For Those Born Before 1980

I am over my sinus infection and busy preparing for Fall semester (which starts next week!), so I don't have much time for blogging this week. I do want to share this essay/joke, though. I've combined a couple that I've received recently and was struck by how accurate much of it is!

THOSE BORN 1920-1979

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

Read the whole thing.

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.

Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter and I used to eat it raw sometimes too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, but but I can't remember getting E-coli.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and drank Kool-aid made with sugar 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 OK.

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, Nintendos, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

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!

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 poke out very many eyes.

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.


How did we survive?

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