Another Goody For The Old-timers

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. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

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
Keds (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.

Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo,
X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

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
(kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) 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 there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

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 ever survive?

:-)

Dimitri

On Apr 17, 8:18 am, "Dimitri" > wrote:
> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>
> 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. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
> bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
>
> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
> pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
>
> 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
> Keds (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.
>
> Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
> after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
>
> We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo,
> X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
>
> 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
> (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) 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 there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
>
> 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 ever survive?
>
> :-)
>
> Dimitri

LOL... we must be the same age. I remember all of it. My mom did all
of it. One thing not mentioned is playing until the lights came on and
playing kick the can.
I grew up in Chicago.
chilichick

Dimitri wrote:
> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>
> 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. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
> bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
>
> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
> pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
>
> 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
> Keds (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.
>
> Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
> after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
>
> We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo,
> X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
>
> 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
> (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) 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 there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
>
> 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 ever survive?
>
> :-)

<purposely not snipped - Cathy apologizes in advance>

Great post Dimitri, and oh so true...

--
Cheers
Chatty Cathy

"Michael "Dog3" Lonergan" > wrote in message
6.121...
> "Dimitri" >
> :

<snip>

> Thankfully we are both still around Thanks for the pleasant post.
>
> Michael

You're welcome.

Dimitri

"Chatty Cathy" > wrote in message
...

<snip.

> <purposely not snipped - Cathy apologizes in advance>
>
> Great post Dimitri, and oh so true...
>
> --
> Cheers
> Chatty Cathy

You're very welcome - I think we all need a little humor especially in light if
V.Tech.


Dimitri

On Apr 17, 11:18?am, "Dimitri" > wrote:
> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>
> 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. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
> bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
>
> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
> pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
>
> 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
> Keds (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.
>
> Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
> after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
>
> We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo,
> X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
>
> 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
> (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) 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 there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
>
> 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 ever survive?
>
> :-)
>
> Dimitri

Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
"under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
nuts psychotic.

Sheldon

"chilichick" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> On Apr 17, 8:18 am, "Dimitri" > wrote:
>> Another Goody For The Old-timers

<snip>

> LOL... we must be the same age. I remember all of it. My mom did all
> of it. One thing not mentioned is playing until the lights came on and
> playing kick the can.
> I grew up in Chicago.
> chilichick

Nope, I'll bet I'm older.

How about catching summer Fire Flies at night and putting them into a glass jar?

I grew up in LA with Summers spent on Longgggg Gilanddd (LI NY)

Dimitri

On 17 Apr 2007 09:00:16 -0700, Sheldon > wrote:


>Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
>hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
>went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
>at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
>"under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
>the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
>god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
>nuts psychotic.
>
>Sheldon

roflmao. I was forced to go to church growing up. About the time I
figured Santa Claus out I also figured out the god thing. I was about
14 when I was given a choice. Haven't been back since. I avoid
weddings and funerals also.

"Sheldon" > wrote in message
oups.com...

<snip>


>> :-)
>>
>> Dimitri
>
> Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
> hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
> went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
> at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
> "under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
> the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
> god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
> nuts psychotic.
>
> Sheldon

just in case peopkle don't know how old we is...

http://www.religioustolerance.org/nat_pled.htm

"From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim
in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of
our Nation and our people to the Almighty." President Eisenhower (1954) after
signing into law a bill to have "under God" added to the original pledge.


It was no problem for me, I went to a parochial school. (which means the nuns
and priests beat the crap out of us if we misbehaved

Dimitri

>
>
Don't forgot those lunch pales with the Monkees and Yellow Submarine
designs that came with the breakable glass thermoses.

Lou Decruss wrote:
>
> On 17 Apr 2007 09:00:16 -0700, Sheldon > wrote:
>
> >Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
> >hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
> >went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
> >at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
> >"under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
> >the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
> >god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
> >nuts psychotic.
> >
> >Sheldon
>
> roflmao. I was forced to go to church growing up. About the time I
> figured Santa Claus out I also figured out the god thing. I was about
> 14 when I was given a choice. Haven't been back since. I avoid
> weddings and funerals also.

You figured it out late. I figured all the games out by the time I was
about 5 at which point I put my foot down and that was the end of all
that nonsense (a nuclear blast couldn't move me once I make a decision).
Never did that pledge nonsense either, I pledge allegiance to myself and
my friends and no one and nothing else.

