All people over 25 should be dead!

Triathlon Forum
1

I got this from a friend and said yes to every one these lines. We are just too politically correct and careful these days. Anyone else relate to this?

To the survivors:

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s probably shouldn’t have survived.

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 seat belts 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. Horrors! We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never 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 street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable.

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 did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.

We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

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.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s home 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.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

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 you’re one of them!

2

You’re preaching to the choir, Monty! According to everything you had written, I shoulda died long ago!!!

3

Spot on my friend. I have found just 5-7 years makes an enormous difference in a person’s character.

4

As a very grateful boomer I remember very fondly my “Leave it to Beaver” type childhood of the 50’s, the fun teenage turmoil of the late 60’s, 70’s being a great time to be a twenty something and the 80’s as a very sexy decade.

Wouldn’t have given up those times in my life for anything. Society seemed to change, for the worse in many ways, with coming of the 90’s but we make do anyways.

5

I figured for sure that I’d be dead or in jail by 30, and I was a bit disappointed at first when I wasn’t, but I got over it. Today, despite my best efforts, people consider me to be downright respectable and moderately conservative, although I do exhibit a penchant for tirades against the status quo and for personal responsibility(among other things, as you all know). People today are more shocked when they see my body hair than when they see my tattoos.

“When I was a boy, mother would tie us to a chair while she cleaned the house, because she didn’t have day care. That’s how we learned to untie knots. If we misbehaved, father would beat us with a stick, and the neighbors would approve. That’s how we learned to swing a baseball bat. And that’s the way we liked it.”

At first, I thought the thread title was your suggestion for solving the world’s political problems. It would be good in one respect: Nobody would be qualified to run for the Presidency, just like in real life. ;p

6

We had friends! We went outside and found them.

Heck, they didn’t even have to be friends. If they were there, and had sports equipment … game on.

When I drive around, I look for kids playing outside. God bless skaterz, they’re the only ones outdoors.

I remember being a kid/teen, and waking up Saturday at 7am (of course we stayed up till 2-3) and getting to the basketball courts, because if you got there at 9am, you had a 2 hour wait for a game (winner stays).

We had Atari’s, Colecovision, intellivision, etc as kids, but we didn’t play then till after dark. .

As a teacher, I’m a little surprised by how mnay overweight kids there are. In grade school there was always that one fat kid that you made jokes at. Then, In high school he grew about a foot, and was more muscle than fat, and beat the snot out of you, and then you were friends afterwards.

My grandfather moved out of his parent’s house when he was 15. My dad moved out of his father’s house when he was 18. I moved out of my parent’s house when I was 23 (done with college … lived in dorms). So, I guess my son will live at home until he’s what? 27?

There’s weird things going on. People talk about the mature things kids have to deal with these days, but the kids don’t seem to be as “grown up” as in the past. doesn’t make sense.

7

Fun reading…I grew up in the in the 70’s and enjoyed all of that. And survived!! And my 1 and 3 year-olds will not experience much of it. Won’t be allowed to ride their bikes “around the block” until God-knows-when. No cookie dough either…

But…

history is written by the winners/survivors.

Back in the “good old days” of the 1950’s, you were about 5 times as likely to die in your first year of life versus today. About twice as likely to die by your 5th birthday.

Its estimated that tens of thousands of people, especially kids growing up in the West in the 1950’s, got thyroid cancer thanks to above ground nuclear testing in Nevada.

People were more likely to commit suicide back then.

It was in the headlines less, but you were more likely to die by firearms when I grew up versus today.

So…my kids will grow up safer and live longer, but they won’t get to do a lot of things I did. And no doubt in 30 years they’ll be sitting around and bitching about how much more fun they had as kids then the kids of 2034!

8

I was with you until you got to the eating worms part. Never ate worms.

I showed this to another boomer in the office and she was surprised that I not only didn’t eat worms, but that I also didn’t eat mud pies.

Ok - some shit we did was not too smart. But we knew how to live simplistically.

9

TripleThreat,

I am very surprised as well at the number of overweight kids. I see them all the time just like you. I’m a junior in High School. The scariest thing I ever heard about with this is the first grader in my district who got her stomach stapled this year. I just find that out-right disgusting.

Eating worms? Sounds like you guys had the life. =)

11

“And my 1 and 3 year-olds will not experience much of it. Won’t be allowed to ride their bikes “around the block” until God-knows-when.”

