For those born between 1930-1979

[seaboy4hire]

I usually dislike forwarded emails but I got this lil piece from a friend of mine who is a mother and a lot of it makes sense. So I thought I'd share it with y'all since some of you are parents.

 

TO ALL THE KIDS

 

WHO SURVIVED the

1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

 

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they

were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't

get tested for dia betes.

 

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs

covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

 

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 infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster

&nb sp; seats, seat belts or air bags.

 

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

 

 

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

 

 

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and

 

NO ONE actually died from this.

 

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with

sugar, but we weren't overweight because .

 

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING !

!

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.

 

And we were O.K.

 

 

 

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride 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 did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all,

no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or

CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat

rooms.......

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

 

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no

lawsuits from these accidents.

 

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us

&n bsp; forever.

 

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,

 

made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it

would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

 

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang

 

the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

 

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't

had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

 

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.

 

They actually sided with the law!

 

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem

solvers and inventors ever!

 

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

 

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

 

HOW TO

 

DEAL WITH IT ALL!

 

If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!

 

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up

as

kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives

 

for our own good

 

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how

brave (and lucky) their parents were.

 

 

 

Kind of makes you wan t to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

 

 

Hugs,

Greg

[email protected]

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Chicago February _-_

[Knight911]

Run through the house with scissors?

 

Actually I am thinking about playing with the drawstring on the hood of my sweatshirt. Hmmmm, or maybe some kind of toy with small pieces. Nope, I got it, a game of lawn darts. Ahhhhh the memories. Backyard tackle football (no pads of course), army with the pop guns (you know the type you could stick the muzzle in the ground, and shoot out a small clod of dirt about 15 feet), kickball in the middle of the street, tree forts, bicycles, baseball and glove, and numerous trips to the emergency room. And we actually survived. Those were the days.

 

We also did not have "grief councelors" in school telling us how we have to feel when something happened. We said the Pledge of Allegience at the beginning of the day, sang actual Christmas carols in school, and had 30 kids in a classroom with only one teacher. The Pledge, and the carols are more hazardous today than all the other things we did. Oh Lord, that is beginning to sound ***gasp*** Politically Incorrect. Heaven forbid. }(

 

Grab your kid, and throw them out of the house for a few hours everyday. If you don't see them outside doing something (read that as physical activity) then take away the X-Box, etc. until they do. Some might actually like it. One could only hope.

 

Thanks for the post Greg. It's something I have been saying for a very long time. It's nice to be vindicated once in a while.

 

Okay, okay, I'll get down off my soapbox now.

[doctordoctor]

good stuff, Greg....

 

whole books can be written about why today's children are fatter, lazier, and more spoiled...the quick answer is parents, of course...but there will always be a few good kids who will grow up to do what they can to save the world....

 

I suppose the same things were said about kids 50 years ago, too, and 100 years ago....it's a progression thing, I'm sure....

[Rick Munroe]

Ah,yes, the good old days...when kids could be sexually or physically abused by their parents but everyone looked the other way because it was a "private family matter"...when gay kids had no positive role models in the media and were told that homosexuality was a "mental illness"...when schools were segregated and you stayed with your own kind...when more babies choked on small objects from unsafe toys and more kids were accidentally poisoned from easy-off medicine bottle lids...when there were no car-seats so babies could go flying through windshields and no air bags so people could get their faces mangled...kids were free to breathe in all the secondhand cigarette smoke they wanted (or didn't want)...and don't forget that wonderful cancer-causing asbestos used for kids' pajamas. The list goes on and on of all the great things we can't have today because of all of this wacky concern for safety and health.

[AdamSmith]

>The list goes on and on of all the great

>things we can't have today because of all of this wacky

>concern for safety and health.

 

Point taken. But I do think it's a pity that chemistry sets are no longer powerful enough for kids to blow themselves up. I learned by far the most from my experiments that exploded.

 

Now, kiddies, once you've prepared your uranium hexafluoride ... !

 

http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper244/stills/ak317rd1.jpg

[Louis]

And I have a friend who has probably a 12 inch scar, because he was riding in the back of a pickup, that got into an accident. Ruptured his spleen, and was 20 minutes away from dying.

I have read of young kids where I grew up that had lead poisoning, which they got from the cribs they were in.

