OT - Another Goody For The Old-timers

Dimitri said:

Another Goody For The Old-timers

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board
with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw
sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager
was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top
Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air
cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but
they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now..

Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much
harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had
then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be
proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo,
X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee
sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction
sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome
(kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got
our butt spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle
of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for
leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our
butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the
front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could
have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such
a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from
a dysfunctional family How could we possibly have known that?

We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were
obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the
entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

:-)

Dimitri

LOL... we must be the same age. I remember all of it. My mom did all
of it. One thing not mentioned is playing until the lights came on and
playing kick the can.
I grew up in Chicago.
chilichick

Dimitri said:

Another Goody For The Old-timers

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board
with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw
sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager
was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top
Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air
cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but
they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now..

Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much
harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had
then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be
proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo,
X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee
sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction
sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome
(kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got
our butt spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle
of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for
leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our
butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the
front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could
have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such
a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from
a dysfunctional family How could we possibly have known that?

We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were
obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the
entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

:-)

<purposely not snipped - Cathy apologizes in advance>

Great post Dimitri, and oh so true...

--
Cheers
Chatty Cathy

"Dimitri" <[email hidden]>
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Another Goody For The Old-timers

<snippage for space>

LOL... I loved it.

Quoted message said:

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same
cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to
get food poisoning.

Since my mother did not cook much, it wasn't an issue in our household 😉
OTOH I keep the kitchen as clean as possible but sure as hell don't go to
extremes.

Quoted message said:

We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of
high top Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training
athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I
can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they
tell us how much safer we are now..

Same here Dimitri. We had black gym shorts, white t-shirts and the high top
Keds. Oh... white socks too. All stored in the gym locker.

Quoted message said:

Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must
be much harder than gym.

No one flunked gym but there was study hall if you could not take gym for
whatever reason. Study hall was not an hour of screw off time either.
There was a teacher there and would help you with your home work if needed.

Quoted message said:

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health
system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and
everything.

Ours wore a uniform and I really detested her. She reeked of booze but she
was easy to get an excuse slip out of to cut classes.

Quoted message said:

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was
allowed to be proud of myself.

I was raised that way.

Quoted message said:

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station,
Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

I read books and communed with nature. Those were the good old days.

Quoted message said:

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant
construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent
bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting
like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.

Gawd. I remember mercurochrome. We didn't have gravel piles. I did the
forbidden tree climbing. We liked making tar babies when the streets were
oiled and graveled. Mother used to get really [censored] when we did it. When
caught, I would lose my privileges. Now that I think of it, there wasn't
that much to take away. I had no cell phone, television or computer in my
room. I was usually grounded to the house. It was no big deal to me. I
would read books in my bedroom or the sunporch . Hardy Boys and Trixie
Belden mysteries were my favorites. Still have every volume of both stored
in mother's attic.

Quoted message said:

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we
got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we
got home.

I was never spanked but I was afraid to act up in other people's homes or
at restaurants. I don't know why I was afraid, but I was.
< How did we ever survive?

Thankfully we are both still around 😉 Thanks for the pleasant post.

Michael
--
This is how it works in my house. Click the pic to enlarge it:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=42ko0mf
-remove "foodie" to email

"Michael "Dog3" Lonergan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Dimitri" <[email hidden]>
news:[email hidden]:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Thankfully we are both still around 😉 Thanks for the pleasant post.

Michael

You're welcome.

Dimitri

"Chatty Cathy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

<snip.

Quoted message said:

<purposely not snipped - Cathy apologizes in advance>

Great post Dimitri, and oh so true...

--
Cheers
Chatty Cathy

You're very welcome - I think we all need a little humor especially in light if
V.Tech.

Dimitri

Dimitri said:

Another Goody For The Old-timers

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board
with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw
sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager
was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top
Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air
cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but
they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now..

Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much
harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had
then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be
proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo,
X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee
sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction
sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome
(kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got
our butt spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle
of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for
leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our
butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the
front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could
have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such
a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from
a dysfunctional family How could we possibly have known that?

We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were
obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the
entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

:-)

Dimitri

Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
"under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
nuts psychotic.

