Reef Central Online Community

Home Forum Here you can view your subscribed threads, work with private messages and edit your profile and preferences View New Posts View Today's Posts

Find other members Frequently Asked Questions Search Reefkeeping ...an online magazine for marine aquarists Support our sponsors and mention Reef Central

Go Back   Reef Central Online Community Archives > General Interest Forums > The Lounge

 
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old 11/20/2002, 12:14 PM
Q-ball Q-ball is offline
Pulling my hair out
 
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Liverpool, PA
Posts: 2,790
How did we survive???

borrowed from another board I peruse...makes ya wonder though

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 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 dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt.

We played with toy guns, cowboys and Indians, army, cops and robbers, and used our fingers to simulate guns when the toy ones or the BB gun was not available. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda, but we were never over weight; 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 or didn’t work hard 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.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), 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 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 the pledge (amazing we aren’t all brain dead from that), and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention for about the next two weeks. We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital 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 and then we got butt-whooped. Now it’s a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $149 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 whooped (physical abuse) there too... and then we got butt-whooped 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 lawnmower 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 know 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?
__________________
Chris
------
"Daddy, tomorrow when I get older & bigger, I'm goin huntin with you and shoot a big buck. Then I'm gonna cut it's legs off and throw it on the grill!" My 4yo son
  #2  
Old 11/20/2002, 12:59 PM
kaotica kaotica is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Coconut Grove, FL
Posts: 255
it's a hard knock life... for us...

thanks for the trip down memory lane
  #3  
Old 11/20/2002, 01:30 PM
c_lou c_lou is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 80
Amen!

Also, was it just me or did none of us have ADD. We were just hyper, and when we were told to settle down, we did.

No Ritilin for me.
  #4  
Old 11/20/2002, 03:06 PM
Anemone Anemone is offline
Moderator Clone
 
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Valencia, California
Posts: 9,849
Quote:
Originally posted by c_lou
Also, was it just me or did none of us have ADD. We were just hyper, and when we were told to settle down, we did.
But there was an "or else" that doesn't seem to be available now...child abuse fears and all that....

Kevin
__________________
NCAA Division 1 Championship Leaders:

UCLA: 100
Stanford: 94
Southern California: 84
Oklahoma State: 48
Arkansas: 43
LSU: 40

Go PAC 10!
  #5  
Old 11/20/2002, 03:19 PM
joedelt joedelt is offline
Cubed Reefer
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: East Lansing MI
Posts: 665
im a big believer in 'or else'

even dr spock issued an appology for his book.

  #6  
Old 11/20/2002, 03:52 PM
god_of_wolves god_of_wolves is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Milwaukee, WI.
Posts: 402
c_lou, you beat me to it, I just wanted to say:


AMEN!!!

But wait, isn't that religious in nature itself?
__________________
Your Uncle John fell in a whiskey vat. Some men tried to pull him out, but he fought them off, so he drowned. We cremated him and he burned for three days.
  #7  
Old 11/20/2002, 04:08 PM
c_lou c_lou is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 80
OOHH

The dreaded "or else".

Has anybody else here made the mistake of laughing when you got swatted? Or for those who got the belt, did you ever try to grab the belt?

I did that once....once.
  #8  
Old 11/20/2002, 04:12 PM
mst_RoadRash mst_RoadRash is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Boise Idaho
Posts: 318
Heh,

I remember when I was growing up the coolest game we had was a king of the hill variant. Between my house and our neighbors was this retaining wall made out of railroad ties. You know, the big 8x8's that are soaked in oil that spiders love to hang out in? The kind nobody in their right mind would let their kids play on today. We'd get up on top... maybe 24 inches high total and push each other around till someone fell off.

I also remember being told to actually go GET the belt I was going to be spanked with when I was 8 and told my dad to "kiss my ***" You can BET I never said that again. At least not till I got be enough to take him on.

I remember when "Don't touch" meant exactly that. "If you touch that again, I will smack you." Now don't touch means "Please don't put your hands on that... unless you really want to."

We never cried in stores, the minute a kid squaked in a movie theater mom or dad took them out, we were polite to our elders, we didn't think the TV was a necessary part of life, the dog was our coolest toy outside, the sun wasn't evil and the creepy guy accross the street was just a creepy guy.
__________________
People try to live to the highest of ideals -- Right up until they sell out.
  #9  
Old 11/20/2002, 04:17 PM
MrSandman MrSandman is offline
Reefaholic
 
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: South Bay, So. Cal.
Posts: 3,078
Scary thought...but sometimes i think today's society is raising a nation full of whimps. Parents shield and shelter their kids from too much nowadays. I really wonder what today's kids will be like 20-30 years from now. Probably a bunch of naive adults. I see/hear it every day at work. "No, we can't sell that doll of Daffy Duck being hit on his head with a mallet because kids will see that, grab a mallet from their dad's toolbox, and hit their little brother." Did this same reasoning hold true for all those toy guns sold many years ago? Makes me sick. Then...everyone is always so quick to sue for damages. I miss those good ole days.
__________________
"Signatures are only good for 2 things....advertising and posting stupid quotes." - MrSandman
  #10  
Old 11/20/2002, 04:20 PM
SBGRAD24 SBGRAD24 is offline
Reefer
 