So its very easy to talk about the good old days, and I get the drift of the email..but people tend to have selective memory when it comes to the good old days.

They don't remember, using an outhouse when it was -40, or throwing coal into the furnace. They seem to forget having to get tested for stomach worms. TV's were black and white, and when the colour TV's came out they gave off a lot of more radiation than the newer models.

A friend has allergies, and second hand smoke can be very hard for him to deal with. My sister looks after a boy who's mother drank while she was pregeant and he has alcohol syndrome.

So...the good old days....up they had a certain quality about them, and life seemed more simple...but I would never want to return things to be like they were in the past. Unless it had to do with quality of life.

[Lookin]

OK, here’s a couple more from the early ‘50’s that might give you the heebie jeebies. I loved going to the shoe store and standing in the fluoroscope. The green x-ray showed my foot bones inside the new shoes, and guaranteed a perfect fit. I loved wiggling my toes, and seeing how all the bones were hooked together. Radiation was our friend.

 

 

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/shoefittingfluor/shoe.h1.jpg

 

 

Our town had a truck that sprayed a cloud of DDT out the back, so they could kill mosquitos and the ticks that gave a friend of mine Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The truck rumbled through our neighborhood every few weeks in the summer, and we kids would ride our bikes a few feet behind it and disappear in the fog. This stuff was bad for bugs, so it must be good for us.

 

I guess we all survived, although my toes still glow in the dark during thunderstorms. ;-) On the plus side, we got meals cooked from scratch every day, and I recognized every single ingredient listed on my box of cereal. We used trisodium phosphate to clean the grout, and not to puff up the Cheerios.

 

I think doctordoctor is right. This same scenario gets played out with every new generation. Wonder what the grandkids will have to say about PlayStations and poppers. :o

[seaboy4hire]

>I think doctordoctor is right. This same scenario gets played

>out with every new generation. Wonder what the grandkids will

>have to say about PlayStations and poppers. :o

 

Poppers what are those?

 

Hugs,

Greg

 

[email protected]

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I get 90 mpg! You?

Chicago February _-_

[+ deej]

>Poppers what are those?

 

Those were those plastic guns we all had that let us shoot wiffle balls at our friends. ;-)

 

Or maybe he means these things:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/B000H6URR8/ref=dp_image_0/203-0028475-1992718?ie=UTF8&n=468292&s=kids

[AdamSmith]

>Radiation was our friend.

 

Right! Following on from all the radium cures hawked in the '20s...

 

http://www.mtn.org/quack/devices/images/1radithor2.JPG

 

http://www.mtn.org/quack/devices/radium.htm

[Louis]

Were some doctors still telling patients to have a few cigarettes back in the 50's.

And of course polio was common back then.. my aunt died from polio around 1959.

The Cuban Missle crises...we went home early from school one day so that we could practice for an air raid.

[RM]

You must not have gone to Catholic school. We had fifty kids in a classroom and only one nun.

[dannyboynyc]

I saw this message about a year ago. I am in this age range and can relate to the humor in the message.

 

As Rick Munroe pointed out, the "good old days" are rarely as good as our memories remember.

 

The world is changing at an increasingly faster rate. None of the changes we've seen can be evaluated in a vacuum. I am a product of Catholic education. There were 50 students in my first grade class. When I hear about reducing class size below 30 students I don't understand the necessity. However, I grew up in an environment when one parent (i.e., Mother) was home during the day - and, that applied to most every household in my world of knowledge. That probably has an effect on class size and attention each student needs. In many ways, the world of my childhood was not as (seemingly) complex as it is today.

 

So, yes, it's fun to think about how things have changed and how ridiculous some of those changes seem . . . but, it's also easy to forget the downside of the past.

[+ Charlie]

I, too, have had this list forwarded to me several times in the past year. It obviously strikes a chord with many people, as evidenced by the Lexus ad which has several older people reminiscing about the way things used to be, and then a man saying, "I used to have to parallel park myself," as his new Lexus LS does it for him.

[gp0560]

Another thing not to forget about those "glorious" times is the effect that the cultural environment had on sexual uncertainties on some young males.

 

I admit that the following could be read as smaltz. It certainly is not worthy of being printed. And it is quite personal. In spite of all these caveats, see if you find anything of yourself in here.

 

All responses are welcome.

