Hat tip The Feral Irishman
Guest Post by Diane B
TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO SURVIVED THE 50’s,60’s and 70’s
Some interesting thoughts on life today compared to our growing up years. Thanks to my friend Joe V. for much of this content.
First, we all survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, drank wine, and ate all kinds of sweets and unhealthy foods(by today’s standards), and didn’t ever need to get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with lead-based paints and bars wide enough to fit our heads through. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, no childproofing of doors or cabinets. There weren’t any safety plugs in the electric outlets and some of us learned the hard way, not to stick scissors, knives, or forks into them.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no crumple zones to absorb accident damage, no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Only metal dashboards to stop our heads in an accident. My mother’s right arm was our only safety constraint.
I lived over a mile from elementary school, and even in the harshest cold and snow in Winter, we actually walked to and from school. No buses, or being chauffeured by a parent.
When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets to protect our heads, and no reflectors or any other safety equipment. Many of us rode on the handlebars, downhill! And, we didn’t need any fancy 5, 10, or 15 speed bikes, one speed was all we had! Slow, unless you were going downhill!
We drank water from the kitchen faucet and garden hose and NOT from a bottle or refrigerated cooler. This was particularly risky in a town if you drank from the well water!
We fished and swam in most likely semi polluted rivers and lakes, and we survived.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and none of us actually got sick or died from this.
We ate loads of Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies, white bread and real butter, drank Hood’s Farms’ whole milk chock full of fat, ate Brigham’s ice cream full of fat, ate too many rare hamburgers and too much pizza, and drank Kool-Aid made with real sugar, but we weren’t overweight because we were always outside playing!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, with no supervision, and as long as we were back home by the time the streetlights came on, there was never any panic or concern. Some parents would yell or whistle loudly when it was time to come home. Other than that, no one was able to reach us all day long. And we were just fine.
We would spend hours building our go-carts and mini-bikes out of scraps only to find out we had no brakes and an engine from an old lawnmower. But, we adapted. After running into the bushes a few times, or wear out the soles of our shoes, we learned to solve that problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 250 channels on cable or satellite TV, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet, Twitter or chat rooms! Most of us didn’t have air-conditioning in our homes, if we were lucky we had a fan that only blew hot air on us, somehow we survived.
Not even color TV, if you had a TV. And, there was no remote control either. I was the remote, my parents would tell me to get up and change the channel, of which there were only three! Late night and early morning TV consisted of a test pattern! I still remember for those Saturday morning cartoons to come on. But, somehow we survived.
We had real life 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. Some of us ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and now they say that actually was good for us, ingesting some of the minerals and other organic matter. It probably kept us from getting otherwise sick, that today’s kids would be very prone to. Leading us to the next situation.
We never heard of ADD, ADHD, Bi-Polar, PTSD, and never needed any Prozac, Adderall, Ritalin or any other of the alphabet of drugs they give kids today.
Boys were given BB guns for our 10th or 11th Birthdays which we proudly brought to school for “Show & Tell”. Today, we’d be going to jail and expelled from school.
We were left to our own devices, and made up games, or just threw sticks and rocks at each other, and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out any eyes. Although I came close, I remember my brother and I throwing metal sharp pointed darts at each other in our basement, and I got one stuck in his forehead. He just pulled it out and we kept on throwing. Today, a parent would call 911.
We rode bikes or walked to friends’ homes and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! And their parents! Imagine that! And we knew all our neighbors, and they knew us. If we got out of line, our parents would always find out about it.
Little League and Pee Wee Football had actual tryouts, often having to walk or ride our dangerous bikes to parks miles away. And back then, not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that! Today they get a trophy just for showing up!
The idea of a parent bailing our asses out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law and the police officers! And knew their names, as they were usually friends!
Now, they get sued if they arrest little Johnny who just happens to be high on drugs and robbing a convenience store.
And teachers could actually discipline us without getting sued or fired.
Despite everything we endured, Our generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. But we had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all! ….Congratulations to all my friends that survived that what in today’s terms would be considered a dangerous and unhealthy time.
But, what did we know, we were too busy having fun, spending quality time with our parents and friends. And, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
The real litinus test would be that although we(people around my age) are surviving pretty well with all the technology and new rules of the new world, but could today’s generation have survived in ours the way we grew up?