Pete C.

On Apr 17, 12:26?pm, Scott > wrote:
> Don't forgot those lunch pales with the Monkees and Yellow Submarine
> designs that came with the breakable glass thermoses.

My lunchbox had a picture of William Boyd, so did my bottle of hair
trainer.

Sheldon

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:18:08 GMT, "Dimitri" >
wrote:

>Another Goody For The Old-timers
>
>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. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
>bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
>
>Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
>pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
>
>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
>Keds (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.
>
>Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
>after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
>
>We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo,
>X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
>
>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
>(kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) 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 there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
>
>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 ever survive?
>
We skated on the sidewalk without any kind of knee pads or elbow pads.
If youfell you got skinned elbows and/or knees and Mom patched you up
and sent you back out. You learned how not to fall. You did NOT file a
lawsuit against the city for not maintaining the sidewalk, for
allowing cracks to form that a kid could trip on.

I will say that if bike helmets had been required when I was a kid, my
brother wouldn't be deaf in one ear. He was riding his bike home from
school one day when he was 12 and hit a patch of ice (Chicago, freak
spring blizzard, Aoril 1959). He suffered a skull fracture and lost
the hearing in his left ear. If he'd been wearing a helmet he wouldn't
have been nearly as seriously injured.

These things do happen, but I think price we're paying today with our
paranoid over-protectiveness is causing far moreand more widespread
damage than the very infrequent injuries that might have occurred
otherwise. Not to mention the climate of fear our kids are being
raised with. They're not learning the life lessons we learned and
that's going to be devestating to them when they grow up and go out
into the real world.

Cathy

"Dimitri" > wrote

> 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.

(laugh) I wonder if chicken was 'cleaner' back then.

> Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be
> much harder than gym.

You could only flunk it if you didn't go, I think. I remember some moron
didn't graduate on time because you *had* to have 4 years of gym.

> I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed
> to be proud of myself.

Now they make a big deal out of graduating junior high ... maybe it
was just in my house, but you were expected to do that. Same with
high school. Wasn't my mother shocked to find out my little brothers
didn't feel that strongly about it. Heh.

> 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

My dad would draw pictures on my cuts. Roosters.

> (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we
> got our butt spanked.

One of my most memorable beatings occurred when my mother
looked out the 5th floor window to see me climbing down the
wooden plank-lined ditches they'd made to install sewers.
What? It was the perfect playground. Good thing she didn't
see all the trouble we got into as kids.

The playground had monkey bars we'd walk on, no hands. If we
fell, it not only hurt when you hit the metal bars, landing on the
asphalt was no picnic, either.

Funny stuff, Dimitri.

nancy

"Sheldon" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> On Apr 17, 12:26?pm, Scott > wrote:
>> Don't forgot those lunch pales with the Monkees and Yellow Submarine
>> designs that came with the breakable glass thermoses.
>
> My lunchbox had a picture of William Boyd, so did my bottle of hair
> trainer.
>
> Sheldon

Did you also ask for milk when you went into the western saloon or was it
sarsaparilla?
;-)


Dimitri

"Nancy Young" > wrote in message
...

<snip>

> Funny stuff, Dimitri.
>
> nancy


Thanks - we had a blackberry hedge along the driveway. One day I picked a bunch
of berries squished them into my right hand & ran upstairs holding by "bloody
hand" yelling like a banshee. When my parents found out it was a "joke" got my
tail beat. I guess they didn't think it was so damn funny.



Dimitri

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:43:16 GMT, cathy >
wrote:

>These things do happen, but I think price we're paying today with our
>paranoid over-protectiveness is causing far moreand more widespread
>damage than the very infrequent injuries that might have occurred
>otherwise.

I can remember when I was 5 or so riding in the front seat of my Dad's
38 Packard. Did I say riding in the front seat? I meant to say
STANDING in the front seat while we were going somewhere. I don't
remember, but didn't those old cars have solid metal dashes? LOL

--
Zilbandy

cathy wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:18:08 GMT, "Dimitri" >
> wrote:
>
>> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>>
(snipped wonderful list)
>>
> We skated on the sidewalk without any kind of knee pads or elbow pads.
> If youfell you got skinned elbows and/or knees and Mom patched you up
> and sent you back out. You learned how not to fall. You did NOT file a
> lawsuit against the city for not maintaining the sidewalk, for
> allowing cracks to form that a kid could trip on.
>
(snippage - sorry about your brother's hearing)
> Cathy

Oh I loved skating on the sidewalk (and even on our suburban street; if a
car came along you just got out of the road). Wouldn't have occurred to Mom
to sue anyone else if I skinned my knees.

