Wednesday, June 22, 2011

OVER 40?


People over 40 should be dead.
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived. Here's why...
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.
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 children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle... Good Grief!
We ate cakes, bread and butter, and drank cold drinks with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.
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 street lights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day!  No cell phones... Unthinkable!
We did not have Play stations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes... no video games at all... no 599 channels on DSTV, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.
We had friends!  We went outside and found them.
We played Red Rover, and sometimes, the tackles would really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
There were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over 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.
Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a standard and were held back to repeat at the same standard. Horrors!
Tests were not adjusted for any reason.
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!
If we got in trouble in school, and got punished... guess what?  We got punished again when we got home... even worse!
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 how to deal with it all.
And if you're one of them! Congratulations!
People under 40 are......!

3 comments:

  1. IT HIT THE SPOT ..NOW A DAYS KIDS DONT EVEN PLAY RED ROVER ...HA..JUST BROUGHT MEMORIES FROM MY SCHOOL DAYS THANKS...

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  2. Something we need to remember, though, is that we live today in a society that demands bigger thrills. Our sports have to be extreme, our chili hotter, our gum more intense and our experiences more death-defying. I still have the scar from a rope swing mishap when I was 12: my son nearly lost an argument with a truck while longboarding. But the other thing is, many of the 40-somethings you describe as "we" discovered lawsuits -- otherwise known as abrogating personal responsibility for fun and profit (like the famous "McDonald's coffee lawsuit") -- and that mindset has passed down to succeeding generations. Things have changed, that's for sure, but we have to keep it in context.

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