It’s already happening. One of the bigger bike shops in Sydney reported that they had their best Christmas in 10 years with parents buying their kids expensive bikes. However, they also said that most of those bikes will only be ridden around the yard due to parents worrying about the kids.

(edited because those tags don’t work for me!)

12

“I was with you until you got to the eating worms part. Never ate worms.”

How about dog food?

I did :wink:

13

No worms for me, either. But I did drink water from the fish tank. Can you say “Salmonella”?

14

Hey, Milk Bones are not bad. A little Spray-Cheez and you got yourself one fine snack.

Although now that probably causes spongy-brain. On second thought, if that’s true, then eating Milk Bones is probably just as safe as eating at McD’s.

15

Thank Monty for making me smile,Thanks jmorrisset for making me LOL,
.

16

Lawn Jarts…enough said.

17

Loved your post. Most of our mothers, knowing no better, smoked and drank during pregnancy, and most of us turned out pretty much ok. I had the kind of life you described (sans worms) growing up in Oakland, California, and find it unfortunate that kids today have arranged play dates, are confined to their yards, and don’t know the joy of staying out til dark playing baseball, hide and seek, and other such games with the neighborhood kids. I grew up in a mostly Catholic neighborhood (notable because there were many large families, so always somebody to play with if you walked down the street).

It was a good life, and I’m glad I had it.

18

Self inflicted pain was the norm, used to run through the neigborhood like we owned every yard, between my brothers and I, we probably destroyed at least 10-15 bikes with various stunts or bullshit we would try to pull off. Oh we wore helmets from time to time and I grew up in the 70’s things got pretty serious around our gang. My brother once threw me through a sheetrock wall in our house, during our assestment of how this was going to go down we didn’t make provisions for the electrical wires and I got stopped halfway, (he later became and Electrical Engineer), Thank god I had the helment on then. I have a picture somewhere of my brother flying of a ramp on a beautiful lime green schwinn with chrome fenders, the landing literaly cracked the down tube and top tube and separated the bike on impact. The list goes on forever. And we lived, All of the gang is still alive, nobody has cancer, brain tumors or a, life taking disease, that we no of, now we are just a bunch of middle age bald headed (from wearing helmets) guys raising kids.

I have a daughter now who is 3 1/2 I will inspire her to “go outside” times change but experiences stay the same.

19

I expalined to my class the strategy of dodgeball the other day. They don’t know since few play anymore. I explained how we (me and a few buddies) would work as a team. One of us would roll a ball up the the midline, when someone from the otherside would approach as w acted like we didn’t notice/ Then, we would drill them point blank.

One of us would lob a ball in the air, an opponent would get excited as they thought they would catch it and get us out. meanwhile, a buddy (teammate) would blast them as they were distracted.

We were brutal.

BB gun fights (no eywear), rock fights, full contact basketball, etc.

My dad, tired of us ripping down the 7 foot rim, raised it to 10 feet. So … we got a ladder, climbed on the garage and jumped off the garage to dunk.

The best was in high school when you get a “new player” for backyard football … it’s an unwritten rule that he goes “across the middle” to take a few blasts. If he takes it, and comes back, he’s “one of us”.

It’s a miracle we are alive for sure.

In grade school we used to make “lines” (like cocaine lines) of salt, pixy dust, or fund dip … I’d act like I was sniffing it, but I would really be blowing it all over the place, giving the illusion that I was sniffing it (it disappeared didn’t it?). Then, I’d dare someone else to do it, they’d really sniff it. Then we’d all laugh at their watery eyes. Seemed funny at the time.

20

Seeing the title of this thread hurt me – I’m 55 (new age group! new age group!) today, and I thought “What a crummy present!” But the post is a good one and it makes for a GREAT present, as once again I’m reminded how fortunate I am to have grown up when I did. Thank you, Monty!

22

Does anyone remember when they used to put those huge piles of dirt behind the backstop of every baseball field? Of course that meant taking turns on "banana"bikes or the old heavy fender ones,of trying to go faster and farther of going over those ramps and seeing how far you could fly.(I actually flew into a fence once).Boy there were times I hated those top tubes. Any guys ever ride a girls bike then(No top tube)and slip or fall off the seat? OHHH OWWW!!!