Here's one that's not so old but another example of not suing. When I was
13 I was walking down a residential street with 2 friends. There were no
sidewalks. We were on the side of the street by the curb, not out in the
middle of the street. I was on the outside of the other two girls. An
elderly man came along and hit me. I remember going flying and landing on
my hands and knees in the street. I was skinned up pretty badly and wound
up with a bruise the size of a grapefruit on my left butt cheek. I was
wearing light green shorts; they had blue paint on them from his car! (I
guess I was very lucky it wasn't some kid in a souped up muscle car speeding
down the street.)

The old fella lived just two houses down. His wife came running out and
they took us into their house. I think she put Bactine or something like
that on my scrapes. She gave me milk and cookies and called my mom. It
*never* occurred to my parents to sue this guy. Just didn't happen back
then.

Jill

Zilbandy wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:43:16 GMT, cathy >
> wrote:
>
>> These things do happen, but I think price we're paying today with our
>> paranoid over-protectiveness is causing far moreand more widespread
>> damage than the very infrequent injuries that might have occurred
>> otherwise.
>
> I can remember when I was 5 or so riding in the front seat of my Dad's
> 38 Packard. Did I say riding in the front seat? I meant to say
> STANDING in the front seat while we were going somewhere. I don't
> remember, but didn't those old cars have solid metal dashes? LOL

And no seatbelts.

Inserted comments:
"Dimitri" > wrote in message
...
> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>
> 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.

I had a mother who was 'kitchen challenged'.....she loved the invention of
tv dinners.....still, didn't get sick off of food.
>
> My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw
> sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown
> paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.

Remember the kid who took egg salad sammiches for lunch....the class reeked
by lunchtime. Still, no one got sick (I was the one with the egg salad)
>
> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
> pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

Caught minnows, tadpoles and mudpuppies as well. Who can do that in a pool.

>
> The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a
> pager was the school PA system.

Yep, and if you were little and got lost....they paged your parents in the
store. They wiped your tears and then swatted your ass for getting lost in
the first place!
>
> We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high
> top Keds (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..

Oh, those nasty girls gym suits, all one piece that zipped up the front,
blue bottoms and stripped tops. One size fits all (yea, right)
>
> Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be
> much harder than gym.

Had a gym teacher who wore a 'fro wig. She'd run around the gym, getting
all sweaty, pop off the wig, scratch her head and pop it right back on.
>
> Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in
> detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

You showed respect even if you weren't patriotic or religious (stand quiet),
if you screwed up, you climbed the wall (paddle) at school and got the
switch at home.
>
> We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system
> we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

We had a school nurse for the whole county/district. If you got sick other
than Thursday afternoons, the principal or his secretary drove you home if
your mom didn't drive (this is during the time you had a family car that dad
took to work).
>
> I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed
> to be proud of myself.

If you wanted attention, do something worth getting attention for......

>
> I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station,
> Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

The only tv on in the afternoon was when Mom watched her 'stories'....you
went outside. Or hung out with the 'old folks' listening to stories while
helping the shell beans, or how to do needlework, etc. Some of my best
passed down stories come from a really old neighbor lady who 'cast spells
and made potions'..
>
> Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got
> that bee sting? I could have been killed!

If you got stung, you spit on it, and some adult had a cigarette you could
bum to put the tobacco on the sting.
>
> 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 (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like
> iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.

We fell and got scratched up, fell off bikes, etc. The mercurochrome came
in handy when playing cowboys and indians (not pc anymore). The kid with
the 'red medicine' striped got the be the indian with the warpaint.
>
> 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.

I remember the doctor with the black bag and big black car and a penecillin
pill for every occasion.
>
> We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got
> our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got
> home.

Or worse yet, the neighbor kid's mom got on the party line to your mom and
the whole neighborhood knew what you got into.
>
> 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.

Your mom also knew who the bad kids where and laid down the law when they
came over.
>
> 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?

I guess we all were dysfunctional, we all were pretty much alike.
>
> 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 ever survive?

