How Did We Survive?
They called us Tonka Kids. If you don't know what that means then you must not be one.
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40s, 50s, 60s or 70s, probably shouldn't have survived.
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. 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 kids, we would be carted around in cars with no seat belts or air bags, and riding in the back of a truck, on a warm day was always a special treat.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps, and then rode down a steep hill, only to find out, we forgot brakes. We would leave home in the morning, and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on, and no one was able to reach us, because cell phones hadn't been invented yet. We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents! No one was to blame, but us! Remember accidents? Some of us even had fights, punched each other, and got black and blue.....but we learned to get over it.
We drank water from the garden hose, and not from a bottle. We ate cakes, and bread with lots of butter, drank sugar cordials, but we were hardly ever overweight.....because we were always outside playing, and although we shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, no one actually died.
We did not have Playstations, Gameboys, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, or for that matter, any video games at all. We did not have 99 channels on cable, videotape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes, roller skated, or walked to their homes and stood out in front, and yelled for them to come out to play, or knocked on the door, rang the bell or just walked in to visit them. Can you imagine doing such a thing today? Without even asking a parent? By ourselves? Out there? In the cold cruel world? How did we do it?
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls, we ate worms. And although we were told it could happen, we did not put out very many eyes with our Red Ryder BB Guns, (nor did the worms live inside us forever, like our parents said they would!)
Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat it. And the next time, they usually passed.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected, and there was no one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of ? they actually sided with the law.
And despite, or perhaps, because of all this, this generation has produced some of the most outstanding risk-takers, problem solvers, innovators and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has seen an explosion of advancement and new ideas. Why? Because we were given freedom and responsibility ? the chance to succeed and to fail. And we learned how to make the most of what we were given.
If you were one of us, congratulations! If you weren't, too bad ? You missed some really good times!!!!!
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