If you lived as a child in the 60's or 70's, 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.

Our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
(Not to mention hitch-hiking to town as a young kid).

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.

We would spend hours building our go-karts out of scraps and then rode 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 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. No mobile phones. Unthinkable.

We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt.

We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
They were accidents.
No one was to blame but us.
Remember accidents??

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank lolly water, but we were never overweight............we were always outside playing.

We shared one bottle of lolly water with four friends, and no one ever died from this.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on Sky Digital TV, video tape movies, surround sound, personal mobile phones, personal computers, Internet chat rooms...........we had friends.

We went outside and found them.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
Imagine such a thing.
Without asking a parent!!
By ourselves!!
Out there in the cold, cruel world!! Without a guardian.
How did we do it??

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law, imagine that.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.

The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to.

And you're one of them.

Congratulations.

Cheers,

Shorty.

And along with all that we ate mouldy bread and preserves that our mother's made.

For those of us who grew up on a dairy farm we would swim in the same water tank the cows drank from. Algae covered the bottom and nobody died or started to glow in the dark.

Dave Bigler
When It Comes to Cleaning - the BIGLER the BETTER!!!

As for me I ate many of lead paint chips and look at me, no damage, damage damage what so everrrrrr.

Now if I can only remember were I left my pants.

For us who grew up in the NYC housing projects ...

Played fast pitch stick ball across a basketball court while they are running a full court.

During the summer, lunch consisted of a black cherry soda and a bag of potato chips for $.25.

Allowed to take a bus and two trains to Yankee Stadium to watch a ballgame for $1.50 ALONE!

Travel from the Bronx through Manhattan, take the ferry to Staten Island to fool around and our parents had no clue where we were.

Play football without equipment.

Where you got beat by your neighbor first and then your parents.

I could go on ...

When my parents were first married they owned an Austin Healey Sprite...



Well then along came yours truly. This was long before the infant car seat was invented. So my folks tipped the passenger seat forward and placed a cardboard box behind the seat. They lined the box with a baby blanket which provided my comfy ride. Then I'd be lulled to sleep by the hum of a fine British motor. Wouldn't it be funny to see a parent try this in today's paranoid society? LOL! Well I survived just fine. And it may just account for my love of fast rides today




Rick Gelinas
encapman