If we were angry, esp. the boys, they pounded each other in the school yard,
then got over it and went on to play ball or something else.

-ginny

>
> :-)
>
> Dimitri
>

Zilbandy wrote on Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:10:21 -0700:

??>> These things do happen, but I think price we're paying
??>> today with our paranoid over-protectiveness is causing far
??>> moreand more widespread damage than the very infrequent
??>> injuries that might have occurred otherwise.

Z> I can remember when I was 5 or so riding in the front seat
Z> of my Dad's 38 Packard. Did I say riding in the front seat?
Z> I meant to say STANDING in the front seat while we were
Z> going somewhere. I don't remember, but didn't those old cars
Z> have solid metal dashes? LOL

I guess the governor of New Jersey might agree if he still
thinks he is fireproof.


Last week from MSNBC

"CAMDEN, N.J. - In critical condition but expected to recover,
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine apparently was not wearing a
seatbelt when the car he was in crashed Thursday, despite a
state law requiring it for front-seat passengers, a spokesman
said Friday.

Corzine, 60, did not suffer any brain damage in the crash. But
he won’t be able to resume his duties as governor for several
days, if not weeks."

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

Virginia Tadrzynski wrote:
> Inserted comments:
> "Dimitri" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>>
>> We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair
>> of high top Keds (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..
>
> Oh, those nasty girls gym suits, all one piece that zipped up the
> front, blue bottoms and stripped tops. One size fits all (yea, right)
>>
LOL! I remember those. Then when we moved here our "dressing out" uniform
was navy blue shorts and a white top (kind of like a golf shirt). Very much
an improvement!

(snipped other great answers by Ginny)

I think most of what kids are missing out on these days is the joy of
playing outside. There were the games others mentioned, like kick the can
and king of the hill, sure. But what about tag? Hide & seek? Swing the
statue? Not to mention climbing trees, riding bicycles (skating has been
mentioned), building forts. And yes, the not-PC cowboys & indians.

And all that exercise eventually wore us out. Who could act up all night
long (and require Ritalin) after you'd been playing hard all afternoon after
school up until dinner time, then go back out and play hard again until
dark? We used to dread rainy days, unless it was just a light rain. Then
we'd don our slickers and jump around in the puddles and float paper "boats"
in the water that was running by the curb to the storm drains. Ah, youth!


Jill

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:28:08 -0500, "jmcquown"
> wrote:

>And all that exercise eventually wore us out. Who could act up all night
>long (and require Ritalin) after you'd been playing hard all afternoon after
>school up until dinner time, then go back out and play hard again until
>dark? We used to dread rainy days, unless it was just a light rain. Then
>we'd don our slickers and jump around in the puddles and float paper "boats"
>in the water that was running by the curb to the storm drains. Ah, youth!
>

Man, this thread makes me wanna go back! So many things I forgot about
as a kid have been brought up.

--
Zilbandy

Dimitri wrote:

> Another Goody For The Old-timers..... snip
>
> We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of
> high top Keds (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..

Ha, Keds were for kids. PF Flyers were the best :-)

Enjoyed the post, Dimitri. It brought back some great memories.

--
"So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish!"
Dave
www.davebbq.com

On Apr 17, 11:00 am, "Dimitri" > wrote:
> "chilichick" > wrote in message
>
> ups.com...
>
> > On Apr 17, 8:18 am, "Dimitri" > wrote:
> >> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>
> <snip>
>
> > LOL... we must be the same age. I remember all of it. My mom did all
> > of it. One thing not mentioned is playing until the lights came on and
> > playing kick the can.
> > I grew up in Chicago.
> > chilichick
>
> Nope, I'll bet I'm older.
>
> How about catching summer Fire Flies at night and putting them into a glass jar?
>
> I grew up in LA with Summers spent on Longgggg Gilanddd (LI NY)
>
> Dimitri


I remember all of it, but then I'm older than dirt. ;-)

N.

