**TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED 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 were pregnant.

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

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs 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 infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on 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 Kool-aid made with sugar, 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 OK!
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 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or 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 t hese 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 walked in and talked to 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 u s out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have 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!

If 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 so much of our lives for our own good.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

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

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:

'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'**

Boy ain't that the truth!
I'm not going to run thru the house with scissors but..I count myself as one of the survivors of those times...and with the fondest of memories.  :D

yup...i'm one.. ...

Boy does that bring back memories. Thanks for reminding us older one's that our life was full of joy not like today is with all that is going on.

That sounds like a double-dog-dare to me! Scissors in hand, on your mark, get set.... GO!

heh heh heh...sounds like a manifesto for the Old Fogies Club...LOL.. ...

Who you calling a Old Fogie:lol:

sign me up...lol

Boy did I have fun....~sigh~ I miss those days :sad:

And I like that quote of the month

Add me to the Fogie's club!  lol

Me too, I'm an "old fogie"

Being a "Baby Boomer" I guess I'm an old fogey too. :) And you know something fantastic? I made it all the way through the years (62 years in March) without breaking any bones (except a finger about 20 years ago when trying to squash a spider). No major surgeries and only one problem (heart spasms) serious enough for hospitalization. Is that a record?

Me too!! and I'm smoking for 43 years and am still here!

Whoooohoooo ! I made the cut ! barely but I'm one of them too :)

I'd take my homemade butterfly net, a large empty pickle jar and head to the creek for a Saturday afternoon of exploring and capturing. Not once was I beat up, robbed of my possessions or lured away by a pervert. I came home hours later with an assortment of cool bugs to scare my sister with.  What a life it was then!

I used to walk to school on the other side of town... 25 minutes walk, no bus, uphill both ways (true !) even in the snow :)

I had my first car in my second year of college, my first cellphone for my first job and we only had 5 TV stations and one TV at home for the longest time.

When my kids whine about how hard things are for them, I try to be understanding and even harder to not laugh :)

I remember those days. Building my own sailing cart, together with my brother and a friend. We didn't forget the brakes, but we also didn't know how to make them work. Smashed the cart into a tree at the first try.
I remember windsurfing, long bike rides, almost falling down a chasm in France, climbing trees and falling out of them, digging a hole to serve as a "pirate cave" and having it collapse on us. Playing soccer. Never worrying about "unhealthy" foods or drinks.
Wonderful times. Far fewer things were forbidden then.

And the only times I've ever been to the hospital was to visit friends or family. Never broke a bone, never even needed a stitch. Bruises and shallow cuts by the dozen, of course but those heal by themselves.
No Nintendo. Not much TV. 
All in all, it was a better time to be young then. Maybe things were a littie bit harder back then, but they were also a lot more fun.

I'm 41 - and in many ways I'm still a kid.

I wish I was 41 again..lol
I remember dad taking us to see Hopalong Cassidy movies and Lash LaRue..The lone ranger on the radio before we got a tv.  Amos and Andy....walking the railroad tracks out to the swimmin hole by the town lake..catching fish with our hands in the creek.. and my first bicycle wreck was a doozy..but I survived and learned a few things along the way..
We walked to school too, from one side of our small town to the other..but we walked almost everywhere anyway. 
We never worried about anything but kid stuff..and I want to say thanks for bringing back all those memories..

                              :thumbupboth:

Yep add me in too, born in 1959 and 49 in March!
One of the things I remember is going about 1.5 miles from my house with my mates to a stream where we caught tadpoles and sticklebacks, there was a woods just off it and we used to play war games in there often hiding on our own from our mates in case they shot us [LOL].
We'd prolly ahve been under 10 at the time!!

Sad to see I'm guilty of over protection of my own kids [17 and 20 now] but I wouldn't have let them do what I did back then, sign of the times I guess!
Shame innit!!

Yes, I'm in - born in the mid-50s. The 1950s and 1960s were the best decades ever for kids. No question.

One thing they left out of the list: Family Intervention, meant Mom asked if she needed to get out the belt. Settled skirmishes between siblings very quickly, and cut waaay down on "back talk". ;) I sorta feel sorry for kids today, because there doesn't seem to be time to just goof off and be a kid. Still haven't decided what I want to be when I grown up, and probably never will. g

Quote - I sorta feel sorry for kids today, because there doesn't seem to be time to just goof off and be a kid.

Tell me about it. My 8 year old grandson in the 3rd grade had to make a power point presentation last week. Say what? :m_shocked:

OMG. :blink:

My grandkids don't even know how to play outside...if it doesn't hook to the tv, or have batteries, they are lost.

My kids did the same thing I did when I was a kid..I made sure they knew how to have fun without all that electronic stuff..

