The Good Old Days
This was in my email this morning. It came to me from a friend, who was basically forwarding it to me (spam). But I read it, because it was sent from a friend.
There are a lot of people in society who want to look back to the “good ole days”, as if they didn’t have problems. The problems were there, they were just different. A lot of people today are trying to right the wrongs done in the past. Of course, I suppose it all depends on how you feel about things.
If you were white and middle class, the “good ole days” were kind to you. If you were black, you were most likely poor and looked down upon. I still remember my friend Bobby, from the second grade. He was a black kid, and he was my best friend. My family told me not to play with “his kind”. I honestly had never noticed him being black until they told me, and then it didn’t matter to me. That was my first experience with prejudice. Shortly after that, the good people of Emmett burned down Bobby’s home. His parents left in a hurry in the middle of the night. And Bobby was not heard from again. I was told years later what happened to my friend. There’s nothing quite like burning down someone’s home and running them out of town to put them in their place. None of this made the papers and none if it was spoken of. Those were the “good ole days”.
If you were gay, you were meeting people like yourself in secret places because other public places (such as a bar) that we would meet at would most likely be raided by the police. It was only a matter of time. Your name would be put in the paper as being a pervert, and the harassment would begin, most likely with you losing your job and shaming your family. You either moved away or committed suicide. You would be remembered as someone who used to be a good person be fell prey to Satan and the evil lifestyle of homosexuality.
Those were the “good ole days” for me. Not so good. In my opinion, we’ve made a lot of progress. Many don’t like it because their “good ole days” are now becoming our “better days”, and things are looking up a bit more for Americans who have been left behind in the past.
THE GOOD OLE DAYS
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. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag not in icepack coolers, but I can’t remember getting E-coli?
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 Ked’s (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.
Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson [and provided comic relief] by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system.
Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches. I can’t understand it.
Schools didn’t offer 14-year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn’t have known what either was anyway), but they did give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if we started getting the sniffles.
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 Stations, Nintendo, X-Box or 270 digital TV cable stations. I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers that could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a half mile down the road to some guy’s vacant lot, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot? He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infra-red intruder alarm.
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 called it “monkey blood” and 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 (physical abuse) here, too, and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home.
Mom invited the door-to-door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks (remember why Tonka trucks were made tough? - - it wasn’t so that they could take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.
Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play, and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.
Summers were spent behind the push lawn mower, and I didn’t even know that mowers came with motors until I was 13, and we got one without an automatic blade-stop, and it did not have powered wheels. How sick were my parents?
Of course my parents weren’t the only psychos 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?
Think about it before you laugh, this is not a joke, it’s the way it was in the good old days...
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The The - Jealous of Youth (edited)
It's funny how, as we grow old
We cling to the past as we cling to the air
And feel nostalgia for things that were maybe never there
The town where innocence was bullied and flared
The house where desire's first fluids bled
But now the autumn leaves are turning to the color of rust
I'm getting jealous for youth's first yearnings for lust
I wanna live
I wanna live
But I ain't a big enough man to do anything other than think...
...Yet it's funny how as we grow old
We curse and point our finger at those
Those, those, those
Who made us scared and made us old
Who touched our bodies and bruised our souls
Who have made us scared and made us old
It was those, God
It was those
Who made us scared
And made us old
The autumn leaves are turning to the color of rust
I'm getting jealous for youth's first yearnings for lust
I wanna live
I wanna live
I wanna live
I wanna live
But I ain't a big enough man to do anything other than think
I think if kids today had to live like we did as children their would be alot less trouble for them to get into,we had an old mansion as a club house it was like "our gang"everyone thought the house was haunted so no one went there,the house was like walking back in the 40's it belonged to a jewish couple the family went back to newyork for a visit and was killed in a car crash,so their house was never entered again untill we got brave and went inside to see the ghost,instead we walked into a beautiful mansion with funiture from paris and all over the world,it was like being in a candy store,it was really dusty so we went to work cleaning it up,it would become our our club house so when we wanted to hide from the world it was there we went,we took an oath that no one would tell about the club house,we would play dress up with all the expensive ball gowns hanging in the closet,there was 5 guys in our club,we all had nicknames,noodle,red,porky,too tall,and pinky who got his nickname when he blew his pinky off with a fire cracker,one of the guys is now a mayor and one is a lawyer and one is on the city council,wow those where the good old days,but when the teenage years came the good old days went as well,replaced with fear.
There is SO MUCH wrong with this... Wannabe's comments only begin to expose how misleading this is ....
"Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then."
... in the 1960's the water in most lakes and streams was more polluted and more dangerous than it is today. No beach closures because we just didn't know. In the "good old days" if you recall, we thought asbestos was GREAT. There was a LOT we just didn't know.
"We all took gym, not PE ... and risked permanent injury" ... because gym was the acceptable place for the "physically gifted, mentally challenged" to exact violent revenge on the "mentally gifted, physically challenged". There was no protection from this abuse because the "gym teacher" was a member of the first category. Quote: "Those who can, do - those who can't, teach - those who can't teach, teach gym" - Woody Allen.
"Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem " ... and this was GOOD? I recall how Americans used to be shocked by such things as "Hitler Youth" or China's "Communist Youth League". These are indoctrination without education. Were we any better? We are now!
"We didn’t act up at the neighbor’s house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked (physical abuse) here, too, and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home." .... I hear this garbage over and over and over - FACT, children can be well behaved and disciplined without being beaten. Got it? Or do I need to beat it into you? There are many ill behaved children, but it's not because their parents do not beat them. Yea, "physical abuse" is right!
"Schools didn’t offer 14-year olds an abortion" ... I won't even address this Christian Coalition clap trap. Not even remotely close to the truth.
Hum...the good ol' days. Let's look at health and safety issues...
It was before transplant surgeries. My mother died of kidney failure before my twin brother and I turned two. Those were the good ol' days.
It was before we knew cigarettes cause cancer and heart disease. My step-mother smoked three packs a day and died of a heart attack at 45. My father also smoked and has had a bypass surgery and two types of cancer. Those were the good ol' days.
It was before government agencies ensured that playground equipment is safe for children. My friend Martin accidentally hung himself from a dome-shaped jungle gym and died at 9 years old. Those were the good ol' days.
It was before safty belts were required in automobiles. My cousin Andy hit a windshield at 65 MPH. His 75-year-old mother still has to change his diapers. Those were the good ol' days.
It was when many countries throughout the world did not have an organization like our FDA to ensure that drugs are safe and effective. My cousin Pam is a thalidamide victim. Her mother was treated with the drug for morning sickness while living in Germany. She was born with flippers where her arms and legs should be. Those were the good ol' days.
The good ol' days were so very very bad in many ways. We've made a great deal progress in health and safety -- yet, there are morons like this who scorn progress and yearn for the dark ages.
Every day should be a good old day.
Wannabeleader