How did we survive????

NeverEnding · 08-08-2012, 08:51 PM

Got this from my buddy Dave. I don't agree with all of it but thought some might get a kick out of it. -

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and roll out pie crust 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 hightop 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. Not 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 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 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 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 and then we got 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 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 known 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????

Easy, Simply; "In God We Trust"

tuga · 08-08-2012, 09:25 PM

Great Post!

That brings back some good memories.

Thanks for sharing it.

lbrachfe · 08-08-2012, 09:32 PM

It seems like yesterday, but so long ago. Growing up in the 50's was wonderful and I feel so fortunate, but sad for the young people today who haven't a clue how we managed...

NeverEnding · 08-08-2012, 09:46 PM

Yeah, it brought back some good one for me too Tuga.

Larry, it wasn't long ago it seems... but how fast things change!

Starvin Marvin · 08-08-2012, 10:53 PM

Isn't this the truth. ha ha! I agree with most all of it myself. It seems like the only not going backwards are these Newells.

NeverEnding · 08-09-2012, 11:41 PM

Marvin you've got that right!

Randy J · 08-10-2012, 05:40 AM

Tonka trucks were it. I remember playing cowboys and indians and with my tonka trucks more than anything when I was just a youngin. It also brings me back to them spankings to. Boy! do I remember those. I wasn't always a good boy though. So those spankings were well deserved.

It's past my bed time. I'm gonna hit the hay folks. Have a good night!

centerville · 08-10-2012, 06:08 AM

Randy-did you pick out your switch? My pops just swung his belt over my hide, and always told me how he and his brothers picked out there own switches. Now you just give em riddlin.

larryweikart · 08-10-2012, 05:45 PM

My Dad had a great bed side manner as he took off his belt, while holding me, with my pants hanging on to my knee caps, as he so lovingly yelled "this is gonna hurt me more than you" (REALLY?) Never really understood that until the first time my son got his "just deserves" Loved the Post Tom!

Hugo · 08-10-2012, 06:14 PM

Great post Tom!

I'm with others on this it brings back memories. Larry, my Papa would yell "vamanos!" in that tone and I just knew what was coming next. No, I didn't want to go but I knew I had it coming. I'm with you on the never really understanding until the first time you have to punish your own child feeling.

My girls luckily didn't cause me to much trouble. If I had a son like myself growing up I might have been bald already.

Growing up was care free for me and I think my daughters had some of that same feeling growing up but we kept them grounded in their culture, knowing where they came from. I have hopes that my daughters will raise their children the same one day but with things changing so rapidily it's hard to tell what the future holds?