In article <Xns9A7040ECF2620BoyFlyingHighcom@140.99.99.130>,
WingedMessenger <Boy@FlyingHigh.com> wrote:
> "::darkshadows::" <blood@thirsty.net> wrote in
> news:tc3ru395j2othu94jaqohfbk78ui2fs4bh@4ax.com:
>
> >
> > DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?
> >
> > * All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
> >
> > * It took five minutes for the TV warm up?
> > * Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from
> > school?
> > * Nobody owned a purebred dog?
> > * When a quarter was a decent allowance?
> > * You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
> > * Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
> > * All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had
> > their hair done every day and wore high heels?
> > * You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped,
> > without asking, all for free, every time?
> > * And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to
> > boot?
> > * Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden
> > inside the box?
> > * It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner
> > at a real restaurant with your parents?
> > they did?
> > * When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out,
> > lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?
> > * No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were
> > always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
> > * Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying
> > with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?
> >
> > * Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic
> > seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
> >
> > And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could
> > slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the
> > children of today?
> >
> > Remember when being sent to the principal's office was nothing
> > compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?
> >
> > Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of
> > drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents
> > were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was
> > greater than the threat.
> >
> > Can you remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy
> > Doody and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows,
> > Nellie Bell , Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk. As well as
> > summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling
> > and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
> >
> > Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember
> > that"?
> >
> > How many of these do you remember?
> >
> > * Candy cigarettes
> > * Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside
> > * Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
> > * Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
> > * Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum
> > * Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
> > * Newsreels before the movie
> > * P.F. Fliers
> > * Telephone numbers with a word prefix... (Raymond 4-601).
> > * Party lines
> > * Peashooters
> > * Howdy Doody
> > * 45 RPM records
> > * Green Stamps
> > * Hi-Fi's
> > * Metal ice cubes trays with levers
> > * Mimeograph paper
> > * Beanie and Cecil
> > * Roller-skate keys
> > * Cork pop guns
> > * Drive ins
> > * Studebakers
> > * Washtub wringers
> > * The Fuller Brush Man
> > * Reel-To-Reel tape recorders
> > * Tinkertoys
> > * Erector Sets
> > * The Fort Apache Play Set
> > * Lincoln Logs
> > * 15 cent McDonald hamburgers
> > * 5 cent packs of baseball cards - with that awful pink slab of
> > bubble gum
> > * Penny candy
> > * 35 cent a gallon gasoline
> > * Jiffy Pop popcorn
> >
> > Do you remember a time when...
> >
> > * Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?
> > * Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"
> > * "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
> > * Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
> > * It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?
> > * The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was
> > "cooties"?
> > * Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
> > * A foot of snow was a dream come true
> > * Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for
> > action figures?
> > * "Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?
> > * Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for
> > giggles?
> > * The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
> > * War was a card game?
> > * Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a
> > motorcycle?
> > * Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
> > * Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?
> >
>
> Yep. Sure do. And what a better state the world was in.
>
> Mercury.
That depends on where and who you were.
Did these people live in a better state:
Blacks in the segregated US South and in South Africa.
Native Americans (Indians).
Most people in India.
And the desperately poor all over the world who had nothing like the
relief organizations we have now to try to help them?
As for the world, we were all in fear of being atom bombed to death. I
remember the "duck and cover" drills. And there were always some
"minor" war going on someplace that could any second trigger the end of
all life on Earth.
The idealized description posted was lived by a tiny, relatively
privileged, minority of very fortunate people, who still didn't have it
all that nice at times, even though we didn't always know it then.
How many of us aren't as bright as we should be, because of childhood
exposure to lead paint and mercury? How many of us died from lung
cancer who didn't know asbestos and smoking could kill us? How many of
us had unsafe exposures to radiation from radium in wristwatches and
from viewing our foot bones in shoe store fluoroscopes? How many
children died from unsafe products that we will never really know
because there was no reporting system for that information and no
regulations to protect them? How many died in car crashes who could
have lived had they used lap belts that weren't in most cars because
the government didn't require it?
So, was the world really in a better state then?
Well, yes, in the nostalgic idealized fond memories of some of us. But
in reality? Only the perspective the future historians will have, will
enable them to make a usefully reasoned pronouncement. But of course,
we reserve the right to disagree with them in advance. ;-)
Take care,
Donut
--
"Donut make your brown eyes blue..."
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