Survival

[khall64au]

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the

1930'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.

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

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, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

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

Riding in the back of a pick up 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 and real butter and drank soda pop 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. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no

99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell 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.

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!

This generation has 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!

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?!

Edited August 26, 2005 by khall64au

[Explorer]

i had to take 3 steps back from the monitor to read this post

Explorer

[meom]

Thanks for reminding me of my childhood (60's) which was great indeed.

Besides go karts I made my own parachutes jumping out of trees which nearly killed me

[Jai Dee]

i had to take 3 steps back from the monitor to read this post   

Explorer 

Me too...

please stop shouting

[dereklev]

Blimey Khall! !

I had forgotten most of that! !

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

Sadly cannot let children do this in the UK anymore, too many sicko's

Thanks for a reminder of what life used to be like! !

[Crossy]

i had to take 3 steps back from the monitor to read this post   

Explorer 

Ah, but when you get to our age you need big print

Sort of caught me my surprise too...

[khall64au]

i had to take 3 steps back from the monitor to read this post    

Explorer 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Me too...

please stop shouting

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I tried to fix it, but it didn't work

[khall64au]

My childhood memories are from the '70's when we ran riot and mum was always taking one us to the hospital to get stitched up.

We did the craziest things like jumping off the garage roof into about 2 feet of water in the backyard swimming pool; and roaming deserted beach dunes all day on our own without anyone worrying about our safety.

But gawd help us if we weren't home when the streetlights came on

So many adventures, so little time.....

[Gazza]

Brilliant Khall. Brought back some great memories.

Here's something similar I found yonks ago and posted in the jokes section a while back.

1984

When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 2 bob an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in he11 I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But....

Now that I've reached the ripe old age of 45, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so f*ckin' easy!

I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a goddamned Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet--we wanted to know

something, we had to go to the goddamned library and look it up ourselves!

And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter...with a pen!, and then had to walk ALL THE WAY across the street and put it in the f*ckin' mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the goddamned record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over some part of it and &lt;deleted&gt; it all up!

You want to hear about hardship?

You couldn't just download porn! You had to bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the corner shop! It was either that or wack-off to the lingerie section of the Mail Order catalog!

Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy crap like a mobile's Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either!

When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was. It could be your boss, your

mom, a collections agent, your drug dealer, you didn't know!!! You just had to

pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the ZX Spectrum 48k!

With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics were awesome! Your guy was a little square? You had to use your imagination!

And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died!

Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium seating!

All the seats were the same height! A tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed!

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a mag like the 'TV Guide' to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning...

...D'ya hear what the &lt;deleted&gt; I'm saying!?!

We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little b@stards!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.

You're spoiled, I swear to God! You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1984!

[Jai Dee]

Excellent Gazza!!!

[andyfletch]

Have a butchers at this, typical English Christmas ?

Everything in the 70s was better than today. The massive sideburns. The huge, mad unconditioned hair. Eight-inch wide Kipper ties. The three day week. High waisted three button trousers. Wonder Bras (the first time round). Stack heeled platform boots with metal segs in. Ziggy Stardust. Chopper Bikes The Sweeney and Progressive Rock. We all smelled of Brut, carried around albums by King Crimson and Vand Der Graaf Generator and a foreign holiday was a week in a caravan in Carlisle.

A 70s Christmas was full of unchanging certainties: Double Diamond beer, Slade, a bottle of Advocaat for the over 60s, a box of dates with a wooden fork that only your dad would eat, radio active orange coloured cheese balls that made small children hyperactive and eventually vomit.

Of course, there was Morecambe and Wise, The Great Escape, a box of liquid centre fruits jellies and laughing at your granddad trying to crack walnuts with a hammer on the hearth because youd lost the nut cracker even and despite the fact that no one liked walnuts.

You would always get several pairs of large brown nylon Y-fronts with contrast coloured trimmings which could be pulled up to your neck. And you would usually be given soap on a rope by your Grandma and a copy of the Joy of Sex from one of your older brothers daft mates and a Magpie annual from one of your Aunties who still thought you were ten. This happened every year for a whole decade.

By Boxing Day you were on the verge of insanity after being crammed into a small room with eight people, all of whom youre related to and not one of whom you liked in the slightest. The windows would be flooded with condensation and the room choking with the smell of sprout farts, fags and your Uncles old bulldog with the leaky bottom. Or your aunt, to give her the correct title.

This explained why Boxing Day matches always got such massive crowds.

Even people who loathed football went just to get out of the house.

