What ever happened?

[SFC Ollie]

Got this in an Email figured a few of you night also be able to relate to it. Fits my childhood nearly perfectly.



Black and White
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)


You could hardly see for all the snow,

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,



'Good Night, David.
Good Night, Chet.'



My 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.

My 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 ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

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.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

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 (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.


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 our butt spanked there and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home.


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 picked 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 known 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 ever survive?

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA. AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED.
I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!

 

[Xenophon]

People also used to have shorter life spans.

 

[Gunny]

Got this in an Email figured a few of you night also be able to relate to it. Fits my childhood nearly perfectly.



Black and White
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)


You could hardly see for all the snow,

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,



'Good Night, David.
Good Night, Chet.'



My 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.

My 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 ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

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.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

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 (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.


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 our butt spanked there and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home.


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 picked 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 known 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 ever survive?

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA. AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED.
I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!

You should try being from half of one and half of the other. Talk about confused.

 

[uscitizen]

We have been very satisfied with less in the past and will learn to be that way in the future.
We are currently still a very spoiled instant gratification society.

 

[Againsheila]

Got this in an Email figured a few of you night also be able to relate to it. Fits my childhood nearly perfectly.



Black and White
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)


You could hardly see for all the snow,

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,



'Good Night, David.
Good Night, Chet.'



My 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.

My 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 ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

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.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

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 (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.


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 our butt spanked there and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home.


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 picked 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 known 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 ever survive?

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA. AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED.
I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!

Don't forget that we played on 14 foot high jungle gyms built over concrete, today they have 5 foot jungle gyms over 8 inches of foam.

 

[Gunny]

We have been very satisfied with less in the past and will learn to be that way in the future.
We are currently still a very spoiled instant gratification society.

YOUR fault, bubba.

 

[Modbert]

I find this even more hilarious considering the first thing that came to mind was the All In The Family theme. Of course, that was in 1971.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znrjbo9QRLk[/ame]

 

[Gunny]

I find this even more hilarious considering the first thing that came to mind was the All In The Family theme. Of course, that was in 1971.

YouTube - All In The Family TV Show Opening Theme Season One 1971

And? That show was cool. Of course that was network TV ... no cable then.

 

[SFC Ollie]

I find this even more hilarious considering the first thing that came to mind was the All In The Family theme. Of course, that was in 1971.

YouTube - All In The Family TV Show Opening Theme Season One 1971

Now go back another 10 to 20 years and you got it.

 

[Modbert]

And? That show was cool. Of course that was network TV ... no cable then.

Of course that show was cool, I'm just saying trying to look back at the "good ol days" is what every single generation ends up doing. I'm sure mine will be doing it twenty years from now too.

 

[Modbert]

Now go back another 10 to 20 years and you got it.

REWinn Scrapbook: The Good Old Days: John Oliver Reports

 

[Againsheila]

So my favorite "when I was your age story" begins with the tv and the remote.

When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a remote/clicker. If we wanted to change the channel we had to walk all the way across the living room through 10 feet of snow up hill both ways, and when we got there, there wasn't any wimpy push buttons, no we had to actually crank that channel by hand. And if we were lucky, we got 3 stations to choose from....of course when something we wanted to watch aired, we had to watch it WHILE IT AIRED, during "The Wizard of Oz" no one was out on the streets, everyone stayed home to watch. And there were rumors that it started in black and white and ended in color, we didn't actually find out they were true until years later.....and I'll never forget the first time I saw that "horse of a different color" actually IN COLOR.

 

[Zoom-boing]

So my favorite "when I was your age story" begins with the tv and the remote.

When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a remote/clicker. If we wanted to change the channel we had to walk all the way across the living room through 10 feet of snow up hill both ways, and when we got there, there wasn't any wimpy push buttons, no we had to actually crank that channel by hand. And if we were lucky, we got 3 stations to choose from....of course when something we wanted to watch aired, we had to watch it WHILE IT AIRED, during "The Wizard of Oz" no one was out on the streets, everyone stayed home to watch. And there were rumors that it started in black and white and ended in color, we didn't actually find out they were true until years later.....and I'll never forget the first time I saw that "horse of a different color" actually IN COLOR.

