Tuesday, November 3, 2009

When we were young

 My niece is writing her first research paper. She is in the 5th grade. I made the mistake of looking at her and saying "When I was your age we played outside until dark and didnt stay cooped in the house writing research papers, that is what middle school is for". 

This sparked a conversation that provoked a lot of thought on my end. As I shook my head and thought, "My how things have changed". I started telling my niece what things were like when I was a kid. Here are some great ones. 
  • We had to fast forward through entire songs to get to the next one
  • If you werent home to answer the phone then you werent going to talk on it
  • We showed up at people's houses just to see if they were home and to say hey
  • We were allowed to ride our bikes all over town and played until the sun went down
  • Our video games had wires attached so you had to sit close to the tv
  • Our female role models wore LOTS of clothes and didnt have to go to rehab
  • We would race home in the afternoons to watch our favorite cartoons and get up early on Saturday to do the same
  • Cereal came with toys IN the box, you didnt have to send away for it
  • We wrote letters to our friends at school, we didnt text them
  • Our computers came with 1 screen color (usually green or orange). 
  • The Oregon Trail was the BEST computer game EVER!!
  • We never wore helmets when we rode bikes and we are fine
  • We had our birthday parties at the skating rink or at someone's house
  •  We opened presents at our parties in front of our friends (its weird that they dont anymore
I got this email this morning and it prompted me to finish this blog post that I've been thinking about for a week

When we were  young (its for older generations but some still apply)

First, we survived being born to mothers
Who smoked and/or drank while they were
Pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing,
Tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles,
Locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode
Our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

Riding in the back of a pick-up truck on a warm day
Was always a special treat.

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

We shared one soft drink with four friends,
From one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon.
We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar.
And, we weren't overweight.

WHY?

Because we were
Always outside playing...that's why!

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. And, we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps
And then ride them 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 did not have Playstations, Nintendo's or X-boxes.
There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable,
No video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's,

No cell phones,
No personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.
WE HAD FRIENDS

And we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth
And there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt,
And the worms did not live in us
Forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,
Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and,
Although we were told it would happen,

We did not put out very many eyes..
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and
Knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just
Walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.
Those who didn't had to learn to deal
With disappointment.
Imagine that!!

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