OT:People over 30 should be dead
LADYAUSSIEFAN
For those of you who may not have read these tidbits before, it is worth the
read. For those of you under 30, please learn what your "elders" did as kids
and that they are somehow, despite the odds, still around to recall how things
were when life was simpler ...... and more fun!
People over 30 should be dead.
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in
the 40's, 50's, 60's, and the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived.
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.
There was nothing to stop us from sticking a fork in an electrical outlet.
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 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 shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one
actually died from this.
We would spend hours building 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 street lights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
No cell phones. Unthinkable!
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 played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no
lawsuits 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 made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and mud pies, 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.
Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held
back to repeat the same grade. Again, horrors!
Tests were not adjusted for any reason.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
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!
Congratulations.
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before
lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good...
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?
Candy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
Truth
BEAUTY
That is all ye know on earth
and all ye need to know
-John Keats
Liz
"LADYAUSSIEFAN" <ladyau...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20030830212451...@mb-m29.aol.com...
Brought back lots of memories :) I did everything except put the fork in
the outlet, break the law, fail a grade and build a go-cart. I did break my
arm roller skating on the side walk though. How did we survive.? ;)
--
Liz
the GreenEydPrincess
mystique
this on to my favorite (30+ yr old) people! This is priceless!
"LADYAUSSIEFAN" <ladyau...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20030830212451...@mb-m29.aol.com...
Yarn Spinner
do believe in seatbelts now.
Lawn darts and Water-Wiggles . . .
Jesse McCann, freelance writer guy
*What I'm writing now:
SIMPSONS EPISOIDE GUIDE SEASONS 13-14 (Harper)
*Visit my AOL freebie cheezy web page to see past accomplishments:
http://hometown.aol.com/jleon2001/myhomepage/index.html
mc
> when the street lights came on.
> No one was able to reach us all day.
These things are the saddest to see gone, imo. I used to love venturing
into the nearby woods(!) for an entire day. And take off with the
neighbor's kids until you hear your name faintly screamed.
> 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.
Interesting! Kids today are definitely going to be different adults.
Every activity seems to be organized and scheduled. Well, they'll
probably be better housekeepers than me ;)
MC
Keeper of Giovanni Ribisi and Dennis Farina!
Sophie
"mc" <mcsqu...@netzero.net> wrote in message
news:3F51E1A4...@netzero.net...
> > 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.
>
> These things are the saddest to see gone, imo. I used to love venturing
> into the nearby woods(!) for an entire day. And take off with the
> neighbor's kids until you hear your name faintly screamed.
>
We used to go to the lake all day in our neighborhood - that had snakes in
it! We had no idea - lol.
I'm 30 with 3 kids and my husband, friends, and I have talked about all the
things we used to do that our kids will never know. I really enjoyed
reading that - thanks :)
Trudi Marrapodi
ladyau...@aol.comnojunk (LADYAUSSIEFAN) wrote:
> I'm over 30 and I loved reading this and I hope you do too:
>
> For those of you who may not have read these tidbits before, it is worth the
> read. For those of you under 30, please learn what your "elders" did as kids
> and that they are somehow, despite the odds, still around to recall how things
> were when life was simpler ...... and more fun!
I tend to regard with skepticism any spam-statement that indulges people's
tendencies toward easy nostalgia.
> People over 30 should be dead.
And some people in that generation did die before they ever neared 30.
> According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in
> the 40's, 50's, 60's, and the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived.
And some didn't. Tell me you don't remember when you were a kid hearing
about a kid you knew who died from some accident or danger. And I don't
mean an urban legend kind of thing, either. I mean, a real true story.
> Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.
Which no doubt caused a lot of damage to some people.
> There was nothing to stop us from sticking a fork in an electrical outlet.
It's amazing some of us didn't get more hurt by that.
> We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets,
Which meant a lot of things were a lot easier for adults to get into back then.
> and when we
> rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
And some kids may have been damaged by that.
> (Not to mention the risks we took
> hitchhiking.)
I never hitchhiked.
> As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
It amazes me that I actually once took a whole trip from Ohio to Florida
and back, at age 3 or 4, riding on the "armrest hump" in the middle of the
front seat of my father's car. By all rights, I really should be dead.
Then again, some kids have been killed by air bags. And the regulators and
bureaucrats recognize this.
> Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
And kids still do this, whether it's safe or not.
> We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!
Long may people drink water from sources other than bottles! Probably
makes us immune to a lot more bugs because we're exposed to them and get
over them. But there's no government regulation I know of requiring kids
to drink from bottles at all times. If some do, it's parental overcaution
that makes them do so--not any regulators or bureaucrats.
> 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.
Whereas the kids who eat that stuff nowadays are inside playing video
games. But it's not regulators or bureaucrats making them do that. It's
their own choice.
> We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one
> actually died from this.
But many, many cooties were spread.
> We would spend hours building 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.
I didn't know anyone personally who built go-carts.
> We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back
> when the street lights came on.
It amazes me that we were able to do this. Today, frankly, I wouldn't feel
safe letting any kid do this, and I don't think my anxiety is misplaced,
either.
> No one was able to reach us all day.
>
> No cell phones. Unthinkable!
And that was a wonderful thing, in most cases. Then again, are bureaucrats
and regulators requiring kids to have cell phones?
> 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.
Thus, we could not choose, when given the choice between playing a video
game or engaging in the real world, to play the video game, because there
WAS no video game. I do see kids today opting for the video game over
real-world play and physical exercise, until "forced" to do otherwise, and
in the end being glad they were. Yes, this is a sad commentary on modern
life. But again, it can't be laid at the feet of regulators and
bureaucrats.
> We had friends! We went outside and found them.
And enemies too, of course.
> We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.
