I was thinking how different my kid’s lives are than mine was and then I thought about how different things are generally. There are so many things I experienced (I’m 40) that kids today don’t including:
1) Dodgeball in gym class.
2) Making ashtrays in art class for your parents.
3) Dressing up as hobos for Halloween
4) Public school teachers saying “God bless you” and not have to call their union rep to save their job.
5) Buying chocolate cigarettes.
6) Wrapping your lunch in tinfoil and put it in a paper bag.
7) “Green” was just a color in the crayon box, not a way of life.
8) Carrying around a Swiss Army knife everywhere you went.
9) Learning that America is a great country.
10) Saying the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.
Bonus: Playing war with finger guns in the schoolyard and not getting suspended.
Playing outside all day and your parents having no idea where you were as long as you were back for dinner.
You got any to add?
October 25, 2010 at 5:27 pm
1. Playing tackle football with the other neighborhood kids and not worrying about whether our parents would get sued when someone inevitably broke a bone.
2. We had to learn how to spell in elementary school.
3. Christmas trees on display on public property.
4. Entertaining ourselves on long car trips, and not relying on an in-car DVD player.
5. Eating as a whole family around the dinner table and having a conversation about our day was not the exception, but the rule.
6. Divorce was a scandal.
7. We addressed friends' parents as Mr. and Mrs.
October 25, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Riding in the back of a Ford Count(r?)y Squire station wagon, no seat belt and lots of room. Or sitting in that little seat that faced backwards.
Riding on the tailgate of the same station wagon, dangling our feet above the road
October 25, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Putting out the 'ashes' which were residu
from coal fired furnace.
Some victrolas had beautiful cabinet work.
'Coke' and a pack of 'squares' was after school
treat before we ever heard of pizza.
Men and boys 'tipped their hat/cap' when they
passed a Catholic Church.
October 25, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Watching tv, listening to music and going to movies with no pornographic or drug glorification content.
Not feeling pressured to have sex, use drugs, get tattooed, pierced, discover my true sexuality, prevent carbon emissions, accept perversions, use drugs to increase attention, dress older than my age, campaign for "Reproductive Health", look like Twiggy, participate in at least five activities, have a boyfriend.
Having every friend but one in a mother and father non-divorced household.
October 25, 2010 at 8:41 pm
We only knew of two families in our whole school who were divorced. It was very rare.
I had never heard of teenage pregnancy even though I was adopted.
I learned to swim when I was little without any adults being around at all.
Suzanne from Oklahoma
October 25, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Cutting through people's yards, politely closing the gate. You knew all the dogs in the neighborhood by name, anyway.
Riding bikes through leaf-burning smoke.
Riding bikes through the mosquito spraying smoke (maybe not such a good idea).
Being able to be called home with a gong or a whistle or when the streetlights came on, at least to check in, and your parents had no idea where you were as long as you were within the sound of the call.
Assuming that your friends' parents' last names were going to be the same as your friends, and the same as each other (only one divorced family in my grade school class, I think).
Putting playing cards or bubblegum cards in your spokes with clothespins to make a good noise.
And not having anybody yell at you for putting cards in your spokes, or at your parents for whistling you home. They were the sounds of the neighborhood, and were to be tolerated. (I remember my mother distinguishing between "screaming" from the playground, and "real screaming" from a hurt kid. She only got irritated because it was hard to tell if a kid (didn't make any difference whose kid) was really hurt.
October 25, 2010 at 11:09 pm
To be perfectly fair, I am delighted that we no longer call falling on top of each other "n….r piles" or Brazil nuts "n…..r toes." (We whispered it, but we said it, to be naughty.) Or that kids with club feet or missing parts or arm crutches or built-up shoes were avoided and never asked about what was wrong with them (most mainstreaming is a GOOD thing).
October 26, 2010 at 5:02 am
The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights together with the family on our one tv set in the living room. Playing outside with friends during the hot summer months (which seemed to go on forever!) roaming freely around the neighborhood without any fear of abduction. Neighbors looking out for the others kids. Buying snow cones made from shaved ice flavored with your favorite syrup and served in a paper cone 10 cents from the corner ice cream cart, sweet malta beer. Nuns in habits teaching the lessons in our local Catholic school (careful of crossing Sr. Evangelista!) Religious instruction every Wednesday afternoon when I was attending public elementary school (walking the short distance to same Catholic school which wasn't far from the public school I was attending). Home cooked dinner every night, everyone expected to be on time for dinner. Dressing up for Sunday Mass. Playing Hot Peas & Butter and stick baseball. Summer evenings strolling around the local college campus (NYU when it was the University Heights campus in the Bronx) with my mom and sisters marveling at all the fireflies!
October 26, 2010 at 5:07 am
jump off a diving board
October 26, 2010 at 4:11 pm
8. Just thought of this one…Spending time perusing the video store for VHS and the newest releases. It was so fun like a library for movies.
October 26, 2010 at 4:36 pm
– Rolling down the car window – my kids have no idea what I'm doing when I motion my hand to have them roll down the window.
– Playing Jail-break on a hot summer night until the last kid has to go home.
– The "yum-yum" man pushing his cart down the block selling yum yum (Italian ice).
– Riding bikes barefoot.
– Ice skating on the swamp and building fires to keep warm.
– Roller skates with a key.
October 26, 2010 at 5:03 pm
More remembering – going to a friend's house to get them to come out and play, standing at the back door and calling or singing out their name. We wouldn't have used the phone. And their doors and windows were open (no air conditioning) so they could hear us.
Going door to door with Girl Scout cookies sold right out of the red wagon, with the money handed over right away, and not worrying about being robbed.
October 26, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Tadpoles.
Sunday dinner, followed by the Wonderful World of Disney, and then, I believe, Bonanza, which I couldn't stay up for but my brother could.
On really hot summer days, riding our bikes double without helmets to the corner family owned gas station and buying an ice cold orange crush – put your money in and open the door – frost pours out – the bottles go clink when you pull yours out – bottle opener mounted on the machine.
Lovely days.
October 26, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Your sandwiches were wrapped in tin foil? You must have been rich. It was wax paper for us!
I remember rushing home to watch the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family on Friday nights (I think). Those were the days! (pre-VHS, not to mention pre-DVD and pre-TIVO).
There was a convent full of nuns next to our Catholic school. These days the nuns are gone and the building is a "pastoral center."