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We had fights! We played “smear the queer”, King of the Hill, and tackle football without pads and we built bike jumps, egged cars and had endless “wars” with the surrounding neighborhoods. Our BB gun wars (the Crossman 760 Powermaster being the weapon of choice) were somewhat psycho in retrospect….we wore diving masks, a couple of layers and blasted away at each, luckily no eyes or serious injuries resulted though we did have a few bb’s (pellets not allowed) penetrate a little. I had 5-6 teeth knocked out once while playing tackle football without pads and walked home a bloody mess with the teeth in my hand…..luckily the dentist managed to wire them back in and they managed to replant themselves.
Since we had no electronics it was an endless series of pick up games….basketball, football, baseball, odd while we played soccer in leagues or at school it was never a casual activity.
We fished and our dads took us hunting (we had Dads) and the local sheriff’s deputies were often our coaches in little league…..and the teachers would let the deputies know if we were in need of some additional laps…..I certainly ran my share.
Was it better? Not really the measure, it was our experience, we had freedom but we also had very little supervision and did lots of things we would have been better off not doing.
Conversely, our current snowflakes seldom find out things the “hard way”, getting your ass kicked in a schoolyard fight is a formative experience they mostly missed….specifically losing a fight. Teaches you a lot as do most negative experiences and we have done the younger generation a great disservice by seeking to prevent then from going through any and all negative experiences.
Junior year in high school chemistry class I got into a brawl with the captain of the football team. Flying over tables of test tubes and chemicals. At the end he said show up at the practice field and we will finish this. He could have killed me. I showed up. When he got there he shook my hand and said man, you have balls. We were good friends for the rest of high school. It taught me to Stand my ground. That shit ain’t happening today.
And when we all jumped into a big pile of kids it was a “nigger pile”. At least in the segregated South. As for friends, I have known the men that I can truly call “friend” for 70,55,43 and43 years respectively. Martel: truly a great response!
I do not remember how young I was when I started fishing with my Dad, but it was quite young. Started bird and frog hunting with him when I was 5 (I was the retriever). I will never forget shooting his “Sweet 16” the first time. I hit the side of the barn I was shooting at, just before my butt hit the dirt. He and his pals had a big laugh at my expense.
Got a J C Higgins .410 pump shotgun for Christmas just after my 7th birthday and was no longer a retriever, except for birds that I shot or ones that landed near me. He was always close at hand making sure I did not do anything stupid and taught me a lot on our walks through the woods and fields. There is nothing in the world quite like having a Father as part of your life. He has been gone 20 years, but I still think about him when shooting, doing woodworking projects or many other activities we used to do together.
I spend as much time as I can with my grandkids who live nearby, teaching them little things and I hope they keep me in their thoughts as they use these skills in the future and teach them to their kids/grandkids.
I relate to just about everything in this sweet reminiscence. It was the best of times to grow up.
Now – a complete and utter fucking sociological, psychological and spiritual disaster.
Just today at the market I saw what appeared to be 10-11 year old children who looked like Shar Pei dogs; waddling with rolls of fat bursting out of their shorts and late teens who were almost completely covered with tattoos. The parents were using the kids as accessories as they were morbidly and disgustingly obese and tatted.
The decline of our civilization has been swift and steep and we still have that cliff to go over into that just over the horizon dark abyss.
My parents bought me a single shot bolt .22 rifle. 12 years old and shooting a rabbit on the run. We had the soap box derby. Build your own a race to the bottom of the hill. No godam licence or insurance extortion BS.
As children we would go
Soldiers and indians
On dusky plains with buffalo
Up on the hills and grass
By the river would we play
A summer breeze caressing us
And blazing sunsets to end the day…
—
Then there were also the times alone, while laying up on those grassy hills chewing on a piece of grass, and staring at clouds.
Good times.
Sorry you had to wait till 10 for a BB gun. My brother and I got an old 12ga. double when I was 10 and he was 12. We took turns jumping on brush piles to flush a rabbit. The farmer down the road bought furs in the winter and loaned us a dozen leg hold traps for muskrat and weasels provided we sold them to him. Our milk came from a family member named Bossy, a 3 titted Guernsey/Jersey. At 12 we were privelidged enough to pick beans for .25 a bushel. That’s one heck of a lot of beans but a quarter meant 2 sodas and a candy bar up at the gas station. Riding our bikes 4 miles to little league was not a problem. It was all the mean dogs on the way that were the problem.
