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That's cool! 
Posted: 00:20 May 28 2003
the way we were ...
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's probably shouldn't have survived.
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Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.
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We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
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When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent clackers' on our wheels.
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As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the passenger seat was a treat.
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We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle tasted the same.
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We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
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We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this.
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We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
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We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
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We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.
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We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.
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We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again.
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We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we learned to get over it.
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We walked to friend's homes.
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We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
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We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
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Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
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This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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 to deal with it all.
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>And you're one of them.
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>Congratulations!
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>Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
7 Replies and 997 Views in Total.
Posted: 00:20 May 28 2003 
Ah, the anarcho-capitalist's creed... Haven't we had this one already, though?
Posted: 02:41 May 28 2003 [nostalgia]
by EvilWillow
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's probably shouldn't have survived.
>
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
>
We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.
>
We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.
>
We walked to friend's homes.
>
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
>
We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
>
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
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>And you're one of them.
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Ah, the halcyon days!
These points struck a particular chord with me. I was fortunate enough that the area I lived in as a child (before moving at about 12 years old) centred around a large playing field (with houses on three sides). Most of the kids in that locality could be found either on the field or in one of the houses (and it only took one enquiry from one of the parents to establish where we all were!).
Often or not the house in question was mine, as my mum thrived (and still does to that extent even though we're all in our 30's) in feeding, watering and generally looking after people. My late father (bless him) would often come home from work and ask why his house was always full of other people's kids! and sometimes me and my brother would be somewhere else entirely!
It also harks back to an era where there still open doors and open gates when it was accepted that in order to get from A to B it was easier to go through rather than round (checking with the respective owners first, of course!).
Sigh.
[/nostalgia]
(Edited by gobstopper 28/05/2003 09:43)
Posted: 09:42 May 28 2003 
Here in the Netherlands, whenever you see someone with a helmet on a bike and he doesn't look like he's about to do dangerous stuff on a mountain bike... you know it's a foreigner.
by EvilWillow
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent clackers' on our wheels.
Posted: 09:58 May 28 2003 
Happy days when we didn't have a care in the world. By the way about the eating stuff you forgot mudpies made out real mud ( I admit I did have my fair share of these)
Posted: 11:06 May 28 2003