Memory Lane

[George Schilling]

For those of us over 40, the story below is memory lane. Anyone under 30 will probably gasp at what life was like for us as kids. I have mentioned in some posts how many freedoms we have lost as the government controls more and more of our lives. Reading this may help you understand what I'm talking about. As you read, think how by today's standards our parents would have been considered unfit and even arrested for allowing us to be kids. I, for one, am glad I grew up when I did.

Georgie

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1950's, 60's, and 70's

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

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

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

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

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

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

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

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

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

Because we were always outside, playing...that ' s why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times,
we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from the accidents.

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

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

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

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These 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.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

If YOU are one of them? CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were..

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?
~

[George Schilling]

One of my fondest memories as a kid was the model T swap meet that took place in an old dirt and weed field down the street from my house. We played in that field all the time, but the weekend the models T's came was special. I spent just about every minute rummaging through every box of parts, climbing in and looking at the the old cars, dreaming of one day having one myself. I don't have one yet, but I will.

[John Coffey]

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?

Or stick a pair of tweezers in a wall outlet the see what electricity does. The house got real dark and quiet right after the big blue flash. The tweezers were no more. I got a spanking (with a belt), and got stuck inside the house after school for two weeks.

Or get caught climbing on the roof of the neighbor's house (by the neighbor) trying to retrieve a glider. Got a slap on the butt from her and a couple more from my mom after the neighbor dragged me back home and explained things.

One right thing Hillary said, "It takes a village to raise a kid." Unfortunately, that concept is long gone.

[Tom Denham]

George how long have you been living in the lakewood long beach area??

Did you ever see the Model T hill climbs in Signal hill.







That and we would ride our Skateboards down Shell hill.

I was about Ten years old, so the last hill climb was in The 70's.

[George Schilling]

The hill climb is long gone. The spot where that top pic was taken is now a "new" house that was abandoned about 2 years ago and never completed. The rest of the hill is filled with million dollar homes in the middle of the ghetto. The foliage is representative of the field near my house that we used to play in except we had about 40 eucalyptus trees to climb in. It was amongst the trees that the model T people would spread out their tarps and fill them with their old car parts. We used to have a tree house made from scrap lumber we scrounged from remodeling projects in the neighbor hood. Our lower platform was at least 20 feet in the air, and we had a second platform at least 8 feet higher. Can you imagine the city allowing that today? The ladder was made from various scraps of 2 x 4's that we nailed to the trunk with 16 penny nails that we scrounged from those construction sites. If you know anything about construction, that didn't leave much penetration into the tree trunk. But safety wasn't really a concern. More that once someone would be climbing up the "ladder" and have a rung twist off only to somehow hang on or go tumbling to the ground. We'd be stunned of course, but I don't remember any one breaking anything.

[Tom Phillips]

Long, long, long ago, my family lived in 1000 Oaks. Jungleland was 3/4 mile from the back door, as a crow flies. My brother, at 5 or 6, would meander through the fields, walk through the gate and wander around the compound until a guard saw him. They would call Mom to get him, or they would just bring him home.
We would catch tarantulas in the fields next to our house and put them in an aquarium just to watch them. We never got bit that I can remember.
There was an 90 year old lady (still remember her name - Irma Cravitz) that drove a Model B where ever she wanted, mostly on the wrong side of the road... The others drivers would just pull out of her way 'till she passed.
Those of us that lived through that era (born in the 40's, raised in the 50's & 60's) see life through a different looking glass, and remember it fondly. We saw the begining of Rock and Roll, Sputnik and moonwalks, The Beatles, Elvis, The Stones, and 100+ one-hit-wonders, that we knew the words to, because there were words you could understand (save Mick Jagger).
The upside of the computer age is that there is a faster way to get information, get things done, etc. The down side is that the current generations don't know how to add, subtract, multiply or divide without a calculator. It has removed the craftmanship from almost every job and turned our workforce into "technicians".
Change is the only constant, but there are times that I wish it would slow down and let our younger generations take the time to smell the roses.