How is air quality Flea? I ask for nice clean dustfree breezes for you and yours in my prayers.
I am not sure we all survived the 70s.
It’s good, thanks. No real fires this year and just one minor dust storm.
My buddy and I spent an entire summer of nights raiding the neighborhood gardens, getting home to bed at daybreak. In those days the houses had backyards that abutted alleys. True abundance in all the gardens such that we feasted yet hardly made a dent in the fortunes of the gardeners. To this day I love hard fruit, sour apples, and cucumbers soaked in vinegar (we carried jars of vinegar and Tabasco). We could see in the dark even to spotting the wire one guy set up to trip an alarm as we prowled his plants. Oh the fun we had as sneaks doing dirty deeds, though one time my buddy dropped his wallet in a garden and the next day his dad having been notified of the lost wallet sent him over to work in that garden’s owner’s beds for a few hours.
Our Little League games were attended by players and sometimes a friend or two. No parents came. The umpires were conscripted high school kids in our own neighborhoods. But most games of football, basketball, and baseball were pickup games without any refs whatsoever. On weekends we would gain access to the high school gym by entering through the heating “tunnels.” I found out that I am claustrophobic and got the hell out of there just several feet in. Let the other guys, thank you, make the trek through those hot, close hellish tubes!
I spent hundreds of hours out in the sagebrush desert plinking with my little pump-action .22 with a friend and our dogs. We climbed tall trees, dug for worms, hiked or rode bikes everywhere, and later on water-skied on the Columbia and the Snake rivers. On the sandy river islands we had watermelon and girls on blankets who were even more delicious than the melons. No fucking, just everything else. Man, we had no idea we were living a dream.
Some of the farmers where I grew up loaded rock salt into shotgun shells to deter delinquents such as you. I managed to avoid the experience, but some of my friends took a couple of loads, and howled like banshees. Rock salt under the skin stings a bit, you see.
And all those freedoms experienced and dangers survived that millennials never had a chance to, … YOU put the restrictions on them. How do I know? You were the millennials parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, politicians, elders etc etc and they were CHILDREN.
YOU DID THIS
#FuckOffBoomerCunt
Yes, we did, I am guilty to some degree, that is the way of things….and have faith for these Millennials are the “Hero” generation that same as the WWII veterans, those who wore Blue or Grey of answered the call and joined the Continental Army…..The will be the new greatest generation….our efforts were not in vain.
A lot of good memories . We rode bicycles all the time. I went everywhere on that
Bike or so it seemed. During the summer months we went fishing , hunting or going in the woods to shoot our guns. My first gun was a single shot 12 gauge. My grandfather bought it for me at the age of 12. It’s still in the family .My nephew has it .I carried it on my bike across town to my friends house sometimes daily without any problems. No one ever called the police.Now I never see kids riding bicycles.
I never see kids fishing At the Lake. Our society has changed and for the worse.
It’s like our country has gone somewhere and I know we will never get the old America back and it’s a damn shame.
Rosie..
Those glasses are killing you.
Hating humans for wanting to give their kids things they didn’t have like central heating and hot and cold running water is perfectly natural.
My version of running water came from a well outside that I had to run out to in winter and pour a glass of hot water down it to thaw it our so I could pump till my 3 gallon buckets were full and then run back inside and scorching my butt on the wood stove to warm up while my bath water got hot and then run it over to the galvanized stock watering tub so my sisters could dirty it up a little before I got my turn.
If not wanting your kids to use that same pump year round to water 2,00 chickens 1/8 mile away and then 10 more for Bossy and ten more for 2 feeder pigs is evil, then so be it. God will send us to hell for doing what old school people in Biblical times did. Spoil their kids a little.
I was not the only kid in school who spent his first 9 years living in a tarpaper shack that leaked all over and got so cold in the morning you couldn’t sleep in. Aren’t you glad we improved things?
Who could possibly downvote Flea’s comment! At 58, I was lucky enough to not have it quite that bad, we had the 2 bedroom “shotgun shack” a southern classic…..front door and back door aligned so a shotgun would blast right through. We did not have AC in central Florida! My older relatives grew up in very similar conditions to Flea.
The rich sent their sons to live with peasants in the middle ages so they wouldn’t be spoiled and would learn hardship and work.