>
> We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no
> lawsuits from these accidents.
>
> They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?
To my mother's mind, even if something happened to someone else, her kids
were responsible. Which I thought was going too far...
> We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned
to get
> over it.
Then again, seems that kids in those days didn't as often have guns or
knives and kill each other.
> We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and mud pies, and
> although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor
> did the worms live inside us forever.
But these stories still get passed on.
> 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.
Which their parents no doubt appreciated!
> Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who
didn't had
> to learn to deal with disappointment.
And get their revenge by growing up to be computer hackers?
> Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and
were held
> back to repeat the same grade. Again, horrors!
And some of these kids ended up no damn good and were in prison as adults.
Not that it was the schools' fault. Probably would have happened anyway.
> Tests were not adjusted for any reason.
Which had its good and bad points.
> Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
>
> The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They
> actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
Not all of them. In that time as in ours, there were parents who believed
their little darlings were not responsible for anything bad that happened
to them. Trust me. I remember.
> This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers
> and inventors, ever.
And its share of losers as well.
> The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
And a lot of the same old same old as well.
> We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how
to deal
> with it all.
Some of us did.
> And you're one of them!
>
> Congratulations.
I tend to be skeptical of anyone who congratulates me merely on behalf of
the era in which I happened to be born.
> Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before
> lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good...
...And, of course, in the end the anti-government-regulation agenda that
was the real point of the whole thing comes through loud and clear...along
with encouragement to spam all your friends with this inspiring message.
No thanks. In many of the cases cited above in which kids' lives today are
different from the way they were in the past, "lawyers and government"
have zippo to do with it. The explosion of technology, the proliferation
of creepy people who don't get punished nearly enough for what they do to
kids, and overly permissive or, on the contrary, overzealous parents, have
more to do with the way life has changed for kids than the government
does.
> Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?
Not really.
--
Trudi
"Closed Due to Blackout. Pray for the Chocolate!"
--sign in Cleveland store, 8/14/03
____
Say NO to secret judging and corruption in skating --
support SkateFAIR!
http://www.skatefair.org
km39497
"Trudi Marrapodi" <tru...@clarityconnect.competent> wrote in message
news:trudee-3108...@cci-209150250050.clarityconnect.net...
Man, who peed in *your* Wheaties? It was just a fun little thing to read.
Does someone always have to get all serious about every little thing? I
remember alot of those things and as a forty-something I have often
reminisced about days gone by, it's kind of a rite of passage thing.
Someday our kids will be out on their hover-decks drinking synthetic wine,
talking about how huge the cel phones used to be when *they* were kids. I
would have thought about a paragraph into the thing that if this particular
post wasn't you cup of tea, you could have clicked the the little button on
the toolbar that says "next".
Kennebunk_Guy
On 31 Aug 2003 01:24:51 GMT, ladyau...@aol.comnojunk
(LADYAUSSIEFAN) wrote:
Super. Makes me wonder how the youngins' of today are going to make
it!
KG
claudine
Aware1
>I'm over 30 and I loved reading this and I hope you do too:
>
>For those of you who may not have read these tidbits before, it is worth the
>read. For those of you under 30, please learn what your "elders" did as kids
>and that they are somehow, despite the odds, still around to recall how things
>were when life was simpler ...... and more fun!
>
>People over 30 should be dead.
>
>According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in
>the 40's, 50's, 60's, and the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived.
>
>Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.
>
>There was nothing to stop us from sticking a fork in an electrical outlet.
<snip>
Ok, thread drift & dumb story... when I was pregnant, we were pretty
broke & had one small 5" Sony portable TV we'd move from room to room
in the house. Eventually one of the metal plug things came loose, &
would remain in the socket when we unplugged the TV. In order to
remove the stuck metal thing in the wall I would pull it out with a
tweezer. One day a friend was visiting while I was doing this & he
FREAKED when he saw me go at the socket with metal tweezers.
Why I wasn't fried I'll never know. I did stop using metal to remove
the plug thing after that day. (I was only 20 for God's sake!)
--
Deborah G. Buckner
"Trudi Marrapodi" <tru...@clarityconnect.competent> wrote in message
news:trudee-3108...@cci-209150250050.clarityconnect.net...
> ladyau...@aol.comnojunk
> > We would spend hours building 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.
>
> I didn't know anyone personally who built go-carts.
Oh, this was a big thing in my neighborhood. My brother and all of his
friends spent weeks working on their go-carts. Scraps of lumber, old wagon
or doll carriage wheels, rope (for steering) all went into it. Some of the
fathers helped; I know mine did, and not just my brother's, but some of the
friends' carts, too. One Sunday afternoon was the big day to test them at
the designated location, known as Dead Man's Hill. The boys were all at the
top, ready for the signal, while all the parents and younger siblings waited
at the bottom, near the college soccer fields. It was great fun, watching
the go-carts racing down all afternoon. My father and some of the other
fathers were prepared with screwdrivers and pliers to make repairs if
something went wrong. It was a great neighborhood outing. To the best of
my knowledge, it didn't require a single phone call between parents either;
the boys determined the time and place, each went home to give the details,
and we all were there.
Deb
Liz
"km39497" <krei...@nospamforme.com> wrote in message
news:bit4e8$935$1...@ins22.netins.net...
LOL! I was thinking the same thing.
AisleBeDammed
We used to play with toy guns and never wanted to go out and kill someone in
real life. We played cowboys and indians without people calling us racists.
Would sit for hours while grandpa taught us card tricks - or magic tricks
otter
vines would grow out of your ears? LOL
Remember riding on the handlebars of someone else's bike? Egads! I was
thrown so many times! But never broke any bones!
Ever jump off the roof of the garage?
We used to dig these cave/hole things in the backyard that two people could
actually crawl into. