs. They fell over a paving stone, well maybe next time they'll look where they are going instead of talking into a mobile phone!!

I have thought for a while that i'm becoming "intolerant". Maybe I am, but I can't stand it when people do not take responsibilty for their own actions. If you've stuffed up, so what. It seems that admitting to it makes you too individual for people to deal with. It means that you're dangerous. It means, you have intelligence, a mind of your own and the elequence to put it into words.

Sorry for rant, feeling pedantic too.

[The Grock in the Frock]

take one of ye appy pills darling ,that will make ye feel better,there,there,honey........u o.k liz? i'll ring u later!

[lizzie]

I'm fine. It's like competative sports are not allowed in schools in case the loser gets upset. That's why we don't have any half decent sports people in this country. The kids are spoonfed this happy clappy stuff in school, then they leave and reality sets in.

It's a competative world, it's not always fair but lots of kids don't have the tools to be enable them to get on with it. They think everything is handed out on a plate and they don't have to work for it. They're not taught budgeting skills so you get 18 year olds owing thousands of pounds. They're not taught cookery from nursery onwards so don't know how to eat healthily.

Worst of all, they're not taught to be themselves, be individuals with their own thoughts, feelings and ambitions. I just think that the world would be a better place if people stopped making stupid excuses, took responsability and ownership of their actions and saw life for what it is. A time limited adventure with wonders to behold.

PS. Will have to stop sniffing the sprout wine!!!!

[Johnboy]

WOOOOOOOooooooow Lizzie!!

[The Grock in the Frock]

u sure ur o.k chicken,this is not like u,i have e mailed u earlier.worried grock

[pigletwillie]

I am right with you on that one lizzie, My personal politics are slightly to the right of Attila The Hun, and I agree with Lizzie wholeheartedly.

This whole sorry episode in our nations existence started with the creation of the welfare state. I must point out that I firmly believe there should be a safety net for the vunerable, the ill and the old (especially decent pensions) but since its conception you can go from cradle to grave without ever being responsible for yourself or your actions.

My neighbour has his own business and owns two properties which is great for him, and now because he has three children, the government gives them over £100 a week in child tax credits, whilst their father struggles on a basic pension. I think President Blair has his priorites wrong, but then he probably reads the Guardian and wrings his hands all morning because like Lizzie says, not every child is born equal, either in social standing or indeed ability like he wishes they were.

I think I need to lie down now

[lizzie]

Has anyone ever found that if you do admit to making a mistake, and then take ownership of that mistake, the other person hasn't got a clue how to handle you. They are not used to the situation.

As for today. Well, i'm 37 and wouldn't dare answer my Mum back or my elder brothers. I give someone a hand if they need it and try to make someone laugh every day. There is too much selfishness in the world. Things are geared the wrong way.

If you can find a song called Yours truly, Confused, N10 by Ray Davis, it's well worth a listen. Just about sums it up.

[pigletwillie]

You`re crack on with those ideals Lizzie, selfishness and greed are amongst the worse things in our society at the moment.

[valmarg]

Pigletwillie stated he was to the right (I think) of Attila the Hun.

Either way, it doesn't matter. I was always considered to be to the 'right of Enoch Powell'.

When one thinks back to the vilification he received for his 'rivers of blood' speech, and what happened in London on 7th July 2005, one cannot help but think that he had a greater foresight than those who branded him a racist.

Yours very, very sadly

valmarg

[Guest]

just for the record and being a bit padantic.
Padantic;- Adjective, Overly concerned with formal rules & trivial points of learning. Being showy of ones knowledge often in a boring manner. Often used to describe a person who empasizes their knowledge through over use of vocabulary. Being finicky or picky with language.... thats me be Padantic.