A Blast From The Past!

The other day I was reminded of the contrasts between my generation and the youth of today. Terrible as this is I remember my parents telling me similar analogies. So I guess it's true, we do eventually turn into our parents. Although I've yet to yell, "turn that music down," I have thought it. So here we go......

This is addressed to all the American children who've survived their upbringing born in the 1930' through the 1970's. You know those of us who were born to mothers who smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol while they were pregnant.

It wasn't uncommon for them to take aspirin, eat blue cheese, or make tuna sandwiches from a can. None of them got tested for diabetes, or as they called it ,"The sugar!"

We, as infants, slept on our stomachs, in cribs painted with lead based paint. There were no childproof lids on the stuff in the medicine cabinet, our parents never locked the doors to our house, or gun cabinets. I rode a bicycle with a baseball hat on my head not a helmet, and padding was for organized football and hockey. When we played it on our own we were pad free.

My parents car had no airbags, and you sat in a baby seat only as long as it could contain you. I don't remember seat belts being worn either, sudden stops were combated by an arm across the chest to keep you from slamming into the metal dashboard. It was a treat to ride in the bed of a pickup truck, on the way to the store to get ice cream.

I drank water from every hose in the neighborhood as a child, they would have laughed at a bottle of water. All my friends shared one bottle of soda through straws, when we were blessed enough to be treated to one. We ate cupcakes and homemade cookies, washed it down with kool-aid sweetened with real white sugar. I didn't have any overweight friends, we were outside playing too much. We'd leave home first thing in the morning, not return till lunch, then disappear till it was dinner time. If you were late your name rung through the neighborhood at the top of Mom's voice, a sign you were in trouble, especially if she used your given name. We had no cell phones, Internet or video games. If you tired to hang around the house you were asked to go outside and play!

We made go carts of scraps found in the junk pile, then rode them down hills, only to find out we forgot to design a brake system. Another lesson learned! We fell out of trees, got cut, lost teeth, burnt from firecrackers and not a lawsuit was filed. We got spanked by our parents and the neighbors if we misbehaved, and no one called children's services.

We survived fishing worms and mud pies. We played in the rain without our coats on and came home soaked much to Mom's dismay. We swam in the river and the pond unsupervised, and still here we are today.

Little league had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Some how the one's that didn't survived the embarrassment. In fact, they either strove to get better or actually went and found an activity suited for them. When those contests were played, we actually kept score, and there were winners and losers. Only the best got the recognition of a trophy, so it meant something to the recipient. There was no recognition for participation.

Our generation didn't turn out so bad. We put a man on the moon, invented the Internet, cell phones, video games, plastic, and a host of other achievements. Fifty years of innovation and new ideas. We survived failure, success, responsibility , and freedom.

Oh, and I went to church every Sunday, confessed my sins every Saturday. Maybe that's what helped me survive!

God Bless
Capt. Bill