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:16:42 GMT, "Dimitri" >
wrote:

>
>"Sheldon" > wrote in message
roups.com...
>
><snip>
>
>
>>> :-)
>>>
>>> Dimitri
>>
>> Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
>> hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
>> went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
>> at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
>> "under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
>> the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
>> god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
>> nuts psychotic.
>>
>> Sheldon
>
>just in case peopkle don't know how old we is...
>
>http://www.religioustolerance.org/nat_pled.htm
>
>"From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim
>in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of
>our Nation and our people to the Almighty." President Eisenhower (1954) after
>signing into law a bill to have "under God" added to the original pledge.
>
>
>It was no problem for me, I went to a parochial school. (which means the nuns
>and priests beat the crap out of us if we misbehaved
>
>Dimitri
>
Raised on a small farm. Butchered beef, pigs and chicken. Drank raw
milk, spent a lot of time summers working in the garden and Mom canned
everything with a steam box canner. Cured our own ham and bacon. Took
long hikes in the woods and fished the Susquehanna River and swam in
it...it was filthy. If we got a bump or scape it was iodine. I never
heard of anyone being allergic to any food, much less peanut butter.
Now I have grandchildren who can't eat anything because of allergies.
What happened? We were really healthy and very rugged from the
physical work.

Dimitri wrote:
> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>
> 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.

Not my Mom! She'd *wipe it off* in between each one. It was fine.


> My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw
> sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
> bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.

Yup. That's how I learned drugstore wrap. We'd wrap up each sandwich,
but then we'd put all of them in the freezer. Come school day morning,
just grab your sandwich from the freezer and sock it into the bag --
fully thawed by lunchtime!


> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
> pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

Hell no! We lived on Lake Erie in those days, brother! Avoided it like
the Plague! Nobody had to go to all the bother of closing the beach,
since nobody dared get close enough.


> The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager
> was the school PA system.

Maybe in your circle that woulda happened, but in my part of the planet
the idea of a "cell" phone would have evoked images of unicellular life
forms.

Ahhh, my life as a fac-brat!


> We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top
> Keds (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..

There was girls gym and boys gym, and the boys got the bigger gymnasium
with the better equipment.


> Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much
> harder than gym.

Gym wasn't a class, per se, just an opportunity to blow off steam as
well as partake in cooperative activities and increase social skills...
in my case, only with other girls.


> Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
> after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

Oh no. Within certain groups getting detention could be the ultimate cool.


> We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had
> then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

Our school nurse was one of the reasons I went into nursing. She was a
trip, and nobody's fool either.


> I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be
> proud of myself.

Getting out of bed in the morning IS an accomplishment, thanks very
much! Come to think of it, sometimes getting TO bed is one, too.


> I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo,
> X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

All four channels of television programming could be overwhelming
sometimes.


> Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee
> sting? I could have been killed!

Anaphylaxis kits did exist. If you didn't have one, it's because you
never showed signs of needing one. But my favorite method for dealing
with a bee sting was just to scratch it till the stinger came out.


> 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
> (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got
> our butt spanked.

Bactine!! Then a lecture on lock jaw. Then we got 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.

I do believe that were we to do it all again in this day and age, Mom
would still react in the same way (although we did have some trips to
the ER, after doing some particularly dire damage).


> We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our
> butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

And we'd never be able to sleep over or eat over there again.


> 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.

Yeah. Cracked my bean doing backflips off the stone wall in front of my
house. It was so cool until that happened. When it happened, everybody
took off on a tear for their own houses. I still haven't told my mother
about it.


> 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?

Oh we knew it, trust me!


> 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 ever survive?

Because we were taking Valium.

"Dimitri" > wrote in message
t...
>
> "Chatty Cathy" > wrote in message
> ...
>
> <snip.
>
>> <purposely not snipped - Cathy apologizes in advance>
>>
>> Great post Dimitri, and oh so true...
>>
>> --
>> Cheers
>> Chatty Cathy
>
> You're very welcome - I think we all need a little humor especially in
> light if V.Tech.
>
>
> Dimitri
>
Amen to that. Just heard from a friend who recently moved to Florida from
here (eastern PA). Her daughter is a senior at VA Tech. They got a call
yesterday that Laura was okay, but would hear more later.....later finally
came today. Nothing like not knowing, or knowing just enough to be
frightened.
-ginny

"Dimitri" > wrote:
> Another Goody For The Old-timers

....

> 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 ever survive?

I remembered most of those!

Here's a few that you left out:

- Home Economics for the girls and Shop for the boys. I remember metal shop,
wood shop, electrical shop. I've still got the tin funnel I made in 8th
grade metal shop and still use it 40 years later.

- Typing class with real live typewriters.

