Was this before your time?

alisonb

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South Africa
We licked the beaters and didn't have anyone telling us we were going to become deathly ill from eating batter with raw eggs in it!

At Easter time, we had our dyed Easter eggs in a nest on the counter and they sat out at room temperature for the week after Easter. We would peel one whenever we felt like it. I Can't Believe We Made It"!

If you lived as a child in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's. Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have... 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.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.

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 streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable.

We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut, broke bones and broke teeth, and there were no law suits from these accidents. They 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 ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight ... we were always outside playing games, we shared grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms ... we had friends. We went outside and found them.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell and just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By our-selves! Out there in the cold, cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do 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.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade .... Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. 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, problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has 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. :tiphat:
 
I do too. My brother and I used to fight over who was going to get the beaters or the bowl, at Thanksgiving last year at my mothers house, we just flipped a coin to see who got them. Takes to long to heal now.
 
We actually used to have BB gun wars. The only rule was to "try" not to shoot anyone in the face. It was not always followed.

We were also smart enuf to know that any child that looked even remotely bored would be found some work to do.
 
Red Bull Breeder":1enfzj1v said:
Eating cracklins out of the pot while rendering lard.

Heck for that matter we ATE food cooked in lard. I remember my Aunts frying Italian sausage in lard. Never tasted nothing better than taters and onions fried in lard with sausage.
 
3waycross":2q7jhe7h said:
We actually used to have BB gun wars. The only rule was to "try" not to shoot anyone in the face. It was not always followed.

Now that brings back some fond memories. Looking back I'm amazed I'm able to look back.
 
Jogeephus":1sj73y4l said:
3waycross":1sj73y4l said:
We actually used to have BB gun wars. The only rule was to "try" not to shoot anyone in the face. It was not always followed.

Now that brings back some fond memories. Looking back I'm amazed I'm able to look back.

Jo
We were doin pretty good with that war thing until one day while the war was going on a bunch of girls from our class(7th grade) happened to arrive on a "hike" , like they just happened by. :pretty: :nod:
Well there were prisoners taken and some casualties(mostly on their side). When we came to our senses we realized that their was a good chance we could never go home again, so we sent the survivors back to town with the terms of our surrender. Let me just say that we should have stayed in the hills for a year or two. We were lied to and that's all I can say about that. :help:

That was our last war. Believe me! :shock: :cry2:
 
3waycross":14p7xeje said:
Jogeephus":14p7xeje said:
3waycross":14p7xeje said:
We actually used to have BB gun wars. The only rule was to "try" not to shoot anyone in the face. It was not always followed.

Now that brings back some fond memories. Looking back I'm amazed I'm able to look back.

Jo
We were doin pretty good with that war thing until one day while the war was going on a bunch of girls from our class(7th grade) happened to arrive on a "hike" , like they just happened by. :pretty: :nod:
Well there were prisoners taken and some casualties(mostly on their side). When we came to our senses we realized that their was a good chance we could never go home again, so we sent the survivors back to town with the terms of our surrender. Let me just say that we should have stayed in the hills for a year or two. We were lied to and that's all I can say about that. :help:

That was our last war. Believe me! :shock: :cry2:
Yep, things can be going fine an you get that stuff mixed into it an everything goes to he77.
 
was taught to sleep more than 6 hours was just lazy & only babys & old people took naps.
work day started just after sun up & quitin time was at supper . then you read to learn not play on a electronic gizmo
 
I laugh at the covers on the electrical outlets. Don't have any idea how old I was, but I remember sticking a butter knife in the outlet and it shocking me. I thought it hurt and decided to not do that anymore. I always ask how the kids today are gonna' know that hurts. They are really gonna' feel stupid doing it as a 30 year old. gs
 
This thread is bringing back some fond memories. I guess I'm old enough to remember helping my dad and uncles put in a commode and a bath tub in my grandfather's house while he was in the hospital after a stroke. I remember the tyrade he had when he saw our surprise and I clearly remember his words. "You take this dam stuff out of my house cause AIN"T NOBODY GONNA $HIT IN MY HOUSE".

The mule loved its new water trough and I don't remember what they did with the commode.
 
I agree with Jo this has been a good thread.

Thanks Alison for starting it.

Speaking of bathtubs. I remember taking a lot of baths in wash tubs in front of the cookstove when I was a kid. We always used a washtub in the summer out on the back patio(cement slab behind the house) The funniest thing I ever saw was the night the dwarf, my grandma adopted, was so dirty she wouldn't let him bathe in the house and while he was out there in the dark knocking off the Missouri mud in the washtub she sneaked around the house with a sheet over her and jumped out of the bushes at him.
It scared him so bad he jumped out of the tub and ran into the house and jumped in bed with my Great grandmother, she did not take it well. There ain't nuthin as sweet as hearing your 60 yr old Grandma gettin her but chewed by her 80 yr old mother. We all laughed til we cried.

BTW I bet I am not the only one who's grandma cured everything with cod liver oil. She poured that crap down us for everything from mumps to a broke leg. That and a mustard plaster were all she needed to cure any disease known to man. :nod:
 
Jogeephus":14plp9xn said:
Castor oil was our magic medicine.

Ours too. Sorry . My mistake.
You will love this. The Dwarf got drunk at work one day when we were about 19 and when I brought him home I thought I got him safely to his room without being discovered. So over dinner Grandma says where's David. I said Oh he's sick I put him to bed. She looks at me with fire in her eyes and says I know just what he needs and promptly poured about a third of a bottle of Castor oil down him.

Then she looks at me and say I sure would hate to see you catch whatever he's got OPEN UP!.
 
:lol2: :lol2: I believe I would have had to rat on him. :lol2: Castor oil is some foul stuff. We'd add two inches to a collins glass top it off with orange juice and a table spoon of baking soda and stir it briskly and kill it. That is the only way I can take it without gagging. I still use it for stomach viruses. I once got amoebic dysentery and that is the thing that fixed it when nothing else would.(btw- don't drink water from a stream down stream from a dairy)
 
peg4x4":1st57xhm said:
Rode horses without wearing a helment....
How about no helmet, no saddle, no reins and no shirt (well not until puberty at least :P )
We were so carefree!

You know, due to economic sanctions during the Apartheid era SA only got TV in the 1970's :shock:. It was only the USA that continued to supply SA with movies etc. Our choices were Dallas, Night Rider or Apartheid news. The leaders of SA thought that TV was the devil himself :lol: .
Jogeephus":1st57xhm said:
Castor oil was our magic medicine.
I don't recall Castor oil being the magic medicine but here it was Codliver oil, Camphor blocks and garlic -- Enough to chase away the devil :shock: and the nice little guy you fancied.
I still take Codliver oil daily ....Thank goodness for capsules!
 

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