Join Date: May 2002
Location: San Diego
Posts: 612
Ahh yes, the time when people actually took responsibility for their own actions. These days it's always everyone else's fault, the music made me do it, the tv made me do it, etc...
  #11  
Old 11/20/2002, 04:23 PM
MrSandman MrSandman is offline
Reefaholic
 
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: South Bay, So. Cal.
Posts: 3,078
That movie "The Sandlot" was a typical summer day for me when i was a kid.
__________________
"Signatures are only good for 2 things....advertising and posting stupid quotes." - MrSandman
  #12  
Old 11/20/2002, 04:26 PM
c_lou c_lou is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 80
I know I may take some heat on this one but..

Back when I was a kid my father would leave his guns unlocked and under his bed. Us kids new they were there and just didn't think anything of it. We never ever touched them though. We knew the consequences of touching dad's guns.

I do keep all of my guns in a locked cabinet and only one person knows where the key is

ME.

Besides we all knew that sticks and fingers made better bangs.
  #13  
Old 11/20/2002, 05:24 PM
64Ivy 64Ivy is offline
B'rer Reefer
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Greenwich, CT
Posts: 2,141
I think the difference is:

Now: It takes a Village...
Then: It simply took Common Sense.

THAT'S what I miss most.
__________________
None, due to Writer's Strike.

Last edited by 64Ivy; 11/20/2002 at 08:53 PM.
  #14  
Old 11/20/2002, 05:33 PM
Anemone Anemone is offline
Moderator Clone
 
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Valencia, California
Posts: 9,849
Quote:
Originally posted by MrSandman
I see/hear it every day at work. "No, we can't sell that doll of Daffy Duck being hit on his head with a mallet because kids will see that, grab a mallet from their dad's toolbox, and hit their little brother." Did this same reasoning hold true for all those toy guns sold many years ago? Makes me sick. Then...everyone is always so quick to sue for damages. I miss those good ole days.
I miss the good old days too! Can you imagine anyone actually creating a new bugs bunny/roadrunner hour type show? My God no! Too violent.

One of my favorite toys was some sort of accelerator for my hot wheels. A "house" with two spinning wheels inside and a track running through it. Car enters house, goes through spinning wheels and is shot out the other side. Now, I'm sure, someone would put their two year old in front of if and sue when their eye was put out!

And being hit by a belt! Can you imagine what would happen if a child told their teacher in today's society that they were hit by a belt? And yes, my dad had a nice thick leather one for really bad violations of "or else."

Kevin

PS - anyone else remember hitting a full roll of caps with a hammer....I'm sure it must have been dangerous, but it sure was fun!
__________________
NCAA Division 1 Championship Leaders:

UCLA: 100
Stanford: 94
Southern California: 84
Oklahoma State: 48
Arkansas: 43
LSU: 40

Go PAC 10!
  #15  
Old 11/20/2002, 05:40 PM
MANDARINMAN MANDARINMAN is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: SPRING BRANCH, TEXAS
Posts: 15
WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL IF YOU FAILED A CLASS IT WAS SOME THING YOU DID OR DID NOT DO AND I GOT MY BUT SMACKED. THE TEACHER WAS NOT THE PROBLEM. MY PARENTS WOULD CALL THE TEACHER TO SAY THEY WHERE SORRY , NOT TO BLAME THEM. AND WHY DID THEY CHANGE THE NAME OF THE CEREAL FROM SUGAR SMACKS TO HONEY SMACKS OR WHATEVER THEY CALL IT NOW. AND REALLY, WHY DID MY PARENTS HAVE LAWN DARTS THEY MUST HAVE BEEN BAD PEOPLE.
  #16  
Old 11/20/2002, 06:29 PM
RicksReefs RicksReefs is offline
Seamonkey on my back
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Somewhere under the east coast of Florida
Posts: 4,856
didn't your parents teach you not to yell!

somebody get my belt......
  #17  
Old 11/20/2002, 08:19 PM
JMC JMC is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: South Wales UK
Posts: 40
Unhappy

Those WERE the "Good Ol Days."

That brought back a lot of memories.
  #18  
Old 11/21/2002, 12:02 AM
6-line 6-line is offline
The Original 6-line
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Florence, KY--across the river from Cincinnati, OH
Posts: 2,170
Remember when the umbiquitious reply "Because I said so" was enough? When it wasn't politically incorrect to give a reply without an answer?
You didn't have to conjour up a lame excuse to reflect the compassion you felt as an adult and the guardian, the ruler, the executioner of corporal punishment, a lame excuse to explain something that really wasn't necesarily necesary to explain?

Long before Game Cube and 356 channels and (gotta recall this) no air conditoning in the blazing humid Julys when it was colder outside in 95 degrees than inside and you found something to do or it was found for you...(weed that weed choked garden)

When kids behave decently (for a change) and inquire "Now what do you owe me"....
When Saturday Mornings were the only time for cartoons...
When Steve Austin was barely alive...
When there was a real starship captain....
When the mere threat of 'failing' (now a public school obscenity)was enought to get you to crack open the books; cheat if you had to but never fail. It meant humiliation and being forced to school with kids you were knocking books out of their arms only nine months before...
It meant you didn't fail because you had a desire, a yearning, a downright dreadful fear...of being....held back....