- Driver training. How many were exposed to that horror film "Signal 30"
that was supposed to scare us into driving safely? It's on youtube if you
want to refresh your memory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsPsq5jsnYg


--
wff_ng_7 (at) verizon (dot) net

In article > ,
"Dimitri" > wrote:

> How about catching summer Fire Flies at night and putting them into a glass
> jar?

I caught the fire flies in Abilene Kansas during one summer when I was
five and jarred them. I haven't seen fire flies since. I can't imagine
that kids don't still do that where they're common.
I remember smudge pots on construction sites.
I remember Ovaltine with 'Captain Midnight' insignia cloth backed
stickers in every jar. They looked exactly like peace symbols.
I remember mumblety-peg and root-the-peg and hand made sling-shots.
There was no T.V., but my first memory of it was going to the big city
and seeing 'Dragnet'. My favorite program when we finally got one was
'The Adventures of Hiram Holliday'.
I remember 'spare the rod and spoil the child' was practiced in school
too.
I remember pink pants and black vinyl jackets with buckles on them.
Anyone I didn't like was a Commie or a Red.
That should just about zero in on how old I am.

leo

--
<http://web0.greatbasin.net/~leo/>

Leonard Blaisdell wrote:
> In article > ,
> "Dimitri" > wrote:
>
>> How about catching summer Fire Flies at night and putting them into a glass
>> jar?
>
> I caught the fire flies in Abilene Kansas during one summer when I was
> five and jarred them. I haven't seen fire flies since. I can't imagine
> that kids don't still do that where they're common.


My grandchildren live in Oregon where there are no fireflies. They come
to Maryland to visit and we always caught fireflies is mason jars. It's
a summertime tradition.

I love all the other comments. I'm older than most of you - 72 years.
It's good to hear the good old days are not forgotten.

Rusty in Md

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:54:52 GMT, "wff_ng_7" >
rummaged among random neurons and opined:

>- Home Economics for the girls and Shop for the boys. I remember metal shop,
>wood shop, electrical shop. I've still got the tin funnel I made in 8th
>grade metal shop and still use it 40 years later.

I was the first girl at Lakenheath American High School to take shop.
I threw a fit when I was told that *all* the girls took home ec and
*all* the boys took shop. Shop sounded way cooler to me than home ec.
My father went to bat for me and the first thing I did in that class
was jam a cold chisel into my finger that required stitches. The shop
teacher made some cracks about females not belonging in shop class! I
also found out too late that in home ec, you can eat what you make :-)
>
>- Typing class with real live typewriters.

Did that.
>
>- Driver training. How many were exposed to that horror film "Signal 30"
>that was supposed to scare us into driving safely? It's on youtube if you
>want to refresh your memory:

My driver training consisted of driving in a car with my father on the
flight line of our Air Force base where the only things I could run
into had great big rubber tires under 'em. Learned to parallel park
between a tire of a B-47 and a tire chock.

And I remember riding my bike as a form of transportation, not in
spandex for exercise. Playing marbles in the schoolyard before school.
Hopscotch on our driveway. Red Rover in the side yard. Swinging from
the clothesline poles. Lying on our backs in the yard at my
grandmother's in southern Arizona watching the shooting stars and
listening to WLS out of *Chicago* on a transistor radio.

Terry "Squeaks" Pulliam Burd

--
"If the soup had been as hot as the claret, if the claret had been as
old as the bird, and if the bird's breasts had been as full as the
waitress's, it would have been a very good dinner."

-- Duncan Hines

To reply, replace "spaminator" with "cox"

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:00:51 GMT, "Dimitri" >
wrote:

>How about catching summer Fire Flies at night and putting them into a glass jar?

I did that as a kid growing up in Michigan. We put the jar in a
closet and closed the door so it was pitch black and the firefly
thought it was still night the following day.

Those bugs had very short lives!

--
See return address to reply by email

Terry Pulliam Burd wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:54:52 GMT, "wff_ng_7" >
> rummaged among random neurons and opined:
>
> And I remember riding my bike as a form of transportation, not in
> spandex for exercise. Playing marbles in the schoolyard before school.
> Hopscotch on our driveway. Red Rover in the side yard. Swinging from
> the clothesline poles. Lying on our backs in the yard at my
> grandmother's in southern Arizona watching the shooting stars and
> listening to WLS out of *Chicago* on a transistor radio.
>
> Terry "Squeaks" Pulliam Burd

Definitely, the bike was transportation *and* fun. I'd forgotten about
marbles! And JAX! Hopscotch, sure. Jumping rope. Dodgeball. This a fun
thread

Jill

On Apr 17, 12:43 pm, cathy > wrote:

> We skated on the sidewalk without any kind of knee pads or elbow pads.

