How Did We Ever Survive Our Childhood?

[Doug]

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, 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).

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 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, 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 20, 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 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) there too ... and then we got our 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 duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac!

[Ann]

Ahhh, for the good old days, when kids played outdoors and made friends with the entire neighbourhood, hockey was played on backyard rinks and cost nothing but a pair of dull skates.

I'd share more, but I have to put on my dishwasher and then microwave my breakfast.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Ann

I'd share more, but I have to put on my dishwasher and then microwave my breakfast.

[Mertzie]

I remember riding my bike all over town.. on my own or with other kids.. and without padding (gasp!)
I rarely see kids riding their bikes these days. When I do, it's quite a sight... all dressed up like hockey goalies with helmets, elbow pads, knee pads.. one parent riding in front, the other covering the rear. Sad. No wonder kids don't play outside anymore. It requires too much planning.

[Introvrtd1]

Amen!

I crashed my bike several times (being a stupid kid) without wearing a helmet, broke my leg once (being a stupid kid), and scratched myself raw falling off steel skates (without a helmet of course).

Oh, yeah,

Catholic school nuns would slap our hands with yardsticks on a daily basis.

Aaahh,,, those were the days......

[BigSis]

Other side of the coin...

I remember getting the "stomach flu" on a regular basis. Today, I believe it was more likely food poisoning.

The river we swam in was downstream from a sheep farm. It had eels until August (think SNAKES only ickier), and one year a dead sheep in the eddy until after July.

We played unsupervised, and most of us lived through it... but there were accidents and tragedys. Most of us know of at least one childhood friend who drowned, or was badly hurt by using our best judgement.

We were propositioned by deviants... but we kept quiet because it was never talked about.

We witnessed incredible chaos, but pushed our shame aside and told ourselves it must be "normal".

The neighbor man beat my little brother with a 2 X 4 while mother watched without interference. I don't know why... is there a reason that would be good enough? Brother was 7 or 8 years old.

Mom made us hide when the Jehova's Witnesses drove in... I didn't know why, but I assumed it was because they would hurt us.

Our family was never dysfunctional... they were just 'drunks'. With all that implies.


Not meaning to rain on your parade, Doug... but for me, it is good to remember that the "good old days" were pretty much the same as the "these days". People really don't change much over the decades... and as much as I rail at what seems like lenient parents and youthful disrespect and policital shenanigans... it's been going on forever.

We just put it out in the light these days... where we can better deal with it.


OK... my 2 cents, and off my soapbox.

[barb dwyer]

I've seen the 'road warrior' getups kids ride around in.

I thought having a bike with working brakes ... made it safe.

Or handlebars that were tight.

[barb dwyer]

one nostalgic thing =- and half the people on this site won't know what I'm talking about -

remember the sound ... of a slamming screen door?

I moved into an apartment that has an 'antique' wooden screen door.
The first time is slammed ... it shot me backwards forty years.
I actualy FLINCHED ... like someone was gonna start yelling!

Nobody did ....
so I slammed it again.

[frankie_b]

I do remember the sound of a screen door slamming. Was there any other kind? LOL
Where I grew up relatives, friends and neighbors didn't make appointments to drop by to say hi or play phone tag. Yep! I grew up in a rural area. Instead of emailing, we met face to face and looked into each other's eyes. My Mom was happy whenever we'd go out to play with friends or roam the area free as birds. We were out of her hair Remember Go on now, there's no need to be hanging around the house all day! Heck, it was no fun hanging around anyway!
We had a kids grapevine, knew who to avoid and where to steal the best apples off the tree at dusk in fall.
I'm off to the mega supermarket to shop. I can pick up some produce from heaven knows where.
Yep, raspberries in winter and kiwi in summer. Then I'll surf the web and
find online books to read... visit any major museum in the world, drop in to see you all...just imagine that! Progress is just too
hard to take.

[Ann]

I love the sound of a screen door slamming....and the smell of my mother making chilisauce in the autumn. I'd come home from school and the wonderful smell of the chilisauce made me want to eat it by the jar.

[WLDKATZ]

I just don't know what to say I am alternating between laughing and crying because everyone of these posts are true, my screen door on my NEW house is an old wooden one, I still jump! And if the macuracome wasn't bad enough from the burning your arse getting blistered when dad came home from work wasn't nice eaither!

[NOMOMERLOTMAMMA]

Yup, I used to get on my bike and pick up my friend and be gone all day..the library, the woods, riding by the cute boys house..

I don't let my kids out of my sight usually, and if my daughter wants to walk down to the store, her brother has to go with her. She can't go down to the neighborhood play park cause too many drug dealers are on that street...I MISS my childhood days!!

[ccgirl]

Oh, I had a slamming screen door growing up! Sigh


How about your parents letting you sit in the way back of the station wagon on long trips or on the hump in between the seats! What were seatbelts?

I never had a bike helmet (although there was that nasty concussion incident)

If I had ever done something bad enough that the teacher had to call, my mom would have beaten the crap out of me (I don't recommend that one),but I'll tell you, I never would have done it again,whatever it was!

I remember going out in the morning in the summer, and my mom yelling (through that wooden screen door) "I don't want to see you unless you have to go to the bathroom or for lunch!" Then she sat home and smoked cigarettes and watched soaps all day. LOL

Aaaah, the good old days.

Seriously, I miss those neighborhood gangs of kids. Arranging playdates and having to arrange transportation, etc. really sucks.

[barb dwyer]

Ann -

I know what you mean (about the smell of chili sauce)
I couldn't take it -
I had to start making chili the first frosty weekend
of the season myself.

I just did ... day before yesterday.

And if I DO say so =and I DO - it's a personal best batch!
But mostly - I cooked it so the smell could permeate the entire apartment. And it did. And it was good. As an appetiser - I also made cinnamon coffee.