Okay, Listen Here

Okay, Listen Here

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Good Old Days




Ah, the good old days…I started thinking about them when I was dialing my son’s cell phone for the fiftieth time, trying to find out if he was all right. Being a young adult, he doesn’t cotton to Mom checking to see if he is lying on the floor, dead, and being eaten by his cats (my mind does go there when he doesn’t answer the phone). I finally got a response when I texted him and told him if I did not get a call back within five minutes that I was turning his cell phone off. Poof, magic, he called. I remember at his college orientation that one of the professors called my generation the “helicopter generation” because we constantly hover. Odd, but true. My parents didn’t hover; they turned us loose and told us to go “play,” kind of like a missile – seek and destroy.

That got me to thinking of all the brain-damaged things we used to do as children; before the days of child abductions and warning labels. My earliest memory was my older sister making mud pies and I, stupidly trusting her, ate them. Not bad, could have used a little salt. Today, parents, upon learning that their child ate dirt would rush them to the hospital and have the poor child’s stomach pumped. There is also the memory that every year when I got shots, I also got a worming. Maybe the doctor knew about older sisters, water and dirt.

Seatbelts. We never wore them as children. I can remember jumping all over the back seat, hanging out the window (bugs in the eye didn’t bother me) and lying in the floorboard against the hot transmission hump, dozing and thoroughly enjoying myself. Jeff Foxworthy made a comment about this: he rode in the rear window deck of the car from Texas to California. I remember doing that because my sister wouldn’t let me sit on the car seat. Sometimes I wonder where my parents were or exactly who was driving the car. Today children are strapped in, harnessed and hog-tied to prevent them from becoming projectiles. The rule is even a booster seat until they are over four feet eleven inches tall. Geez, I barely make that now – maybe I need a booster seat.

Bike Helmets. The only person I knew who had a helmet when I was growing up was Evil Knievel and we all know that worked out well for him. I can remember racing down a hill on my bike, loosing control and crashing into a tree. Being at least five miles from home, I nearly bled out trying to reach the medicine cabinet and the mecurichrome. Who needed stitches? Today, children have to wear a helmet to sit in a shopping cart, let alone to ride a bike. I don’t think I’m brain damaged from hitting all those trees…well, you judge.

Wandering the neighborhood. Early in the mornings during the summer, my mother would open the back door and tell us to go find something to do. Implied in that statement was not to come back until lunch or if she called (she never did). Off on a grand adventure, my sister and I would go looking for soft drink bottles to take to the local grocery store to get the deposit. If we got enough, we could buy candy and drinks or at least there’d be enough for her to have them. I was a scrawny kid and she definitely had the upper hand. Or, we would go to some construction site and get into dirt clod battles with the boys who lived down the street. I can remember my blond hair turning beet red from the clay but it didn’t bother me. No one worried about getting abducted or killed or anything. We were having fun. Today, I think parents can have GPS locators implanted in there children, just in case the little boogers get passed the fifty locks and alarm system on the house. I know, there are a lot of bad things out there to protect kids from but I do long for the day when a child didn’t have to be afraid.

Burn Piles. Spending part of the summer with my grandparents, I got to be out in the country where there was no civilization for miles and certainly no garbage pick-up. My grandparents had a place where they dumped their garbage and also a BURN PILE where the paper wastes could be disposed of. Gleefully taking matches (I couldn’t have been ten) and going out to do the chore of burning the paper, I would spend all morning finding things to burn. Sometimes, my grandmother would miss the steel aerosol can of Lysol and, wow, I would get to have a real explosion. Okay, so maybe there is something about me hitting all those trees. Today, no child is allowed to have matches. And a burn pile? Forgeddaaboutit. Kids today do not know the joy of watching Styrofoam melt in a hot fire (think of the carcinogens).

Cake batter. One of my favorite things (before I started worrying about weight), was to lick the bowl after my mom made a cake. It was actually better than the cake itself. My sister and I always fought over who got the spoon; I usually lost. Today, the threat of salmonella from raw eggs prevents parents from even letting a child near a fresh bowl of cake batter, sigh. Maybe we didn’t get sick because of all the dirt we ate; salmonella didn’t have a chance against things living in the dirt. There could be a correlation.

Monkey bars and swings. Ah, the playground was the place to hang. Literally. Upside down for hours. Maybe all the blood rushing to my head saved me from severe brain-damage. Swinging high on the swings and then launching off was also a big thrill. Landing wasn’t so great if you chose not to tuck and roll. Kids today are definitely not allowed to be anywhere near such dangerous apparatuses without helmet, adult supervision and an ambulance on stand-by.

Do you have any fond memories of being a child? Were any of them “brain-damaged” stunts that make you shudder now that you have children and can see the dangers? Share some of your stories with us under the tulip tree (which now we are not allowed to climb without a helmet).