Didn't it damage the blades? We always skated on ice.



> I will say that if bike helmets had been required when I was a kid, my
> brother wouldn't be deaf in one ear. He was riding his bike home from
> school one day when he was 12 and hit a patch of ice (Chicago, freak
> spring blizzard, Aoril 1959). He suffered a skull fracture and lost
> the hearing in his left ear. If he'd been wearing a helmet he wouldn't
> have been nearly as seriously injured.

Or even more seriously injured? http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

John Kane, Kingston ON Canada




>
> These things do happen, but I think price we're paying today with our
> paranoid over-protectiveness is causing far moreand more widespread
> damage than the very infrequent injuries that might have occurred
> otherwise. Not to mention the climate of fear our kids are being
> raised with. They're not learning the life lessons we learned and
> that's going to be devestating to them when they grow up and go out
> into the real world.
>
> Cathy

On Apr 18, 2:34 am, "jmcquown" > wrote:
> Terry Pulliam Burd wrote:
> > On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:54:52 GMT, "wff_ng_7" >
> > rummaged among random neurons and opined:
>
> > And I remember riding my bike as a form of transportation, not in
> > spandex for exercise. Playing marbles in the schoolyard before school.
> > Hopscotch on our driveway. Red Rover in the side yard. Swinging from
> > the clothesline poles. Lying on our backs in the yard at my
> > grandmother's in southern Arizona watching the shooting stars and
> > listening to WLS out of *Chicago* on a transistor radio.
>
> > Terry "Squeaks" Pulliam Burd
>
> Definitely, the bike was transportation *and* fun.

Still is. It's been my main means of transportation for the last 25
years and it makes even travelling to work fun. (well at least it
beats sitting in traffic).

John Kane, Kingston ON Canada

> I'd forgotten about
> marbles! And JAX! Hopscotch, sure. Jumping rope. Dodgeball. This a fun
> thread
>
> Jill

On 17 Apr 2007 09:00:16 -0700, Sheldon > wrote:

>On Apr 17, 11:18?am, "Dimitri" > wrote:
>> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>>
>> 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. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
>> bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
>>
>> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
>> pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
>>
>> 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
>> Keds (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.
>>
>> Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
>> after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
>>
>> We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo,
>> X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
>>
>> 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
>> (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) 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 there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
>>
>> 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 ever survive?
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> Dimitri
>
>Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
>hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
>went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
>at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
>"under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
>the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
>god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
>nuts psychotic.
>
>Sheldon

Damn Sheldon, you must be even older than me. I'm 58 and I remember "one nation under
god" in the first grade. That would have been about 1956. The pledge of allegiance was
followed by the lords prayer. I stood near a jewish girl and while we were saying the
lords prayer she said something that contained the words baruch adonai (if I remember
correctly, it has been 51 years after all). It must have warped us all beyond repair.

We didn't have any ADD kids either. You acted up in class you got whacked with a ruler
or for major offenses you were made to go to the teachers desk bend over and get
swacked with a yardstick. Seemed to calm us right down and we payed attention to the
teacher after that.

Remember when flunking a grade meant you had to repeat a year? Those must be the ones
with the totally warped psyches that became violent criminals. ( strange but of the 2
I encountered in 12 years one became a career army sergeant The other (I.Q. about 60
fluked first grade 3 times then did the same in the second I don't know what happened
to him after that) I confess became a bouncer in a whorehouse).

I've said for years that Dr Spock's book did more to destroy this country than the
ruskies ever achieved.

The really sad thing is that there's nothing I can do about it.

