Back To Basics

Please Flag this threadif you think it is important for others to remember what our live used to be.


Hi my fellow ATS'ers,

In the past 30 years or so there has been alot of changes, some for the better, and of course some for the worse. Some of us remember when the was a time we're everything was peachy, anyone younger than those who remember do not usually enjoy the luxuries of the previous generation.

Im talking of the caging of society, it seems (at least in my life-time and many i know) that we are increasingly being strangled of our freedoms and some of the basics of what used to be a part of growing up.

I recieved an email that just reminded me of the way how simple it used to be.

Id like to share it with you, here it is:


CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE



1920's, 30's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.



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



Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.



We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks some of us took hitchhiking.



As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.



Riding in the back of a Ute on a warm day was always a special treat.



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

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Rooster.

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!



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

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Fruit Tingles and some fire crackers to blow up frogs and lizards with.



We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......



WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!



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. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars.



We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!



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

Only girls had pierced ears!



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

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time.......no really!



We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,

We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

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

Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bully's always ruled the playground at school.

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

Our parents got married before they had children and didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade'.....

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 70 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!



And 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 our lives for our own good.



And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.



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

PS -The big type is because your eyes are shot at your age

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

How many of you remember your elders telling the exact story, they passed it onto us, imagine what we'll be passing on to our next gen........

[edit on 14/8/2009 by scubagravy]

very nice thread, subtle, yet inspiring and nostalgic!! If you get what i mean

Times have changed, and they will always blend into the next generation, but the essence of yesterday will be dilluted until it diminishes into.....hell i i say...Folk law

Thanks for the reminder Scuba........

F.U.B.A.R

reply to post by scubagravy



Back in my day, we had to walk to school through the snow UPHILL BOTH WAYS, without feet!

We worked HARD for our pencils, hewing them out of the trees themselves, then mining REAL lead to put into them; and we didn't complain! If you got black lung, then it was no big deal- you just walked it off! That was when MEN were MEN; none of this sissy-boy, namby pamby, "I have feelings" stuff!

etc. etc.


Some very few points were good(such as people not being in contact with each other 24 hours a day and "stranger danger"), but it mostly sounded like someone extremely bitter about society and technology changing along with it's attitudes. My parents were born in the 50's, and not once have they complained about the wane in corporeal punishment in school(nor would my grandpa, mind you; he whooped the butt of a teacher who paddled my dad) or changing societal values, or better prenatal care.

And if you want to "remember how we used to live," I think you'd have to go a bit earlier than the 20's; by that time life was already altered significantly from what it was just a couple decades back.

[edit on 14-8-2009 by Core90]

[edit on 14-8-2009 by F.U.B.A.R]

reply to post by Core90


I hear you, but i dont hear the bitterness that you say you here and of course as you say ;

"And if you want to "remember how we used to live," I think you'd have to go a bit earlier than the 20's; by that time life was already altered significantly from what it was just a couple decades back. "

That is the exact point i a trying to make, i dont need to go back before the 20's because its not what my thread is about. Im talking of my generation, im sorry if you feel it doesnt fit into your demographic but i have left this thread open to interpretation.

My point was that what ever time your from. the next generation just seems to tweak it a bit, and the the greater power such as the government has an effective and very influencial way of guiding us like Lemmings to conform us into the way we become.....

ya know...I disagree with so much on this site but hot dang if this isn't true as all get out

born in the 70's...I am not saying some of these things didn't happen...but I kind of feel a few main differences between us and the kids being born today

1. I think we as a whole might be a bit heartier and stronger...I was always led to believe that I gotta learn for myself. I use to mess around with the light socket and my dad told me not. So one day he said I am not warning you anymore...try it

I tried it and blew myself off the stairs...guess what...I don't do that anymore

2. Respect...I just have a hard time seeing it anymore...everybody wants and people don't want to work for it...

3. Responsibility...I was taught my actions have consequences period...if I see another story where a teacher busts a kid for proven plagarism and then get's fired I am gonna flip

That's what I see...rare for me...but S/F for you OP

-Kyo

Originally posted by scubagravy
reply to post by Core90

 

I hear you, but i dont hear the bitterness that you say you here and of course as you say ;

I see the bitterness(or crabbiness; that actually fits a bit better come to think of it) mostly in the little remarks made throughout it; "Imagine that!" "No really!" ". . .WE HAD FRIENDS. . . " "somehow we didn't starve to death!" etc.