Sheldon

"chilichick" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Dimitri said:

Another Goody For The Old-timers

<snip>

Quoted message said:

LOL... we must be the same age. I remember all of it. My mom did all
of it. One thing not mentioned is playing until the lights came on and
playing kick the can.
I grew up in Chicago.
chilichick

Nope, I'll bet I'm older.

How about catching summer Fire Flies at night and putting them into a glass jar?

I grew up in LA with Summers spent on Longgggg Gilanddd (LI NY)

Dimitri

Sheldon said:

Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
"under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
nuts psychotic.

Sheldon

roflmao. I was forced to go to church growing up. About the time I
figured Santa Claus out I also figured out the god thing. I was about
14 when I was given a choice. Haven't been back since. I avoid
weddings and funerals also.

"Sheldon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

:-)

Dimitri

Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
"under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
nuts psychotic.

Sheldon

just in case peopkle don't know how old we is...

http://www.religioustolerance.org/nat_pled.htm

"From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim
in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of
our Nation and our people to the Almighty." President Eisenhower (1954) after
signing into law a bill to have "under God" added to the original pledge.

It was no problem for me, I went to a parochial school. (which means the nuns
and priests beat the [censored] out of us if we misbehaved

Dimitri

Quoted message said:

Don't forgot those lunch pales with the Monkees and Yellow Submarine
designs that came with the breakable glass thermoses.

Lou Decruss said:

Sheldon said:

Every morning in school we all stood, faced the flag, placed our right
hand over our heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance... everything
went along fine and then all of a sudden big problems began to occur,
at exactly the same time some really dumb pinheads decided to add
"under god"... every human problem that ever occured on this planet is
the total responsibility of the imbeciles with their blind faith in
god. And there is no god... which of course makes all the religious
nuts psychotic.

Sheldon

roflmao. I was forced to go to church growing up. About the time I
figured Santa Claus out I also figured out the god thing. I was about
14 when I was given a choice. Haven't been back since. I avoid
weddings and funerals also.

You figured it out late. I figured all the games out by the time I was
about 5 at which point I put my foot down and that was the end of all
that nonsense (a nuclear blast couldn't move me once I make a decision).
Never did that pledge nonsense either, I pledge allegiance to myself and
my friends and no one and nothing else.

Pete C.

Scott said:

Don't forgot those lunch pales with the Monkees and Yellow Submarine
designs that came with the breakable glass thermoses.

My lunchbox had a picture of William Boyd, so did my bottle of hair
trainer.

Sheldon

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:18:08 GMT, "Dimitri" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Another Goody For The Old-timers

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board
with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw
sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper
bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager
was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top
Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air
cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but
they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now..

Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much
harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention
after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had
then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be
proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo,
X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee
sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction
sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome
(kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got
our butt spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle
of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for
leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our
butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the
front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could
have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such
a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from
a dysfunctional family How could we possibly have known that?

We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were
obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the
entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

We skated on the sidewalk without any kind of knee pads or elbow pads.
If youfell you got skinned elbows and/or knees and Mom patched you up
and sent you back out. You learned how not to fall. You did NOT file a
lawsuit against the city for not maintaining the sidewalk, for
allowing cracks to form that a kid could trip on.

I will say that if bike helmets had been required when I was a kid, my
brother wouldn't be deaf in one ear. He was riding his bike home from
school one day when he was 12 and hit a patch of ice (Chicago, freak
spring blizzard, Aoril 1959). He suffered a skull fracture and lost
the hearing in his left ear. If he'd been wearing a helmet he wouldn't
have been nearly as seriously injured.

These things do happen, but I think price we're paying today with our
paranoid over-protectiveness is causing far moreand more widespread
damage than the very infrequent injuries that might have occurred
otherwise. Not to mention the climate of fear our kids are being
raised with. They're not learning the life lessons we learned and
that's going to be devestating to them when they grow up and go out
into the real world.

Cathy

"Dimitri" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting
board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food
poisoning.

(laugh) I wonder if chicken was 'cleaner' back then.

Quoted message said:

Flunking gym was not an option..even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be
much harder than gym.