Darlington would get 37,000 turn up to see them play Rochdale, or at least it seemed like it. In Glasgow 125,000 people would collectively urinate in each others pockets at Hamden Park.

Thousands of fans crammed onto terraces all over the country to see football played by hairy but balding overweight men in heavy 100% cotton football shirts. It was always freezing cold and frosty. The law insisted you had to wear a Parka or if you were a bit older and had long hair, a Great Coat.

Great Coats were rightly named. They really were great. They were either old army coats or were styled on trench coats. They were huge and were almost floor length and made of 100% heavyduty wool. If you were a weak boy, they were heavy enough to deform your spine. They were compulsory clothing if you were going to see Jethro Tull or The Groundhogs, even in the summer. They soaked up loads of beer and you could sleep in a ditch while wearing one after too much beer at a Fairport Convention reunion gig in a field somewhere in Oxfordshire.

The best Xmas present a man ever got was given to a mate of mine in 1975.

The location was Ayresome Park, Middlesbrough and it involved one such huge army style Trench Coat. You might want to ask your loved one to give you the same present this Xmas. However, if your lady isnt progressive or open-minded you may well be spending Xmas sleeping on the sofa if you do, so beware.

You have to remember that sex in the mid seventies was still a relatively harmless occupation. Anything you caught could be cured with penicillin, a pink cream, by wearing loose underwear or letting the dog lick your scrotum

The lad in question had a brilliant girlfriend. We all thought she was brilliant anyway. She looked like Suzi Quattro and, though only 16, could drink us all blind. She was the sort of girlfriend your grandma would call "a bit loose", which was rarer than you might imagine for most of us.

So when she asked what he wanted for Xmas he naturally wanted, as any 16-year-old would want, to combine football and sex. Having it off while Match of the Day was on in her parents back room was thrilling as long as Jimmy Hill wasnt on screen, but he wanted to go one step further.

And so it came to pass that his Xmas present was to be orally pleasured live at Ayresome Park in the middle of a match. Try sticking wrapping paper round that.

This is where the Great Coat came into the equation. She was a small, even petite girl. Small enough to crawl under a big coat and huddle under there undiscovered. Or so she thought.

We stood at right at the back of the Holgate so no-one was behind us. Fans stood either side but the football was really good so they were all distracted. Half way through the first half she bent down as though to fasten a shoelace. He opened the coat for a moment and then fastened it around her.

We had thought it would be easy to hide her but we were wrong. He looked like he was holding an angry Otter under his coat as she unzipped him and got to work.

When youre 16 youre pretty much ready for red hot action every hour of the day and things reached a critical point within two minutes.

Unfortunately, even in this short space of time, everyone around us had become aware of something odd going on under his coat despite his best attempts to look casual and had all turned to look.

He was sure hed be able to keep a straight face and look casual like nothing was happening. But evidently nothing can prepare you for the sensory delights of a blow job during a football match and his face was a contorted mixture of pleasure and embarrassment.

Soon everyone had sussed what was going on, especially as her legs were sticking out of the bottom of his coat as she kneeled on the Terrace. It was pretty obvious to all when she'd reached the end game by which time there were general cries of encouragement and much obscene comment. She emerged from under the coat to a huge cheer and many requests that she perform similar service to other fans.

It was a classic, very 70s moment. Even more so because afterwards we went and drank lager and lime and ate Tudor beef crisps - crisps so pungent and strong that they stained your fingers for days and you couldnt get the smell of them off unless you dipped your hands in bleach.

I can only hope that your Christmas brings you as much pleasure.

[Sir Burr]

Am so glad I was a kid during the sixties and seventies.

Edited August 26, 2005 by Sir Burr

[bannork]

I went to a prep school on the North York moors from 1963 to 1968, we had tree dens with long rope ladders, planks for floors and corrugated iron walls and roofs. Underground dens had corrugated iron roofs covered in soil with a lone trapdoor leading down passages. There was a fireplace which made it cosy in winter. We even had a log cabin, the sacking nailed to the logs was a terrible fire risk. I remember one time when we couldn't control the flames and all had to beat a hasty retreat. The headmaster gave us a real roasting for that, pun intended. Boys would frequently climb the enormous oak and birch trees, nobody thought about the danger, and in those 5 years I only remember one accident, and that was a boy falling down the stairs.

When we got to the sixth form, aged 12, we had a hitch hiking competition; in pairs we had to hitch as far away as possible on one day, ring up the school in the afternoon making a reverse charge phone call to prove where we were. Some boys didn't return for a day or two.

