Monday, October 27, 2008

Memories a bit of Fun

This was originally posted on Tania's blog, and I thought so much of this was so true. This is originally from Australia, in case you were wondering.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1920's, 30'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 and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

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 or shoes, not to mention, the risks some of us took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a Ute on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Rooster. Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Fruit Tingles and some fire crackers to blow up frogs and lizards with.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks 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.

We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD movies, no surround sound, no mobile 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. Only girls had pierced ears! We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time.......no really!

We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays, We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956.

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

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

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

Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bully's always ruled the playground at school. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Our parents got married before they had children and didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade'.....

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 70 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?! PS -

The big type is because your eyes are shot at your age

28 comments:

Merle said...

Dear Gill ~~ Lovely to meet you and I have read some of your posts. The current one (in large print) is very good. It was in our local paper last week and I have read it before, and lived through most of it. I am so glad you enjoy my jokes etc. I don't like smutty ones myself. Thank you for your kind words. Take care, Love, Merle,

Rinkly Rimes said...

I've read it before but it's definitely worth a second reading! Thanks.

Lindsay said...

My childhood was just like that. Wonderful. I roamed around in a group of about 8 children, we rollar skated down steep hills, ran our bikes at bushes and jumped off before they crashed. I got stuck in a sewer pipe on a building site (not in use!!!). We fell out of trees. Mum gave us sugar sandwiches for tea!!!

Lavender and Vanilla Friends of the Gardens said...

Yes, that was so more or less how it was. It was not perfect but it was a childhood.

Chris said...

Oh dear I remember most of this!! LOL Does that mean I am old!

Chris

stitchersanon said...

We even ran with scissors and sharp pencils and were never blinded hehe

Gaynor

Jan said...

Love, love , love this post! Yes, I survived that kind of a childhood.

Diane at Crafty Passions said...

Yup I grew up in the 50's I remember all that stuff its all true too.Good old days and were still alive to tell the tale!
Diane

Angelena said...

I loved this post. It is so true!! It describes my childhood perfectly.

Anonymous said...

I was born in 47 so I remember all those things too and survived. Life was different then and I miss a lot of the things that we had. Today's life seems to be so fast and furious for lack of a better way to express it. The kids seem to be pushed into growing up way too fast. But that's just my opinion,others may disagree.

Naturegirl said...

Those were the days! A 40's baby!

QuiltedSimple said...

Too funny - reminds me of the country song by Bucky Covington - I love that song. And I think I'm fine (that may be open to debate but not on my end!)
Kris

Elizabeth said...

I have seen various renditions of this and it never fails to make me smile.
I walked three miles to school - uphill both ways!

Lib said...

Hi,
Great post!
Hope you have agreat wk.
Blessins',Lib

Patty said...

Thank you for the large type, makes it a lot easier for me to read. I am running at the moment or rather a fast walk, through the house, holding my sharpest scissors, the wrong way, with a straw hanging from my mouth after having a glass of contaminated milk. Now that's am accident waiting to happen. Yes, it's a wonder so many of us survived. LOL Great post.

Anonymous said...

Oh thank you for the laugh!!

L. said...

Ahhhhhh....those were the days! Thanks for the memories and the smiles...
xoxo

Cathy said...

Amen... How did we ever survive? Thanks for watching my videos and sure pass them around. We played them the other day and I laughed so hard. I was in tears.

Sandi McBride said...

Gill, my son sent this to me some months ago...he was born in the 70's. His daughter is not allowed to watch more than one hour of tv a day (except on Saturday when she and her dad crash on the floor with pillows and watch the old Superman show on DVD or the old Spiderman cartoons...they take life easy and her imagination is charged by reading...They take in a movie on Sunday afternoon as a family and she gets to invite one friend. Her ideas are listened to and they encourage her dreams. She's going to be one of us if it kills them! Yes, our generations are the best generations. Thanks for taking the time to remind us!
Sandi

nikkicrumpet said...

I LOVE THIS POST!!! It is so true...how on earth did we all survive..sane and in one piece! IMAGINE!

2sweetnsaxy said...

I've seen this before. I think it's great. My how things have changed and they wonder what's wrong with kids today. They should have been raised like us.
:-D

Unknown said...

Amen!! and thanks for the big type.
My kids love drinking out of the garden hose.

Rudee said...

Love the big type. Thanks. Brought back memories of playing kick the can-though I'll be darned if I can recall the rules. I was trying the other day to remember jump rope rhymes. For the life of me, I can't. Maybe I should just google that.

Tea Time With Melody said...

This is a great post. I've read it before but it never gets old. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, my poor child, Blade will be scarred for life by this post. You will be hearing from my lawyer!

LOL

Frances
http://fairegarden.wordpress.com/

cheshire wife said...

A good read and very true!

Rosa said...

teehe. I used to lick the wallpaper outside my crib and then bite it off (lead poisoning?), my brothers threw me in the floor of the back seat and broke my leg, I fell out of the car while pulling out of a parking lot . . . and this was all before I was 4! Dare I go on? It is a wonder we're still alive! ha! Loved this!!

Evelyn said...

love it! and we were healthier and saner! I think we have gone too far in the other direction with our children. I remember illegaly getting a channel from the states that had an episode of Gilligan's Island! all the kids I hung with came to watch! I was born in the 60's. evelyn

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