Wow! You really had it hard! But it’s a mistake to think that just because someone lived in affluence or came from a privileged home, wasn’t taught (and in turn, taught our kids) that: 1) nobody owes you anything because you’re here, 2) that is it healthy and good to take risks in life to pursue your dream, and 3) you might fail doing it! Then, there’s the most important thing: there is nothing wrong with poverty. It isn’t immoral. It isn’t a crime. It is the result of internal and external factors. What’s most important about people? It’s character.
I think that the spoiled, coddled Millenial of today mostly come from parents who were union members, not self-employed. The people I saw complain the most when I worked at my dad’s business in high school were people in (UAW/Teamsters) unions who were taught that they were “owed” decent wages, free healthcare, etc…. while my dad worked his ass off taking huge risks and building that business. He didn’t get a pension, he had to save, but THEY DID! I think today’s Millenials are a result of both of those attitudes and they’re not all the same. Some are very libertarian. Some are coddled just like their union member parents….
By the millenials time, Law Enforcement was taking a fiendish delite in ruining lives with punative punishment for the same antics we did.
Yeah, it’s really great living in a nation of your own people, where the relatively few minorities are compelled to toe the line or face consequences.
Maybe next time we’ll keep the Frankfurt school out of our perfectly good nation so they won’t be able to tell us how unhappy our women are or how mean we are to blacks or how selfish we are by not letting every filthy shitskin move here. Let’s not get jewed out of our country next time so our kids can just be kids instead of budding consumers, faggots, bitches or whores.
Exactly. Who prostituted our kids?
We all did…
You just described perfectly my Catholic school’s SJW warrior nuns indoctrination of thousands of kids in “liberation theology”. It ain’t just the FFurt school.
Yellow BMX?
I read this and I thought to myself … I WOULDN’T CHANGE A THING ABOUT MY CHILDHOOD. I grew up in the 60s and early 70s. My brother and I did 80% of the stuff mentioned here. We didn’t have much money but my brother and I marvel that we lacked nothing. And I mean that …. nothing! We had two parents that made us the CENTER OF THEIR LIVES. Neither mom nor dad has aspirations to win a local marathon or other self-indulgent crap. They cared about their kids. And it showed. And now that we as two adults were are filled with gratitude for everything. Count your blessings. The kids of today have no idea …. HOW GOOD WE HAD IT!
I don’t remember ever being in an activity that one or both parents were not present. The last time I went to see a HS football game, I was appalled at the lack of parents/grandparents attending for the opposing team. They were located in the hood, so I guess the parents had better things to do on a Friday night, than watch their sons play for the local team. My parents would give up just about anything to support their 4 children and I am a better man for the sacrifices they made.
“Boys were given BB guns for our 10th or 11th Birthdays which we proudly brought to school for “Show & Tell”.
Not where I came from. BB guns came in around age 6 (careful you do not shoot an eye out, now go out and play.), and .22s around 8 or 9 (careful you do not shoot a foot off, now go out and play)(admittedly just single shot.) By 10 or 11 you were on to the big artillery – 12 gauge shotguns and such (careful you do not blow a hole in Mrs. McReady’d garage trying to kill that damn squirrel, like you did with the .22, now go out and play).
Of course, we knew how to handle guns. No pointing them at anyone, and only allowed to shoot kids in the ass with the bb guns, and no where else.
Every back door had a shotgun or rifle behind it and some ammo on the window ledge.
And ours were always loaded. Never had a break in. wonder why?
We had an ice box. Detroit was the highest per income in the nation. Beautiful city. We didn’t have a TV, we listened to the games on the radio.
Most of all? If was fun growing up.
DJ.
Yes the ICE BOX, how did I forget that. the Iceman asking one block or two from the truck.
We got a TV in late 57.
Our first TV was a year earlier and the first thing I heard out of that wonderful box was Broderick Crawford saying “10-4” as Highway Patrol was playing when it came on for the first time.
I reposted this piece on reddit just to piss them off, and it was downvoted to zero in less than two minutes (which I expected).
Which exposed them to this website for the first time and they are horrified by it, some saying “Well that site is a hot garbage fire.”
It’s a shame Jim that TBP doesn’t show a thumbnail on reddit because thumbnails attract views, whereas your site without a thumbnail only shows up as a ‘self’ post which will attract fewer readers.
Don’t know why the logo from this website won’t transfer to reddit? I wish you’d work on that so I could piss off more people, and I’d repost from here more often. Those people need to see what free speech actually looks like. It scares the shit out of them.