Of course I didn't let them climb quite as high up in the trees as I did, {I used to tree ride} made them wear old worn out sneakers in the creek {could be glass in there now}

And yea, when I was a kid, just the sound of the belt being got was enough to make me straighten up and fly right with a quickness :lol:

**Same here. My grandkids are absolutely lost when it comes to playing outside. It astounded me.  No imagination at all.

Ahhhh tree climbing. Used to have this big old mulberry tree that had branches at the top that were perfect for sitting and reading in. If I got hungry, I just filled up on mulberries. Best part, no one (meaning brother and sisters) knew where I was and I was left alone to read as much as I wanted. lol**

Ya know, whats funny, is when Grandma goes outside, they def are racing each other to go with her....and Grandma always finds something interesting to do....I had them catching grasshoppers the other day LOL {their mother does not like the outdoors since I made her play there often when she was little, so she stays in now LOL}

And Yummo @ mulberries!

How very true!

We were always outside playing "Kick the Can" pretty much every evening, regardless of the weather.

I remember one particular day it was pouring so bad that the streets were flooding. We didn't cower in the house. Me and my friends put on our raincoats and boots and went outside and played in the rain and the pools of water that were accumulating in the street. Other times we would rake up all of the leaves from our yard and those of our neighbours until we got a huge pile and then jump around in them and rake them up again and again.  It was tons of fun!

I remember being in the first grade and skipping school for three days because I loved playing in a ravine,  until I was caught by my older brother who was sent out to look for me!  I guess no parent could imagine  their child (at that age)  playing alone for three school days in a secluded ravine in todays  unsafe world?

Ahhhh Kick the Can. So many games of that. I had to explain it 3 times to my grandkids. LOL
Now mind, they're not dumb kids. Just the opposite. But they have a deplorable lack of imagination, I'm telling ya. Also taught them Stick in the Mud/Freeze Tag. It was the "unsticking" someone they had a hard time with. LOL

You are all making me think too much! Like the time I convinced my sister there were aliens living in the attic, (boy, did I get it for making her cry), or playing "chicken" on those great heavy-duty Schwinns and deliberately ramming into good old Ricky Romero, and that huge mud puddle on the corner whenever it rained!

Between this thread and the recent call for an update of the Jello Pool, I'm having visions of a jello pool surrounded by a youthful crowd of fossils kicking the can :)

I'll be the one in the corner organizing giant battles of action figures on the doorstep.

heh, born in 1967 so this brings back some fond memories for me :)
(I used to prefer the lead based paint - had a better flavour as I recall :) )

I spent my summers on my aunt  and uncles farm. Me and my cousin would go out to the woods and build a fort and play cowboys and indians LOL I was a real tom boy back then with shooting the bb guns and climbing the trees to the top. Now I am afraid of hights can you believe that LOL. I too miss the good old days. Going on 59 this month.

Happy birthday...a little early!!     :thumbupboth:

Thank you

I was born in '55 so also had one of those great childhoods of bike riding, tree climbing, swimming a lot and just roaming my neighborhood for hours on end.

I have to agree with the lack of imagination kids have these days. They get bored so easily. Most of them don't even know the joy of reading a good book under a tree on a nice summer day. Sheesh.

I did break my wrist in a bike accident but when you're a kid it's almost a badge of honor. And I've broken my little toe after a kicking a sofa bed that wouldn't close properly. LOL.

Thanks for the memories!!!

I was born in 1962 and some of my fondest memories are the result of:

1. raiding gardens!
2. playing "kick the can" for hours and hours in the evening.
3. dressing up in rainboots and raincoat and splashing around in  huge puddles during heavy rainstorms... including those with thunder and lightning!
4. playing with "Boomerangs" and "Bow and Arrows". My dad used to make them for us, including the arrows with real metal tips!
5. shooting my Dad's 30-30 Winchester and 22 calibre rifles (with his supervision) the first time when I was 4 years old.
6. playing outside for hours with homemade stilts that my dad made me.
7. water balloon fights
8. going into the woods near our house and building a fort and hiding "treasure".
9. Playing by the railway tracks for hours so that we could wave to the Engineer as the trains went by,  LOL
10. spending hours and hours outside in the winter skating, building snow sculptures and forts.
11. I shingled our garage roof by myself when I was 12 years old! It didn't even leak! hehe

We were rarely in the house, and when we had to stay in we were upset because we wanted to be outside!

Today kids are so spoiled with so much that they really do have no imagination, and even find themselves "bored" with nothing to do because they have played the same game more than once!  Oh the tragedy!

I feel blessed and extremely lucky to have been born when I was and to have grown up in an era where we actually appreciated what we had, and made due without and still had tons of fun!