A lot of fun, there was a dark side though; the headmaster used to beat us with billiard cues, when we played billiards all the cues were splintered and snapped! Shorts all year round, so in mid-winter, sitting in a freezing classroom we'd wrap our legs 2 or 3 times around our knees in an attempt to keep warm.

The headmaster used to censor our letters too, you couldn't write,' the food is lousy', why?

'You'd upset your parents' was the headmaster's response!

[kat]

Thanks Kahll, brings back great memories.

I did a lot of that crazy stuff - especially going out and not coming back home until the street lights came on. But on a few occassions, mom was outside looking for me - with a big stick I think I scared the living daylights outta of her sometimes.

She never did let me jump into the 4 ft. pool from the roof

[Old Croc]

Thanks for reminding me of my childhood (60's) which was great indeed.

Besides go karts I made my own parachutes jumping out of trees which nearly killed me

Did you make a canoe for the local swamp out of corrugated iron and tar?

The swamps are now filled in and made into condos

thanks for the memories Khall.

[Ice Maiden]

Khall - You was brave Mum

[khall64au]

Ice... MY Mum is brave mum. I've never been a Mum... well I have been to two baby kangaroos. Does that count?

That was worry enough, what with all those dangerous times hopping in the bush

[khall64au]

Ok... just in case anyone forgets what it was like to be a kid I pulled the following out of my archives:

During the Aussie school vacations, our family wandered about the country from Melbourne to Brisbane, Wilcannia to Perth, towing a caravan behind the old Ford Falcon. Always money was tight but that didn't matter because adventure was there for taking. Our favourite camp was a beach north of Sydney. It was a beach full of intrepid summer days, scouring rock pools for magical wine red anemones and precious shells that carried the sounds of the sea back to urban Smithfield at the end of the holiday.

Back then, we would always make new friends very quickly. The giant dunes at the back of the caravan park was a favourite place for the gang to hang out. The dunes provided hours of good times. We’d run toward the sand cliff edge and throw our reckless bodies into the space that connected gravity with the rolling waves below. We’d tumble and skid down the grainy yellow sand banks on bikini clad butts, on sheets of plastic or cardboard, anything we could find to form a sled.

Some years, an inflated inner tube magically appeared into the equation. That was the best fun of all. Spinning inside the soft ring of air, scent of rubber in nostrils, we’d cling on for dear life, crashing into the foam and weed at ocean's edge. The elation never faded, no matter how many times we stood grinning with head spinning after the ride. After a quick battering from the shore breaking waves, we hurriedly trekked back up the steep incline, rubber ring around shoulders like a giant neck piece, to hand it over to the next kid.

Danger only ever factored into my days when I attempted the crossing to the rock island opposite the ice cream kiosk. The summertime beat of Air Supply singing "Love and Other Bruises" wafted from the Surf Club speakers to the edge of the Pacific Ocean. In the depths of the canal, that separated fun from the treacherous rock island off shore, lived a terrible dark sea monster that ate children for afternoon tea.

It took all day to build up the courage to cross the canal. I couldn't not go, because to stay on the beach meant missing out on seeing the treasure pools of the forbidden island and besides, if the boys could make it so could I. The crossing was probably all of twenty feet but in those days it was twenty miles of thrashing against the current while praying that the sea monster had set its hungry sights on some other kid who was not meant to make it to the island that day.

THE END....

[Gazza]

Nice story Khall. I used to fear swimming in the sea too, probably because of that very same monster. And every wave back then was like a tsunami.

I had some kind of phobia about swimming in the sea. I hated not knowing what was underneath me. Similar to being petrified and fearing the monster waiting under my bed to grab my ankles if I stepped out to go to the toilet.

Also I used to fear ghosts. Not just at night but in the daytime too. I somehow believed that all ghosts hated electric light so I'd switch on the light in any room that I was in regardless of whether the sun was streaming in through a window or not.

Better go now before the keyboard monster emerges from between the keys, grabs my wrists and sucks my brains out through my left nostril.

[SiamOne]

Blimey Khall! !

I had forgotten most of that! !

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

Sadly cannot let children do this in the UK anymore, too many sicko's

Thanks for a reminder of what life used to be like! !

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

oh you old dreamers!!! my hubbie tells me he used to play in the local park all day, but there were always dirty perves getting their will*es out and waving them around.

Kids used to be found murdered then too, and rapists are not a new invention. It is just we are all more aware of the dangers, due to instant news etc, but it would seem we worry too much due to the wide reporting.

[khall64au]

Excuse me... but I only had ONE willy waved at me while I was a kid. So the perverts must have all been lurking in your husband's neighbourhood.

I had a fun, safe childhood so I'll be back in my dreams if you need me