Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 10:05 AM
Subject: Fw: How did we survive?
> >
> > HOW DID WE SURVIVE??
> >
> > Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we
> have. As
> > children we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding
> in the
> > back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. Our
> baby
> > cribs were painted with bright colored lead based paint. We often
> chewed on
> > the crib, ingesting the paint.
> >
> > We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and
> when
> > we rode our bikes we had no helmets. We drank water from the garden
> hose and
> > not from a bottle. 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. We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really
> hurt.
> > We played with toy guns, cowboys and Indians, army, cops and robbers,
> and
> > used our fingers to simulate guns when the toy ones or the BB gun was
> not
> > available. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda, but
> we
> > were never over weight; we were always outside playing. Little League
> had
> > tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't, had to learn
> to
> > deal with disappointment. Some students weren't as smart as others or
> didn't
> > work hard so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same
> > grade. That generation produced some of the greatest risk-takers and
> problem
> > solvers. We had the freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and
> we
> > learned how to deal with it all.
> >
> > Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of
> a
> > pristine pool (talk about boring), 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 Ked's (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.
> >
> > Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson by running in the
> halls
> > with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much
> > better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the
> school
> > system. Speaking of school, we all said prayers and the pledge (amazing
> we
> > aren't all brain dead from that), and staying in detention after school
>
> > caught all sorts of negative attention for about the next two weeks. We
> must
> > have had horribly damaged psyches. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an
>
> > abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was anyway) but
> they
> > did give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if we started
> getting
> > the sniffles. 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, PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital cable stations.
> I
> > must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the
> denial of
> > the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a
> mile
> > down the road to some guy's vacant 20, built forts out of branches and
> > pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone
> > Ranger.
> >
> > What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot. He
> > should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the
> property,
> > complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm. 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 and then we got butt-whooped. 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
> > butt-whooped (physical abuse) there too... and then we got butt-whooped
>
> > again when we got home.
> >
> > Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked
> down
> > the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks
> (remember
> > why Tonka trucks were made tough... it wasn't so that they could take
> the
> > rough berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.
> >
> > Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure
> that
> > I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two
> week
> > vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put
> us in
> > when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent. Summers were spent
>
> > behind the push lawnmower and I didn't even know that mowers came with
> > motors until I was 13 and we got one without an automatic blade-stop or
> an
> > auto-drive. How sick were my parents?
> >
> > Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. 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 pick 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 know 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 survive?
> >
> >
David Riker
63 Falcon
70 Torino
74 Midget
http://home.pacbell.net/davriker/
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