How Did You Survive?

[zolaisugly]

THERE IS A LESSON TO BE LEARNT HERE...

If you lived as a child in the 70's or the 80's, looking back, it's hard
to believe that we have lived as long as we have...

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paint.

We had no childproof locks on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and
when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.

If you lived in the country it meant hitchhiking to town as a young kid
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode
down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into
the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were
back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day.
No mobile phones. Unthinkable.

We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt.
We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no lawsuits from
these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us.
Remember, accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learn to
get over it. (And mammies never got involved&#33

We ate bread and butter, and drank sugary pop but we were never
overweight, cos we were always outside playing.

We shared one bottle of lemonade with four friends, from one bottle and no
one died from this?

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games and all
99 channels on Sky Digital TV, video tape movies, surround sound personal
mobile phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms... we had
friends. We went outside and found them.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or
rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a
thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel
world! Without a guardian. How did we do it?

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although
we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did
the worms live inside us forever.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. 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, imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.
The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to. And
you're one of them.

CONGRATULATIONS!

[Bender]

Nice post (from '66 myself)

[Leech_Killer]

We used to see who could climb the highest in trees and never once fell to our deaths.

We'd play throw darts, (Throw darts being a piece of 2-3 foot long bamboo with a 6 inch nail in one end and two playing cards in the other for flights). We'd stand some 30-40 feet a part and throw them to each other.

We'd play cricket with a corkie and no pads.

We'd build rope swing everywhere even if the rope was no good and the branch to weak.

In the winter we'd go ice-skating on the canal.

In the summer we'd go swimming in the canal.

A popular TV program was Kick Start (motorbikes going over varies obstacles) which we'd reproduce on our bikes and if you got hurt it was your own fault.

If something was being built it was your duty to go and climb all over it after the workmen had gone home.

Tonka toys were the ultimate challenge on seeing how quickly you could destroy them.

Fire crackers could be brought from the local toy shop.

If you didn't have scabs on your knees you weren't playing hard enough.

When building a ramp to go over on your bike, it was always a challenge to see how many friends you could jump over without landing on them.

Garage roofs were ment to be leapt off, like lemmings.

Magnifiying glasses were for starting fires.

In supermarkets your time was taken up by pushing a trolley up to speed then jumping on the back.

If you got hurt from any of these activities you wouldn't get cared for and loved over by your parents you'd get a good hiding for getting your clothes dirty.

The highlight of the week was going with your dad to the car-wash.

The local shop would sell chocolate/candy cigarettes.

[chr1sp]

Born in '80 and i have just relived my childhood.

I can still remember being on my BMX, falling off and losing 4 teeth in a big bloody pool. I drank coke after then did it again.

[Leech_Killer]

Originally posted by chr1sp@11 March 2003 - 19:38
Born in '80 and i have just relived my childhood.

I can still remember being on my BMX, falling off and losing 4 teeth in a big bloody pool. I drank coke after then did it again.

LMAO

In the summer of 76, the hottest summer for ages in the UK, I was 7, on my tomahawk (smaller version of the chopper), I was only wearing a pair of shorts and trainers when I lost control of my bike going flat out down hill on a freshly tarmaced road (still covered in that gritty stuff). Straight over the handle bars, slid along on my front and face, twisted over continued to slide on my back, bounced up the curb with my head and hit a lamp-post, knocked myself out. I woke up in hospital with concussion and 72% of my body grazed. Spent the next 10 weeks having to sleep standing up because it was to painful to lie down and I still had a good hiding for not being careful enough and making my dad leave work early. Three days after leaving hospital I was back at school.

Kids these days don't know their born.

[Afronaut]

Im from -68. Thinking of all that crazy shit we use to when we were kids gives me shivers...



I have no idea what kids did on 90's or what they do now. I don't have kids myself (that im aware off) so i cant compare and even if had kids, i wonder if they would tell me what they've been doing...
... i think think things are different now.

Cool topic

[zolaisugly]

thank you all for your feed back..i was born in 68 and i too shudder to think to what i got up when i was young...if i did any of it today what would happen...happy memories

[Ron]

Originally posted by Bender@10 March 2003 - 11:44
Nice post (from '66 myself)

You snotnose you.

[kAb]

being a kid in the late 80's and 90's isn't even close

-can't really go anywhere (kidnappers)
-1000X more pollution
-going to school can be scary (psycho kids with GUNS now)


but i think there is a new generation of risk takers, and kids are doing stupider and stupider things

Pros:
-i still made my own "go-kart" type thing and rode it down the hill. but we tied a hose to the back and tied the end to a fence, so at the bottom we jerk to a stop and flip forward
-we drink our own lemonade, (greedy american bastards )
-climbed high trees
-play in the street

and the ultimate: finding a slide, flipping it upside down, and going down steep acre-long hills just to hit a fence at the bottom

ahh... those were the days.

so they aren't THAT much different for a canadian born american boy growing up

but i guess thats cause i'm canadian?

[ne1GotZardoz]

Me at the top of a hill on a bike I and a friend took the training wheels off of.
Him at the bottom to let me know when there were no cars coming.
A fence across the street to stop me until I figured out how to turn the bike.

Walking down the middle of a creek the city toilets emptied into.
I never got typhoid despite what the adults told me.

Riding my bike through flood waters because it was cool.

Catching snakes, snapping turtles, possums.

What we experience as a child makes us who we are as adults.
I feel sorry for the kid who is never allowed to be knocked down or called names because his/her parents are afraid of the psychological effects.

Its a real world we live in and he's gonna have to face it eventually.
Better to face it as a child first. With parents who'll teach him some good comebacks.

I wouldn't trade all the pain and torment of childhood for anything in the world.
The pain of hitting that fence made the joy of finally getting it, so much sweeter.

Thanks for starting this thread.