Been posted

[ssgtt32]

before but I thought that everyone needed to refresh, and take pleasure in the little things in life!
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Another Goody For The Oldtimers:

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 icepack 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.(what's a school nurse?)

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?

Did we need 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 !

:banana:

Damn I still love that banana!

Maurice

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Amen.

I think 'we' are the last generation to be raised without 'safety seats', 'seat belts', 'bike helmets' and the like.

It was a great time to be a kid, I think.

[Zulu 36]

All true.

My father would have gone to prison for years if he gave me some of the beatings now that I got then. Of course I deserved every lick I got too.

Except one beating, and my father apologized when he learned I had told the truth. But I guess it made up for the stunts I didn't get caught at.

I did learn one valuable lesson. Don't be brought home by cops who went to the police academy with your father, knew your mom too when she was a policewoman, and had been ushers at your parent's wedding. Still the worst beatings I've ever taken in my life (yes, beatings: first from mom, then from dad). :cry:

[marinegreen]

Hell my pops beat 1st and never asked ?'s later whether you were telling the truth or not, he was one to never say he was sorry.
MG

[Sgt Leprechaun]

My old man never said he was sorry either. But, I can count the beatings (and they damn sure WERE beatings in the old fashioned sense) on one hand I got from him. That memory would last at least a year, if not longer, and it kept me on the straight and narrow. LOL.

Mom? Cripes, I got hit by her with rulers, yardsticks, fly swatters.....LOL....

[rb1651]

Thanks for the memories. I still remember getting my *** dusted first by my Mom when I brought home a report card with a C, and then my Dad when he got home from work. (Or the field, if he was deployed.) :cry:

[10thzodiac]

I was getting worried about my grandkids with their parents splitting up. I had gotten into my head from a book about children odds in life of being successful after a divorce or from a family greater than three children, unless it was a wealthy family.

Sure they don't have a tranquil life, but does tranquility teach them survival skills ? Not necessarily. Generally I think it does the exact opposite, not knowing how take care of themselves having someone else doing it for them.

The only caveat that I can see that would change their odds of being successful is their formal education.

So far so good !

BTW, dad never hit me, just kicked me once in the ass for raiding the neighbors garden. Mom was the heavy, with her razor-strap and green branch whips, I still have the welts http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/17.gif

[8th&I Marine]

I am not be as old as some of you but I do remeber going places with my father standing up in the seat of the car. As I got older I got a few whoopins from my dad. My mom she was damn good with any weapons of opertunity from rulers to shoes. Ah and some of the old Hot rods my folks had. Now that was the good ole days for me.

Cantrell:flag:

[semperfi170]

I remember getting beat across the butt with a wide leather belt. Only took a couple of times to correct bad behavior. Anybody else get to eat some soap for cussing or talking back to Mom or Dad.

Then in 7th grade getting swats from the gym coach (big dude with biceps the size of trees) after going to the assistant principal's as a result of the infraction.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

The adversity line always reminds me of this quote:


Harry Lime's (Orson Welles) 'cuckoo clock' dialogue after a ferris wheel ride with Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten): ("In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long, Holly.")
The Third Man

[yellowwing]

I was 11 when the one and only time Dad whipped me hard. I cheated a woman on a lawn mowing job. 30 years later, to this day that is part of my character. :thumbup:

[drumcorpssnare]

I played hard as a kid. Got my share of bumps, bruises, cuts and scrapes. Played near the lake and river, although I couldn't swim back then. Ate veggies right from the garden. There was no time to rinse them first! We played baseball, football, soccer, hockey, raced bikes and soap-box derbys...all with no helmets or pads. At the age of 6 or 7, I stole something worth a dime. My dad took me to jail, and I sat in that dark cell for a few hours.
But, I also went to church every Sunday. I did homework every schoolnight, whether the teacher assigned it or not. I learned my manners, and how to play an instrument. I was taught how to cook, clean house, sew, do laundry, iron my clothes, all while I was still a kid!
I had no need for video games or cell phones. (I still don't) I used my imagination to entertain myself! I mowed the lawn of the old lady next door for free, simply because it was the "right thing to do." I never got a butt whoopin' I didn't deserve. I respected my elders, even when I disagreed with them. I knew I wasn't poor, and that was okay. I wasn't rich, and that was okay too. I learned to be thankful for what I had, because my grandmother always reminded me of "the poor starving children in Africa." All in all, I think I turned out okay.

Times sure have changed.
drumcorpssnare:usmc:

[semperfi170]

I also remember that adults were not called by their first names, instead it was Miss, Mrs., Mr. and their last name. To this day even though I know their first names there are a few individuals that I still address as Mr. ____ - one being my Scoutmaster (a WWII vet) or even use Sir or Ma'am.

I had a District Manager, much younger, never served, who when he was trying to chew me out, I'd use yes sir, no sir, or no excuse sir - in response to his questions, stand at attention and put on the stare! It rattled him enough that after a couple of minutes he gave up and moved on to another subject.

[USMCmailman]

Great stories !!! I thought I was the only one who remembered all this stuff?
It's great to know that others have been there too!!!!:scared:

P.S. my Dad only beat me when Mom told him to!!! And I ALWAYS asked for it! Sometimes you DO get what you ask for!!!:yes:

SSGTT32--------A Great Post! Thank You!

[fmoyer]

One of the scariest things I remember was getting in trouble and being told " You just wait until your Dad gets home", that sure put the fear of God into me. Mom never whipped us kids that was Dad's duty, and he was very good at it.

[maverickmarine]

Oh man, I remember hearing that too! I also remember getting my hide tanned by my coach, he had that special paddle with the holes drilled in it so it really got ya. Man, reading that brought back good memories and it was good to think of those times and I remember lying on the back deck of the back seat below the window and wait for my dad to slam on the brakes so I could go flying. Ah, those were the days. But, it also ****ed me off thinking about all that and what a nasty, whiney society we have become. I wish we could go back in time.

[bigdog43701]

hell...for years i didn't wear a belt (until i joined the Marines). my dad would use my belt to fan my a$$. that was just wrong. still made a man out of me and i learned the right path to take and NEVER made the same mistake twice.

[Zulu 36]

My father's favorite belt to use on my brothers and me (never on the girls) was the old leather belt he wore on his Winter Alphas blouse buring WWII. I think my mother still has it tucked away someplace.