Dimitri wrote:
>
> Another Goody For The Old-timers
>
> 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. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
> bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
>
> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
> pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
>
> 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
> Keds (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.
>
> Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
> after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
>
> We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo,
> X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
>
> 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
> (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) 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 there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
>
> 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 ever survive?
>
> :-)
>
> Dimitri

I remember all that Dimitri. Even when my kids were growing up things
were much like that. We had tv, but they (four boys) were always
outside playing...until the street lights came on. The family joke was
that I sent them outside first thing in the morning and not to come in
unless they were bleeding, or lunchtime....lol. They had no allergies
either. They ate what was put in front of them. Cuts and scrapes were
treated with merchurechrome (sp) and a bandaid and they went right back
outside to play. They built "forts" "down in the weeds" and played
"boston bulldogs" on the boulevard.
We live near a lake and our volunteer fire department was summoned by
a siren that could be heard throughout the whole village. The rule was
that when the siren blew, they were to report home so we knew they were
ok. (over the years there were a couple of drownings, both from
tourists) They have all moved to more urban areas, but remember fondly
their carefree childhood. The youngest lived in a large city and
recently moved to a rural area so their kids could experience this.
Kids today have no such carefree existence, with having to excel at
sports etc. Too much pressure for them and it shows......Sharon

Dimitri wrote:

> 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.


Bleach?

> My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw
> sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
> bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.

Never had meat raw. I never used to like beef. Later on I learned that
beef that is grey is overcooked. When it is still pink it has flavour and a
nice texture.


> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
> pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

Pool? I don't remember any private swimming pools except for the very rich
until the 60s. There was a municipal <?> pool run by a service club in the
next town. We used to ride our bikes there, about 10 miles, on our own when
were 7 or 8.


I remember a 30 foot diving tower at a summer camp. It was later reduced to
20 feet, and is now only 10 feet. Too dangerous.


> We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top
> Keds (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..

We had injuries all the time in gym class. My brother still can't fully
extend his right arm after his elbow was shattered wrestling, part of the
gym curriculum. So they still have those ropes you have to shinny up. We
had to do gymnastics. They used to have vault boxes at the YMCA and we used
to go there on weekends. The Y doesn't have them any more. Too dangerous.

> Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much
> harder than gym.

Yep. You either did the work and passed the course or you did it over
again.

> Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
> after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

Not to mention The Strap.



> 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?


There was no such word as Dysfunctional. They were just plain bad.


> 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 ever survive?

Anger management was standing in the corner, or The Strap.

In article >,
says...
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:54:52 GMT, "wff_ng_7" >
> rummaged among random neurons and opined:
>
> >- Home Economics for the girls and Shop for the boys. I remember metal shop,
> >wood shop, electrical shop. I've still got the tin funnel I made in 8th
> >grade metal shop and still use it 40 years later.
>
> I was the first girl at Lakenheath American High School to take shop.
> I threw a fit when I was told that *all* the girls took home ec and
> *all* the boys took shop. Shop sounded way cooler to me than home ec.
> My father went to bat for me and the first thing I did in that class
> was jam a cold chisel into my finger that required stitches. The shop
> teacher made some cracks about females not belonging in shop class! I
> also found out too late that in home ec, you can eat what you make :-)

I went to Catholic schools, no such things as shop classes. Actually
come to think of it in HS we did have a physics lab and an electronics
lab. I took both courses with the same teacher, Ron Poirier. I wonder
what he's doing now.

> >- Typing class with real live typewriters.

Yep, Mr. Palmer didn't like the fact that I was self taught. Hey, I'd
been whacking away at a keyboard since 7th grade having taught myself
how to do it. My home row is NOT what you'd expect. My left hand rests
on the keys W-E-D, right on O-I-J.

> Did that.
> >
> >- Driver training. How many were exposed to that horror film "Signal 30"
> >that was supposed to scare us into driving safely? It's on youtube if you
> >want to refresh your memory:
>
> My driver training consisted of driving in a car with my father on the
> flight line of our Air Force base where the only things I could run
> into had great big rubber tires under 'em. Learned to parallel park
> between a tire of a B-47 and a tire chock.
>
> And I remember riding my bike as a form of transportation, not in
> spandex for exercise. Playing marbles in the schoolyard before school.
> Hopscotch on our driveway. Red Rover in the side yard. Swinging from
> the clothesline poles. Lying on our backs in the yard at my
> grandmother's in southern Arizona watching the shooting stars and
> listening to WLS out of *Chicago* on a transistor radio.

I had an instructor and my very first day what did we do, but right onto
I-95. I guess he thought that getting you through the rough stuff first
was appropriate. The guy had a real thing going, you'd basically drive
him around on his errands.