According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were
kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's probably shouldn't have survived.
My Mom used to cut up 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. AND - Mom used to defrost hamburger
on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes too. But I can't
remember ever getting E-coli.
Our baby cribs, cots, toys and rooms were painted with brightly colored
lead-based paint. We often chewed on the crib, ingesting the lead
paint.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or
cabinets and it was fine to play with pots and pans. And when we rode
our bikes we had no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent 'clackers' on
our wheels. We also rode our bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle
- tasted the same. We would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We walked to friend's homes.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we
were back by supper time. No one was able to reach us all day and no one
minded. 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 a BB gun was not
available. We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top
speed down a hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After
running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda,
but we were never overweight; we were always outside playing.
We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one
actually died from this.
We fell out of trees, got cuts and bruises, and broken bones and teeth, and there were
no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learned not to do the same thing again.
We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we
learned to get over it.
I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play
Station, Nintendo, or X-box. We had no 99 channels on TV, no videotape
movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers,
no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.
I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers that 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 and when we got hurt,
Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome and then we got
spanked. These days, 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 owner 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 spanked ... and then we got spanked again when
we got home.
Mom always invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee. Us 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.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those
who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. 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.
Speaking of school, 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. We had the freedom, failure, success and responsibility,
and we learned how to deal with it all. Our actions were our own, consequences
were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we got into trouble was
unheard off. They actually sided against us. Imagine that!
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. And 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.
We all said prayers and the pledge and staying in detention after school
caught all sorts of negative attention for the next two weeks.
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.
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.
How did we survive?
