Thinking About the Past

Congratulations to all born in the 1930’s, 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s.  First, you survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or had alcoholic drinks while they carried you. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, ate tuna from a tin, ate beef and pork, drank unpasteurized milk and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

After that trauma, your baby beds were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.  You had no childproof lids on medicine bottles or childproof doors or cabinets.  This reporter’s children loved to play under kitchen counters where pots and pans were stored.

As children, when you rode your bicycle, you had no helmets, not to mention the risks you took if you ever hitch-hiked. You would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.  Riding in the back of a pickup truck was always fun. I remember my dad loaning our church his big truck with the back filled with straw and covered with blankets for the whole congregation to ride to Staunton River State Park for a day of swimming and then a picnic supper. (Talk about dangerous; about 25 folks in the back of this big truck with sides).

You drank water from a garden hose and not from a bottle. You shared one soft drink with three friends from one bottle and NO ONE died from this! You ate cakes, cookies, white bread, real butter and drank sodas with sugar, BUT you weren’t overweight because YOU WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

You would leave home in the morning, play all day and no one could reach you until you came home before dark and you were OK.  You did not have Play Stations, Nintendos, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 200 TV channels, no mobile phones, no text messaging, no personal computers….YOU HAD FRIENDS and you went outside and found them!

You fell out of trees, swung on grapevines, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.  You made up games with sticks and balls and although you were told it would happen, you didn’t poke out any eyes.  You rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on their door or just yelled for them.

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.

You had freedom, failure, success and responsibility and you learned to deal with it all.  Let’s face it! You have had the luck to grow up as kids before the government regulated your lives for your own good!

 (Excerpts from Heal the World’s post)