14 comments:

  1. Now and then I call my youngest and leave him a message to call and let me know he's still alive. He'll call and say, "I'm alive, Mother." :-)

    As to dangerous activities, I remember all the things you listed! Minus the burning (because we lived in the city). We sold band candy and girl scout cookies door to door. Walked everywhere endlessly, no bike helmets, no seat belts. We went outside to play in the morning and came back at night. The parents never had any idea where we were in between. Hmm. -- LJ

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    1. Oh LJ, I hated selling band candy! It was hard because every kid in the neighborhood had to sell it too.

      And I did walk everywhere, endlessly. I showed my son one time where I used to walk to, in order to visit a friend, over six miles. He nearly fainted, asking if we didn't have cars back then. Yeah, I am THAT old. My parents never had any idea where we were unless we had gotten into trouble and a kindly neighbor called my mom. I got a lot of those calls about me when I was younger. ~g~

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  2. We ate cake batter because they didn't pump chickens so full of antibiotics that they became resistant to salmonella. And we roamed from sunrise to sunset (and sometimes beyond) because neighbors knew each other and looked out for each other's kids. Seat belts -- I have to defend those highly cause seat belts and an airbag saved my life a month ago. We just didn't know better back then (though airplanes had seat belts).

    I hate we have to hover so much now. I manage to keep tabs on my kids through Facebook. If I see them posting I know they're alive. LOL

    Marilyn

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    1. i remember chasing fireflies at night while all the neighbors sat outside (before, gasp, air conditioning), You're right about the seat belts, and thank God you had one on! Hope your foot gets lots better very soon and the cast can come off!

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  3. Hmmmm.... I licked cake batter and especially chocolate chip cookie dough off the beaters. Same thing with brownie batter. Yummy! Still do. Heehee!

    No helmets for us. We skated and rode bikes too. However, we always wore seat belts. We weren't allowed in a car without them.

    I can remember riding my bike with my allowance to but candy at a candy store many blocks away, without a chaperone or a helmet. But I'd been drilled not to trust strangers.

    Army life! Moving often, we were taught not to trust anyone. Our doors were always locked, car doors too.

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    1. I still lick the cake batter too!

      You are younger Kathy and they actually had seat belts later in the sixties. Guess our cars were older.

      We never locked our doors and I can remember all of us kids just wandering into each other's houses. Scary thought now.

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  4. I can remember most of these things. Definately didn't have parental supervison during those long summer days of playing with the neighbors. We had corn stalk battles and corn cob wars. Ahhhh, the times we had!

    We didn't wear seat belts. In fact, I can remember laying up on backseat by the rear window and riding until Daddy swung aournd a curve then we got to roll off, bounce off the seat and into the floor board. We called it "Playing Roller Coaster."

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    1. I guess the corn cob war were kind of like our dirt clod battles. We had fun! Now you can't throw thing, you might put your eye out.

      I like the term "Playing Roller Coaster". I got thrown out of the rear window deck a few times myself. Guess it probably wasn't safe but it was fun!!

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  5. We played in the woods, out of sight, all day long. We'd come home when we wanted food and water, then back outside. We drank eggnog. We licked cake batter. There was no such thing as a seat belt in a car. No one had a bike helmet.

    Interesting aside on seat belts. I used to know someone who helped design the sensors that either deployed air bags or let them be turned off, I don't know which. He had some interesting things to say. Going back to the beginning, cars used to be built like tanks, out of steel -- and heavy steel at that. No aluminum, no plastic. And they were safer. Then it was decided that they had to get better gas mileage, so manufacturers were forced to make the cars out of lighter materials. More people died. So they installed seat belts. Even better gas mileage was demanded, cars had to be made even lighter. More people died. So air bags were developed. Then it turned out air bags were killing people, so they had to come up with a way to disarm the bags for short people in the front seat. And then they passed a law that most short people (children) had to sit in the back. If you're a short adult, you either turn off the air bag or take your chances.

    Or buy the heaviest vehicle you can, which is why I drive SUVs.

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    1. Seems like we all had similar childhoods - outside, running amok and having a ball.

      What you are saying about the cars makes a lot of sense, Maven Linda. I have to buy the cars with the adjustable pedals so I can sit far enough from the airbags. I agree, the heavier the car the safer you are. Very smart insight.

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  6. I remember most of those things too. I loved climbing trees at my grandparents farm. We swam in the ditches too...Yikes! Most of the time in the city I was escorted out the back door, though.

    About those seat belt-less vehicles...I was thrown from several moving cars back then, so I love my seat belts these days. Of course, that could account for my own brain damage.

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    1. Never had ditch deep enough to swim in but it sounds like fun. What was it putting us out the back door? I always wondered about that.

      I always wear a seatbelt now, not just because of the laws but because it is a lot safer. I don't believe you suffered any brain damage - too smart now!!!

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  7. I am late to the table.

    Yeah. We did all that stuff. As a teen, I remember driving with my niece standing up in the seat beside me with her arms around my neck. When I would brake, I'd throw my arm out to keep her off the windshield.

    I am not saying it was good, but she lives today.

    I believe we are raising a generation who can't take care of themselves or make good choices.

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    1. Hope you're feeling better Jean. You are right about this generation. I got the biggest kick out of my son this week - he got his first W-2 (yes I am to blame) and he didn't know what it was. Welcome to the big bad...

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