To me that comes off as bitterness/crabbiness.

"And if you want to "remember how we used to live," I think you'd have to go a bit earlier than the 20's; by that time life was already altered significantly from what it was just a couple decades back. "

That is the exact point i a trying to make, i dont need to go back before the 20's because its not what my thread is about. Im talking of my generation, im sorry if you feel it doesnt fit into your demographic but i have left this thread open to interpretation.

My point was that what ever time your from. the next generation just seems to tweak it a bit, and the the greater power such as the government has an effective and very influencial way of guiding us like Lemmings to conform us into the way we become.....

Can't disagree with you there.

Thanks for your replies guys. I spose we cant blame evolution on any one entity. All we can do is to try and drag some old fashioned values through time.

reply to post by scubagravy


This email is eye-opening because a) I realize how much the world has changed in a few short decades and b) what will the next few decades bring?

The children of this generation are experiencing more than any generation before them at earlier ages. Kindergardeners are computer whizzes but social misfits. Elementary students are are video game afficianados but have no idea where their food comes from. Pre-teens socialize through texting (even when they are sitting right next to each other) instead of verbally.

They can't go outside from dusk till dawn these days. Air quality alerts, sexual predators, kidnappers, murderers, and "strangers" are easily avoided by staying indoors watching the television instead.

Schools don't teach, they mandate memorization and regurgitation, preventing them from learning critical thinking skills. Body art and piercings are the new rage and kids use them to "express themselves" as if they don't want to be associated with the generations before them.

reply to post by Hazelnut


Cheers for your reply Hazelnut,

You made some very valid points. I grew up spending most of my time outside only to go in for dinner or sleep, being 31 ive seen some changes in my time already. I have an 18 year old sister and a 14 year old brother who rarely see the sun and are pastey looking creatures , thanks to the internet and the playstation they are quite content to stay in their rooms for the majority of the day.

I notice they take alot longer to shake off colds and flus and other ailments than i did at there age, im rarely crook nowadays, i cant even remember the last time i had the flu.

And your right, if this is whats happened in the last 30 years, i can only wonder how the next 30 years will unfold, for better or worse, time will tell.......

reply to post by KyoZero


Hi Kyozero,

Your 3 points were valid as hell, i had a chuckle at the power socket story , lets just say i dont do it anymore either haha, and yes i agree, respect and responsibility and are diminishing qualities in most of todays kids.

Cheers.

Interesting!!!

I'm sure we do a lot of terribly dangerous things now, and don't even realize!!! Imagine 30 years from now, in the year 2041


"To all you people born in the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s"

....Remember when you used cell phones and didn't even realize they were killing all the bees and giving you cancer?

....Remember when people believed Arab serial killers in rags brought the Twin Towers down in New York?

....Remember when people thought global warming was gonna kill us all, but totally overlooked the damage our pollution was causing to the ocean?

I remember this email. I got it a few years back.

That being said I grew up in the country. I was mowing lawns by age 8 to get an allowance. If I did not do chores I did not get money.

I also want to bring up the bike thing. I used to make ramps out of lumber and cinder blocks or just find really tall dirt mounds. I would spend all day in the summer most of the time running through the woods that had all sorts of dangerous animals living in them (for this to make sense you should know I was a really small kid, even the bobcats could have taken me down if not the coyotes). I used to walk over two miles to fish in a creek and walk the creek for miles before heading home.

I used to catch bugs, lizards, frogs, turtles, and snakes. I knew what to touch and not to touch. I could tell you what berries were safe to eat and those that were not (wild grapes are the best). I used to play with BB guns and machetes and knives.

I rode in the back of jacked up pickup trucks all over and we sat on the fender well. I never wore a seat belt and if the brakes were hit hard we hit the back of the seat or if up front our parents caught us.

Yeah things were simpler and we lived through all kinds of things. Heck, just yesterday I got my wife (30) to try tasting honeysuckle for the first time. As I said though we did manage to live through all kinds of things. At the same time I would not allow or put my son in some of the things I was. I will teach him the things I learned and let him do some of the things I did as a child, but not everything. I now understand that some of the things I did could have killed me at any time.

Like I said I will teach him and do things with him. I will not let him just learn on his own. I guess some things he will have to figure out but those will be things that will only hurt him a little and not kill him.

Raist