You could only flunk it if you didn't go, I think. I remember some moron
didn't graduate on time because you *had* to have 4 years of gym.

Quoted message said:

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed
to be proud of myself.

Now they make a big deal out of graduating junior high ... maybe it
was just in my house, but you were expected to do that. Same with
high school. Wasn't my mother shocked to find out my little brothers
didn't feel that strongly about it. Heh.

Quoted message said:

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant
construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent
bottle of Mercurochrome

My dad would draw pictures on my cuts. Roosters.

Quoted message said:

(kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we
got our butt spanked.

One of my most memorable beatings occurred when my mother
looked out the 5th floor window to see me climbing down the
wooden plank-lined ditches they'd made to install sewers.
What? It was the perfect playground. Good thing she didn't
see all the trouble we got into as kids.

The playground had monkey bars we'd walk on, no hands. If we
fell, it not only hurt when you hit the metal bars, landing on the
asphalt was no picnic, either.

Funny stuff, Dimitri.

nancy

"Sheldon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Scott said:

Don't forgot those lunch pales with the Monkees and Yellow Submarine
designs that came with the breakable glass thermoses.

My lunchbox had a picture of William Boyd, so did my bottle of hair
trainer.

Sheldon

Did you also ask for milk when you went into the western saloon or was it
sarsaparilla?
;-)

Dimitri

"Nancy Young" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Funny stuff, Dimitri.

nancy

Thanks - we had a blackberry hedge along the driveway. One day I picked a bunch
of berries squished them into my right hand & ran upstairs holding by "bloody
hand" yelling like a banshee. When my parents found out it was a "joke" got my
tail beat. I guess they didn't think it was so damn funny.

Dimitri

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:43:16 GMT, cathy <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

These things do happen, but I think price we're paying today with our
paranoid over-protectiveness is causing far moreand more widespread
damage than the very infrequent injuries that might have occurred
otherwise.

I can remember when I was 5 or so riding in the front seat of my Dad's
38 Packard. Did I say riding in the front seat? I meant to say
STANDING in the front seat while we were going somewhere. I don't
remember, but didn't those old cars have solid metal dashes? LOL

--
Zilbandy

cathy said:

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:18:08 GMT, "Dimitri" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Another Goody For The Old-timers

(snipped wonderful list)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

We skated on the sidewalk without any kind of knee pads or elbow pads.
If youfell you got skinned elbows and/or knees and Mom patched you up
and sent you back out. You learned how not to fall. You did NOT file a
lawsuit against the city for not maintaining the sidewalk, for
allowing cracks to form that a kid could trip on.

(snippage - sorry about your brother's hearing)

Quoted message said:

Cathy

Oh I loved skating on the sidewalk (and even on our suburban street; if a
car came along you just got out of the road). Wouldn't have occurred to Mom
to sue anyone else if I skinned my knees.

Here's one that's not so old but another example of not suing. When I was
13 I was walking down a residential street with 2 friends. There were no
sidewalks. We were on the side of the street by the curb, not out in the
middle of the street. I was on the outside of the other two girls. An
elderly man came along and hit me. I remember going flying and landing on
my hands and knees in the street. I was skinned up pretty badly and wound
up with a bruise the size of a grapefruit on my left butt cheek. I was
wearing light green shorts; they had blue paint on them from his car! (I
guess I was very lucky it wasn't some kid in a souped up muscle car speeding
down the street.)

The old fella lived just two houses down. His wife came running out and
they took us into their house. I think she put Bactine or something like
that on my scrapes. She gave me milk and cookies and called my mom. It
*never* occurred to my parents to sue this guy. Just didn't happen back
then.

Jill

Zilbandy said:

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:43:16 GMT, cathy <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

These things do happen, but I think price we're paying today with our
paranoid over-protectiveness is causing far moreand more widespread
damage than the very infrequent injuries that might have occurred
otherwise.

I can remember when I was 5 or so riding in the front seat of my Dad's
38 Packard. Did I say riding in the front seat? I meant to say
STANDING in the front seat while we were going somewhere. I don't
remember, but didn't those old cars have solid metal dashes? LOL

And no seatbelts.