Sheila! Your Wizard of Oz experience is my Wizard of Oz experience and it was nothing short of magical when it went from black and white to sepia to color. I always stayed in when Oz was on cause it was only on once a year. I even remember annoying my friends one year - I was 21 or 22 - because Oz was on and it was a Friday night but I wouldn't meet up with them until after 10 when it went off. lol Did I mention that Oz is my favorite movie?

Having everything available whenever you want has it's advantages but . . . there is something about that 'once a year showing' that just made it special. I try to recapture that during Christmas by not letting my kids watch any Christmas movie any other time of year. No 'Elf' in July. I'm hoping when they grow up they'll associate those movies (and I do it with Christmas music too) with Christmas and remember what that was like when they were a kid.

To the OP . . . . no bike helmets, no brakes on bikes, no seats on bikes, riding these bikes down a HUGE, HUGE long hill in the summer .. . . and lived to tell the tale. No bubble wrap to cross the street, we ate raw cookie and cake batter and never got salmonella, burgers were cooked rare and we never got sick, icky yellow medicine is what you got from the doc when you were sick and it cured you, Mercurochrome! lol, it stained your skin orange but it fixed what was wrong, king of the hill, run the bases, three feet off ice, four square and more . . . all played with neighborhood kids not some 'team' that needed to be formed by grownups for kids, forts - how much fun were forts! - and never being bored cause there were always books to take you away. Anyone remember these? My brothers tortured me with them . . . and I still have both my eyes.

 

[rightwinger]

Don't forget that we played on 14 foot high jungle gyms built over concrete, today they have 5 foot jungle gyms over 8 inches of foam.

I hate todays playgrounds. Designed by lawyers for three year olds

I remember slides that looked like they reached the sky, hanging upside down 8ft off a jungle gym, see saws, merry go rounds (the ones you pushed till you were dizzy), monster swings that you would jump off and fly 15 feet onto blacktop, sand boxes..

Playing war with make believe guns made of sticks, flashlight tag and capture the flag...forts in the woods

Climbing trees and making tree houses

Snowball wars, skating on ponds, sledding down the streets before they were plowed

Riding your bike for miles if you wanted to go someplace

All gone......replaced by video games

 

[uscitizen]

Don't forget that we played on 14 foot high jungle gyms built over concrete, today they have 5 foot jungle gyms over 8 inches of foam.

I hate todays playgrounds. Designed by lawyers for three year olds

I remember slides that looked like they reached the sky, hanging upside down 8ft off a jungle gym, see saws, merry go rounds (the ones you pushed till you were dizzy), monster swings that you would jump off and fly 15 feet onto blacktop, sand boxes..

Playing war with make believe guns made of sticks, flashlight tag and capture the flag...forts in the woods

Climbing trees and making tree houses

All gone......replaced by video games

Better to program you with they are.

We are programmed to believe that the more money you spend the more fun you have.

 

[SFC Ollie]

Don't forget that we played on 14 foot high jungle gyms built over concrete, today they have 5 foot jungle gyms over 8 inches of foam.

I hate todays playgrounds. Designed by lawyers for three year olds

I remember slides that looked like they reached the sky, hanging upside down 8ft off a jungle gym, see saws, merry go rounds (the ones you pushed till you were dizzy), monster swings that you would jump off and fly 15 feet onto blacktop, sand boxes..

Playing war with make believe guns made of sticks, flashlight tag and capture the flag...forts in the woods

Climbing trees and making tree houses

All gone......replaced by video games

Better to program you with they are.

We are programmed to believe that the more money you spend the more fun you have.

Way too true. We used to go around the neighbor hood looking for pop bottles 2 cents refund on each and if we found 5 we had a dime to get into the swimming pool. Homemade bow and arrows
defending your fort with mud bombs.
sled riding down the street
making ramps to jump our bikes off of.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Got this in an Email figured a few of you night also be able to relate to it. Fits my childhood nearly perfectly.



Black and White
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)


You could hardly see for all the snow,

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,



'Good Night, David.
Good Night, Chet.'



My 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.

My 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 ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

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.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. 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, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

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 (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.


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 our butt spanked there and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home.


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 picked 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 known 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 ever survive?

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA. AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED.
I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!

i'm 34 and luckily understand all of what you posted. It makes you wonder when we went wussy.