That was fun.

Great thread....


Todd
__________________
Todd


If you're not obsessed, you're not doing it right...
  #19  
Old 11/21/2002, 01:24 AM
wasabi wasabi is offline
yes honey it was only $20
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: auburn ga
Posts: 744
we played the same game (king of the hilll) we changed the name to cambodia and spiced it up a bit by using dirtbombs and sticks for weapons[[[[OUCH]]]]] i can still feel the pain . boy what fun.
  #20  
Old 11/21/2002, 09:16 AM
c_lou c_lou is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 80
Anemone -

I used to do the hammer thing with a full roll of caps. The only thing my mother was ever concerned about was wasting a whole roll at a time. She was not concerned about what might happen.

Mandrinman- WHAT!?!

King of the Hill? We used to play on those big piles of snow that the school would get from plowing the parking lots. Nothing like a face full of snow from 10 feet up.
  #21  
Old 11/21/2002, 11:28 AM
Dakna Dakna is offline
mental artist
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Cincinnati Ohio
Posts: 999
My father had a huge, gigantic ( in my child eyes ) dark red SAE fraternity paddle that he used for the, "or else".
One time I told my older brother I was going to hide it and did so behind the china cabinet.

A week later I kicked my brother in the nuts...needless to say, I got more than I would have, had I left that damn paddle right where it was in the first place.

Ah, memories...
  #22  
Old 11/21/2002, 11:40 AM
mst_RoadRash mst_RoadRash is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Boise Idaho
Posts: 318
OH man, LAWN Darts. I think I might still have some. THOSE were fun. And only stupid people got hurt. Gee, a metal thing hurtling through the air in my direction... let's stand here and see what happens.

And when the infamous words "I'm bored" were a death sentece to your weekend. It was ok to be bored, but when you whined about it you got to clean the bathrooms, vacuum, clean up after the dog, mow the lawn, wash the cars, wash the windows and clean the kitchen. I didn't gripe about boredom too often.

Then I found out it was ok to say "Mom, my chores are done and I don't want to watch TV but I don't have anything to do. Will you take me to the library?"

And when we slammed doors after fighting with the parental units... well doors were a privelage, not a right. So if we slammed them, they got taken away. And there is nothing like being 13 and not having any privacy.

I was a latchkey kid since the 2nd grade. Nobody thought twice of that. Today, my parents would be locked up for neglect. They didn't LIKE the idea, but they didn't have the money to do anything about it. So, to solve the problem they gave me a key, some instructions and there you have it. "Don't let strangers in the house. Or else." I didn't need an explanation. I knew that if I let strangers in the house my dad would make me go get the belt. They didn't need to tell me about all the bad stuff, just to let me know it would get me in trouble.
__________________
People try to live to the highest of ideals -- Right up until they sell out.
  #23  
Old 11/21/2002, 01:30 PM
Bucolic Buffalo Bucolic Buffalo is offline
Registered Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Chestnut, IL
Posts: 13
My cousin's and I used to find pop bottles and turn them in to get a few dollars to buy bottle rockets and a pack of cigarettes. We would then proceed to have a bottle rocket fight in the street. You would lite the bottle rocket and throw it at each other about 50 ft or so apart. Man those things would wiz by and sometimes hit somebody and explode on their chest. And Black Cat fire crackers. We used to throw those at each other too. But they were short range weapons.

Wonder nobody lost an eye or got hurt.
  #24  
Old 11/21/2002, 04:30 PM
jimroth jimroth is offline
Highly Ionized
 
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Reefaway, NJ
Posts: 1,497
My first temptation was to tell about a few choice facts from my childhood to counteract the nostalgia, however, my heart softened.
Remember watching that big black and white TV? Nobody in my neighborhood even HAD a color TV.
I saw the real actual Batmobile at a car show and said "What are those red stripes doing there?" They didn't show up in B&W.

The mailman delivered mail to our front door, twice a day.

You could mail-order a live monkey in the back of Boy's Life! Not that I ever did. Got some anoles, though.

My folks were usually flat broke, but we never felt poor or deprived.
__________________
Jim Roth
  #25  
Old 11/21/2002, 04:37 PM
hesaias hesaias is offline
Reef tinkerer
 
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Under the peach
Posts: 1,830
We played push tag on a wooden railroad tie fort at the park near my house. You had to push someone down. Knees had to hit the ground to tag 'em. We got hurt, but we got over it. Playing Dukes of Hazzard and building volcanos with vinigar and baking soda! Getting the belt stink, but I'm glad i did. My kids will be glad they did too, some day!

Who else jumped off the house with an umbrella for a parachute?

Roaming the neighborhood, playing till dark. Man I wish my kids could grow up like I did.
__________________
Scott
 

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:47 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Use of this web site is subject to the terms and conditions described in the user agreement.
Reef Central™ Reef Central, LLC. Copyright ©1999-2009