That’s a very good question. I think we’re getting the answer every time we see a mass shooting. They’re finding it hard to cope even with all the very cool and groovy toys we didn’t have. But they didn’t have the advantage we had to create, experiment, etc. etc.
I guess they’ll learn.
Being a Radio DJ at 16 was a trip too; there’s not even that career opportunity any more. I was very lucky to become a major market “Boss Jock”. A kid couldn’t do it today. And who still listens to broadcast radio? I guess were I to reverse my life living it in these times, I would probably have launched a U-tube channel.
“And who still listens to broadcast radio?”
Me! KHYI 95.3 The Range…
Hey, GCP…..Me too.
Would you critique this a bit….it’s 55 min. long. If you can, this guy does etymological study on the original hebrew while doing the same on the english…..subjects in this god’s name, contaminated seed, and an interesting take on an old testament ‘fulfilled’ prophecy on the day of Pentecost…..Sadduccees and Pharisees, and Paul’s claim to be of the Pharisees
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <<<<<——–==
The 50's, 60's and 70's were different……but nothing has changed-the prince is still pulling the strings in DC
104.1 US 1 Raido
Awww… get off my lawn. Rock fights, pine cone fights, fistfights, smear the queer. Many more unacceptable fun and games. My favorite not favorite memory is throwing apples on the crazy old man’s trailer from the hill above. Unfortunately Rocky liked white jeans and when the first 30 06 round hit the stump Rocky stood on we all ran like the scared rabbits we became. Good thing old crazy man wasn’t trying to kill anyone.
I’m a millennial and I survived doing all the same dangerous things you brag about doing (except maybe having to walk through miles of snowy weather butt naked up hill both ways), and my kids will as well. Maybe if the lazy, selfish boomers did their jobs as parents we wouldn’t see so many inept X and Y ers…
We all also were 1A for the selective service draft that many won an all expense paid trip to some shithole part of the world and some damn good people came home in a box . Today 70% of young men 18 to 24 are unfit physically , mentally or emotionally for military service .
Soy Boys that sat and played call to duty never expecting their fat ass may actually have to answer the real call .
We are in real deep shit as a nation and this diversity is our strength is bull shit ! Diversity is a dividing factor when we need to be out of many one !
went to the jets game yesterday (free ticket, wouldn’t spend my own money on one), the “stadium experience” is one of constant, unremitting noise (music, PA, videos, commercials) played at a deafening level including a siren sound effect that was played over and over and over, not a moment to simply soak in the gorgeous day. alas, that’s the new normal.
All of the older contributors here have similar things to reminisce about the good old days.
So too, we all can probably see how it all changed for the worse.
My take is, the rare times when there were permanent injuries or deaths caused grief stricken parents to petition lawmakers to take actions hoping to minimize or prevent accidents and hardships that were too traumatic, and justified new rules and regs so other snowflakes would never have to endure what they did.
Law of unintended consequences.
Funny how accidents, injuries, and unfortunate deaths have not been prevented.
And never will be.
The resultant pampered class has thus shackled and damaged the kiddies of today, but their parents & grandparents who pushed for changes, and new rules and regs would never believe their solutions just created far more problems.
…in my opinion.
It all went to shit in the 80’s…getting worse ever since, but now, getting worse FASTER.
Grew up as a very young kid in the 60’s and kid/teen in the 70’s and did just fine!Dirt bikes/bicycles/camping/tree forts/many stupid events and yet have all my fingers and toes!
Now kids have “play dates” ect.,tis sad what has happened to our youth,and,to a degree our fault for allowing the insanity of “It’s for the children” rubbish.
#Millennialssuckass
#BoofukkinHoogetalife
On days when it rained, we stayed in the basement and played monopoly, risk, battleship (or other conquest games!)
Our parents rode bikes with us to the local Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors after dinner for ice cream cones….
Vacations consisted of renting a 2 or 3 bdrm cottage with bare minimum necessities along with our aunts and uncles, who also rented cottages so we had 57 cousins and always someone with whom to play…
“Entertaining” consisted of parties at one neighbor’s/relative’s house (usually in the basement) where copious amounts of liquor were consumed….
We spent time exploring the world around us – especially local vacant lots, fields, parks, because housing hadn’t yet become mass-produced, Edward Scissorhands-like cookie cutter tract home fields.