Graham Thirkill Loc: Idylic North Yorkshire, England UK.

Those were the days!!

Yep, that’s my era………………….

My mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning..

Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.Coli Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake or at the beach instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

We all took PE ..... and risked permanent injury with a pair of Dunlop sandshoes instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors that cost as much as a small car. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

We got the cane for doing something wrong at school, they used to call it discipline yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour & respect those older than us. We had 50 kids in our class and we all learned to read and write, do maths and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter......., FUNNY THAT!!

We all said prayers in school irrespective of our religion, sang the national anthem and no one got upset.

Staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention we wish we hadn’t got.

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 Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations, OR bloody mobile phones. We weren't!!

Oh yeah ... And where was the antibiotics 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 building sites and when we got hurt, mum pulled out the 2/6p bottle of iodine and then we got our backside spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10 day dose of antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

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 never needed to get into group therapy and/or 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?

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA.

AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED.

I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!


Pass this to someone and remember that life's most simple pleasures are very often the best.

AAAAh, those WERE the days!!!!

Cheers and Beers
Grahm

Popeye Loc: LifIno

Thanks for the post. Got me thinking of all the crap my brothers and I used to get into. We never really got hurt and never destroyed anything that belonged to someone else. We had some great times. Couldn't do it now though.

Rich2236 Loc: E. Hampstead, New Hampshire

Thats my story....totally!
Rich...

John N Loc: HP14 3QF Stokenchurch, UK

Talking to a neighbour the other day, remembering how me and brother in law used to walk down the street with my air rifle and set up a few cans to plink can. Kept us quite all afternoon.

"But you had to keep it in a case didn't you" he enquired?

Sort of, I used the box it came in - with a picture of the rifle on the outside that was life size. Can't recall a single complaint, except maybe PLOD who advised us to make sure there were no people behind the cans!

kschwegl Loc: Orangeburg, NY

Those were better days.

cdayton

Last summer we did some house hunting in the Shenandoah Valley area and noticed that on weekends the yards and common areas in communities we drove through were essentially empty of human activity. It’s sad to be indoors playing video games or whatever during beautiful weather. It’s the same where we eventually purchased. They have a nice park/playground but I think only our grandchildren during visits ever use it. Sad.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

I remember those days very well!!!! We even carried a pocket knife to school!!

At a recent family gathering I over heard my four daughters talking about how they missed going out to cut fire wood with me, they road to the wood in the trailer with the chainsaw, axes wedges and gasoline behind the 9n ford tractor. They would wait at a safe distance as I fell the tree and topped it, the the girls would drag the brush out of the way while I cut and split the trunk, then they would load the trailer as I cut the rest of the top. Trailer loaded, climb on top of the wood and ride back to the house, go in and eat lunch while I dumped the wood, a little rest and back for the rest of the wood and tools. I had a good laugh then told them That's not I remembered it.

Dannj

These were "the good old days" for so many of us. My kids' experiences were similar although their sports activities were much more organized but I worry about my grandkids.So wheneverve I'm with them I try to make our "playtime" as unstructured as I can. I always have a supply of various balls around and we'll go outside and use them as intended or make up a game. Or we'll take a walk thru the woods and let out collective imagination go crazy. They enjoy the break from the structure and I certainly enjoy the time with them.

marine73 Loc: Modesto California

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

dragonfist Loc: Stafford, N.Y.

The times surely have changed. I am glad I grew up in that time frame. The best part for most of us anyway was the fact mom was home if we needed adult help and not working a 9-5 job. Sure the family income was less but the family ties were much stronger.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

I must agree. I might add, “What was kindergarten?” How did I ever get my master’s degree without having gone to kindergarten or pre-school? I have no idea how that was even possible.

W5RA Loc: Walker, Louisiana

Those were the best years of our lives! But I suppose that every generation of folks will remember their younger years as being the best of times.

SpikeW Loc: Butler PA

I too remember the old days. The getting up in a cold house and starting a fire instead of just turning up the thermostat. I don't mind missing the manual transmissions in cars not to mention heated seats and defrosters that work. What isn't there today is the old common sense. I lived in a time where every boy carried a pen knife which we got at the local five and dime and took to school and they were not considered dangerous. In fact the cutting edge and the back of the blade had the same sharpness. One other thing after they were carried for more than three days the blade couldn't be opened anyway. And then if we thought we would get a suspension for three days we would have taken advantage of it. Now you need three days for TV interviews. A little personal thing here and my brother and I did thank our sister for this. My sister got scarlet
fever on a beautiful April and there was twenty one days of fishing without having to share the creek with other kids. So as we age looking back gives us a longer view than looking ahead gives us so enjoy the the good thing that have come but don't forget the past that seems to have been better than it really was except for that common sense thing.

jsmangis Loc: Peoria, IL

Thank you Graham. We raised our children in the same manner that we were, and my girls are raising their children as close to the way were (in the current environment), and they all seem to be doing OK. My eldest grandson just graduated from Basic Training.

kdogg Loc: Gallipolis Ferry WV

I grew up in that era also, and what I have noticed is there are no neighborhoods anymore. There was a time when every door on your block was open and a virtual sea of kids came and went through them. We all knew are neighbors and parent regularly sat on the porch in the evening watching kids play till the street lights came on. From one end of the block to the other children were outside until they were forced to come in. Bikes roller skates and scooters were our mode of transportation adn we went everywhere without fear. Not so anymore and I am willing to bet that most people don't know the neighbor at the end of the block. A sad comment on today's society. R.I.P the neighborhood you are lmissed.