I remember the train thing..walking the tracks and playing on them.  It's a wonder that we all didn't wind up a small greasy spot from getting sucked under the train.  But boy the adventures we had along those tracks and walking across those trestles that went over the river.

Anyone brave enought to admit that they stuck their tongue to cold metal in the winter and got it stuck??

raising hand
God that hurt.  :(

Quote -
Anyone brave enought to admit that they stuck their tongue to cold metal in the winter and got it stuck??

raising hand
God that hurt.  :(

Not me. Lived in the south all my younger life. No snow. Hardly any cold weather. That's why I live up North now. grin

I forgot!

When I was 12 years old my mom and dad used to let me drive the car! I was allowed to drive 2 miles through the city to the store. At first it was only when one of them or my brother was in the car with me. Then when they saw that I knew what I was doing they let me take the car by myself! 

I also remember babysitting for $1.00 per hour when I was 11 and 12 years old. These days parents are still getting babysitters for their  12 year old kids and babysitters are now paid minimum wage!

I'll never forget raiding a farmers vegetable patch with a few buddies even though we all knew the farmer living there was one mean dude. (probably why we did it) It was the last time we would because he was ready this time with buckshot. As we ran for our lives looking back I could see him aiming for me and boom...When I got home my dear mother cleaned me up and with a smack from a wooden spoon  warned me the next time my dad would find out what I was up to and I surely didn't want that!

Quote - .When I got home my dear mother cleaned me up and with a smack from a wooden spoon  warned me the next time my dad would find out what I was up to and I surely didn't want that!

We were very poor when I was growing up and  sometimes didn't have money for things like fresh vegetables. So it wasn't uncommon for my Mom to send me and my brother out to raid neighbourhood gardens for things like carrots, rhubarb, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and peas,  lol

We grew our own dad had a big garden but as they got older it went down in size.

Ah, yes... the quest for the perfect tomato! My Dad actually tried growing grape vines for a few years. Acadia reminded me of my Mom's cure for boredom: "You're bored?! I'll find something for you to do...", which usually involved cleaning. :scared:

Here too!! My grandpa used to have an old Airstream trailer that us kids would ride in alone while he was in the truck...it kept him from killing all of us while he was trying to drive. We traveled around the country in that thing. We also used to ride in the back window of my Mom's old Chevy...got really sunburned back there. No seat belts, massive amounts of Kool-Aid. Climb trees as high as the branches would hold us---splash around in and drink creek water. In Mass. they used to spray chemicals in the park for mosquitoes---we'd run through the "fog" and never thought about cancer or other side effects of the toxins. My husband said this new generation is one of the most sissified he's ever seen...Both my husband and I were born in 1958...

Each generation is a product of the one before. The younger generation feels "entitled". Parents (feeling guilt over working too much), pamper the children with electronic "babysitters" and elicit the government to help parent and keep them safe The cry, " For The Children" echos through the land. Marketing and politicians play into that theme. The young can"t help, but to feel entitled.
As for me, I have my memories. My first pocket knife (and my first girlfriend), when I was 5, found it in an abondoned building (the knife not the girl). Eating raw sugarcane on a Kentucky farm, at 6. And climbing  upto the roof on the outside of a 4 story apt. in Chicago, at 9.
 How did we survive?

Quote - climbing  upto the roof on the outside of a 4 story apt. in Chicago, at 9.
 How did we survive?

OMG! That reminded me of something! I think I was 7 years old or so. We lived in an older 3 story house. The second floor had a window that overlooked the roof at the back of the house. If you climbed out that window and shimmied up the iron  drain pipe you could get to the top roof which was very high and very steep!  Once up there you could make your way to the front of the house by standing up and hanging on really tight to the roof peak and slowly working your way around to the front. After that you had to sit with your feet in the eavestrough so you didn't slide off! One day my mom came home to find me and my brother (5 years older than me) up on the top roof dropping water balloons on people walking on the sidewalk in front of our house!

Oh man! Did we ever get into trouble!  LOL

We did all kinds of crazy things when we were kids. Looking back my mom's heart probably ended up in her throat more than once because of us! 

Ok, I've gotta know.  How the heck does one play kick the can??  I was born in '69, but we used to mostly play about 75 variations of tag as far as games with actual rules.  There was no can kicking.

**Sort of like hide and seek, only you have to kick a can and then everyone scatters. The person who is "It" retrieves the can and goes looking for others. While "It" is looking, someone can come out of hiding and kick the can again which makes "It" have to get it and place it back again before looking for others. Makes it helpful to get everone back to "Home" safely.

Least that's how I remember it. It's only been about 40 years since I played it. LOL**

Yep that be how we played it too :O)