[Reijo Silvennoinen]

George! No wonder your hip and knees are giving you problems.....mine are fine but that is because we jumped off nothing higher than our garages!

Reijo

[George Schilling]

George! No wonder your hip and knees are giving you problems.....mine are fine but that is because we jumped off nothing higher than our garages!

Reijo

True that! I was jumping off roofs longer than I should have been when I was in a hurry........well into my 30's. Now I look at it and I'm sure I would break something upon landing. Its funny how perspective changes with age.

[Craig Naylor]

That post brings back memories...

Thought I hit your lowest bracket this year, and had a Betamax, computer (see other post) and an Atari 2600 once in HS...

I remember climbing our pine tree to above the height of the telephone pole on the corner of our lot

Jumping off of our bike seats hoping to grab the lower branches of the pine tree before the bike crashed into the brick wall just the other side of the trunk.

Co-ed sleepovers with all of the neighborhood kids (elem school age), and thinking nothing of it.

Egging cars front doors, toilet papering trees with no (financial) consequences (the belt was always a possibility if caught by a parent) and helping your friends afterward clean up what "someone else" did.

Riding in the storm drain, jumping into and out of it.... some times not landing until hitting the bottom, many a broken bike frame, maybe a broken arm or two over the years (luckly not myself), while not wearing a helmet.

Same with early narrow wood, and plastic skateboards with metal wheels in same storm drain

Riding the pedal tractor down the closest hill, and using the curb at Lauren's house and jumping into the grass to bring it to a stop.



Then there are things that "saftey" has one out on that are good. My dad getting (a little) air in our VW bug on dictionary hill in San Diego with all three of us in the "way back" (a few times over the years a car doing the same would land through the roofs of homes on the streets.) Today there is a stop sign at nearly every "lip".... this probably a good thing with higher horsepower cars.... We lost several neighborhood teens to these streets growing up.

[Steve Ekstrand]

Well there was that day I went to the steepest hill in town and tried to peg the speedometer on my bike ( it went to 65). I pegged the speedometer.
But it didn't end well. I was maybe 7 at most? The steel speedometer case was ground all the way through on the corners as were the tops of the handle bars. As was me, with ground down exposed bone all over the place. I still have lots of scars from that day. But how many 6 or 7 year olds have hit 65 on their own???? It was worth waking up in the hospital right???

Should we have sued Schwinn for making a bike speedometer that went that high? Or the bike shop that sold it to a 6yo?

[Steve Towers]

That post brings back memories...

5th, 6th, 7th grade:

Taking the bus from Compton to the beach in Long Beach. Body surfing at Lindon beach. Rides and games and taffy at the Pike. Gone all day. Never a problem.

Climbing to the top of an 80 foot pine tree in front of the elementry school. Could see forever. No one ever got hurt.

All over town doin' stuff with your friends. As long as you were home for dinner it was cool.

Hide and seek on summer nights. Every kid in the neighborhood showed up.

No one locked their houses or cars. You could talk to strangers.

Only a couple of TV's on the whole block. Black and white. 21 inch HUGE screens.

The neighbors actually spoke to each other and did things together.........

[John Coffey]

Taking the bus from Compton to the beach in Long Beach. Body surfing at Lindon beach. Rides and games and taffy at the Pike. Gone all day. Never a problem.

Same idea here but we took the Pink Bus from La Habra to Huntington Beach carrying our knee board, one Churchill fin, a beach towel, wearing OP shorts, flip flops, $5, no sunscreen, and a puuka shell necklace. Last bus back all the way to La Habra was at 6:35pm.

[John Prosser]

Visit this AMA site to learn more and / or send a message to congress.
These idiots are out of control.
The poor kids are growing up in a life with no consequences for their actions and no responsibility for outcomes.
Subconsciously they know that no matter what happens they just have to hit reset (or call Barac)

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