 

 

 

The advantages of life in the closet, when you were 12 in 1950, 22 in 1960:

 

1. You get to study straight boys and men to learn how to walk, talk, and behave. You’re afraid to buck convention.

 

2. You get to study gay boys and men to learn how not to walk, talk, and behave. You’re afraid to buck convention.

 

3. You get to avoid the slightest hint of a lisp or (in the Midwest) a drawl.

 

4. You get to pitch your voice in a habitual monotone, which is not easy after you get proficient in French.

 

5. You get to balance your weight evenly on both feet, so that one hip doesn’t thrust out to the side, which is bad enough in itself, but also encourages the opposite leg to go into a queer position.

 

6. You get to watch the workmen outside your house as a little boy, and then say to yourself years later, “So that’s why I liked to see them with their shirts off.”

 

7. You get to sneak home muscle magazines under your jacket when you’re a teen.

 

8. You get to arrange a code word with your boyhood friend for when you want to go over to his house “to watch TV.”

 

9. You get to avoid going to the beach so that you don’t embarrass yourself in public.

 

10. You get to force disinterested responses when your college roommate tells you one Hollywood star or another is gay.

 

11. You get to admire only his honesty when your handsome, built college roommate tells you he himself is gay.

 

12. You get to limit yourself to quick, unrepeated glances at cute and/or muscular guys.

 

13. You get to sneak glances at the cute/muscular guys in your classroom while they’re taking tests.

 

14. You get to look for cute and/or muscular guys while looking over your wife’s shoulder.

 

15. You get to carry your wife’s purse, when she needs you to, by anything but the strap.

 

16. You get to drive while keeping a lookout for what might be watchable down the road, so that you can arrange to glance that way at the right time. It’s better to be a passenger.

 

17. You get to program the VCR, with its freeze-frame capability, to get the Marc Singer movies. Also the Hercules-type films, which teach you not to lock your knees when wearing shorts.

 

18. You get to check out Lowe’s, Home Depot, etc., especially on hot Saturday mornings, when the muscle shirts, tank tops, and shorts are everywhere.

 

19. You get to avoid, just in time, the mistake of asking the meaning of “California, the land of fruits and nuts.”

 

20. You get to choose, at the supermarket, between the short checkout lane with the pretty girl and the long checkout lane with the stunning stud.

 

21. You get to watch sports on TV for glimpses of muscle, like college football in the early fall when it’s still hot enough to wear short socks and short-sleeve jerseys.

 

22. You get to learn how to hold your head still and let your eyes wander anywhere they want.

 

23. You get to admire your wife’s firm belief that sexual orientation is innate and not chosen, because you know it is certainly true. She also enjoys “Will & Grace.”

 

24. You get to be grateful when your marital erection doesn’t start to fail you until well into middle age.

 

25. You get to feel guilty relief when your wife’s migraines and spells of depression mean less desire and less opportunity for sex.

 

26. You get to wonder what life would have been like if people had been even as accepting then as they are today, which isn’t enough.

 

27. You get to answer yourself, “Yeah, but you’d probably be dead from AIDS by now; you were a horny bastard.”

 

28. You get to panic for an answer when a friend tells you he’s gay, you say, “So?” and he asks, “How come you’re so accepting?”

 

29. You get to remain ignorant of what it’s like to have a close male friend, because once you know his mind, you can’t help lusting for him. Not to mention that you can’t really share your inner self with him.

 

30. You get to observe the increasing signs of age and to realize that no one new is likely to love you any more.

 

31. You get to wonder if you’ll ever get a chance for physical contact with a man.

 

32. You get to wait fifty years, more or less, to get an Internet connection, which lets you look as long as you like at any interesting picture you find.

 

33. You get to stumble across an escort’s diary, discover the bright mind and wonderfully complex personality it reveals, read his excellent reviews, and drool over his pictures.

 

34. You get to steal money from the joint checking account for time with the escort.

 

35. You get to exult when you finally get approval for a business trip to San Francisco.

 

36. Finally, you get to spend time with Devon.

 

37. And then, I get to go home and imagine what might have been, for the rest of my fucked-up life.

[Guest zipperzone]

>Another thing not to forget about those "glorious" times is

>the effect that the cultural environment had on sexual

>uncertainties on some young males.

>

>I admit that the following could be read as smaltz. It

>certainly is not worthy of being printed. And it is quite

>personal. In spite of all these caveats, see if you find

>anything of yourself in here.

