A friend sent me this and I loved it!
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE
1930′s 1940′s, 50′s, 60′s and early 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, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
Then after that trauma, our baby cots 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 we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
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 or Subway…
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 Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs 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 old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY ,
no video/DVD films,
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…
We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays,
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!
RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT
Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes 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 didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like ‘Kiora’ and ‘Blade’ and ‘Ridge’ and ‘Vanilla’
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.
P.S. The big type is because your eyes are not too good at your age anymore…
June 7th, 2009 at 5:55 am
OMG, I almost died laughing!!!
So true!
I’m not quite there in age yet but was born in the USSR, which is a bit like being born in 1952.
Thanks for sharing!
June 10th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
…Kat yr comment was just as funny!
June 25th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Thanks Bruce, I remember.
I was born in Canada in 1965 and remember how riding my uncle’s convertible, sitting on the top of the back rest of the back seat was such a treat. So were the rides standing in the beds of pick-up trucks.
I tried to give my kids a taste of the freedom of being outside with friends and succeded not too badly, considering.
I think that the moto ‘it’s more important to participate than it is to win’ is turning today’s generation into loosers. You have to work hard and want it bad to win. It’s the only way you will make the extra effort winning requires. Tiger woods still drives hundreds of balls everyday. Even with talent, you need the extra effort.
Thanks so much for sharing that. I had a lot of fun reading it. Speaking of efforts, maybe I should go back to writing that novel now. Internet will still be there at the end of the day.
Have a wonderful FREEDOM day
Martyne
August 13th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Thanx, Bruce! I was born in 1955 in the USA – Michigan of all places. I remember very well one summer when the city was installing new sewer lines on my street. We lived very close to the bottom of the hill and guess where all the water went. Do you know all the children on the street had a huge built-in pool all summer long?! We enjoyed it. No one got hurt, no one died and our parents were so glad we didn’t beg for a pool.
September 15th, 2009 at 12:18 am
thank you from 1962. It is good to be real now and again.
September 29th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Weren’t you that naughty kid two houses from the corner? Lol, I really enjoyed reading this and as I read it, my childhood years played off in front of me like a video, putting me in such a great positive state of mind. Maybe we should always remain kids in our minds in order to stay young and even achieving our goals and aspirations from childhood years. As they say, “today is tomorrow’s good old days” – Thanks Bruce
Fellow South African, born in 1972
October 24th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Oh this was such an awesome read with so much truth and a wonderful laugh. Reminded me to think back to how it felt to be “free”… Thanks Bruce, from born in 1973
January 6th, 2010 at 11:44 am
Hey, what a wonderful read. So accurate. Thank you.
Lauren.
August 5th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Wonderful read. Gosh. Yes. And we remained as thin as sticks because of all the high jumping and tree climbing that we did. And if u hurt your leg, dad used hot water to massage it and u would rather have died than adimitted u fell off a tree. That is in Africa and I did not know it was the same for all u guys out there!!!!