>

>All responses are welcome.

 

This is not meant as a putdown, but I found the list you sent us to be very depressing, only becasue it is so true. I don't think it to be "smaltz" and it IS worthy of printing.

 

Those of us born much later have much to be thankful for. A life filled with "what might have beens" is to me a very sad life.

[gp0560]

Thanks, Zip, for your kind comments. As to the "sad life," hell no! There are many other joys to savor on this journey (unless all your brains are in your gonads). Maybe it's sublimination, but it works!

 

Also, please look at #27 again. You guys today have all kinds of meds we didn't have, and fear of STDs was rampant then, for guys of all tastes. Shit, if you got the pre-pill girl pregnant, you HAD to marry her.

 

And the Shame! The shame you would bring upon your family to the n-th generation, may your name be blotted from our memories!

 

Thank goodness for closets. :-)

[Rick Munroe]

>1. You get to study straight boys and men to learn how to

>walk, talk, and behave. You’re afraid to buck convention.

>

>2. You get to study gay boys and men to learn how not to walk,

>talk, and behave. You’re afraid to buck convention.

 

But if you were walking and talking just like the boys and men you perceived to be straight, how do you know who was straight and who wasn't? You were gay and closeted, and there were definitely others just like you. Isn't it possible that some of the ones you perceived as "gay" were actually heterosexual, but their natural inclination was to be a little "fem"?

 

I know I always get into this topic but we all have our issues and pet causes and this one is mine. There are masculine men and effeminate men, and there's nothing wrong with being either way (or somewhere in between). But I maintain that sexuality has nothing to do with it. I have 2 male family members who are very straight, and neither is macho in the least. I am the one who loves classic rock, while my straight male cousin loves show tunes. He was always more "girly" and I was always more "boyly." I guess my point is that you never can tell about a person's sexuality just from their mannerisms or interests. I've been guilty of it myself and have sometimes mistaken a straight guy for gay, but I've learned that you just never can tell...unless they cruise you, and then your gaydar goes up along with your dick, and you take it from there!

 

Derek's waiting for me to pack up & head to the next location on Southern Tour '07...

[gp0560]

>But if you were walking and talking just like the boys and men

>you perceived to be straight, how do you know who was straight

>and who wasn't? You were gay and closeted, and there were

>definitely others just like you. Isn't it possible that some

>of the ones you perceived as "gay" were actually heterosexual,

>but their natural inclination was to be a little "fem"?

 

Yahbut. Of course what you say is correct, but in those days there was much less "common knowledge" of the various modalites of sex.

 

So, I have not explained this part clearly enough. Let me try again, please. I think (now that you force me to it :-) ), that I imitated not so much specific people as I studied the sterotypes of men and women that permeated our culture then. For example, girls carried their books up against their breasts; boys carried with hands at sides. (I still wonder if one of my arms isn't longer than the other.) Girls crossed their legs at the knees; boys put one ankle on the other knee. These are some of the earliest things I noticed, but there are more examples.

 

At the time, I didn't care about anyone's sexual modality (not strictly true, but don't ask, I won't tell). I looked to the stereotype. You have all those TV show from the 50's, don't you? That's where I saw how "men" and "boys" should behave.

 

Then there's the life plan: high school, college, marriage, career, 2.5 kids, and a pretty little white picket fence around your life.

 

Anyway, Rick, how come we didn't have this conversation when you were here? We did spend SOME time talking, . . . didn't we?

 

Safe journey, you two!

[Rick Munroe]

>Anyway, Rick, how come we didn't have this conversation when

>you were here? We did spend SOME time talking, . . . didn't

>we?

 

I just remember lots of moaning and "oh fucks"...who had time to talk?

 

>Safe journey, you two!

 

Thanks! Sorry we keep missing your drive-home calls.

[Guest TBinCHI]

As to your number 29, the real heartache of being in the closet is not being able to share your true self with anyone. At the risk of being trite, it is so liberating to be able to be honest, out loud, about being attracted to men!

 

And, as for number 30, it is always possible that someone new is going to love you. You just have to live like it's going to happen!

 

Finally, a last addition to your list, and one that I don't believe has been mentioned before: how about all of the boys who were sexually abused and couldn't or didn't come forward for fear of being disbelieved or blamed? Thank God those days are gone!!!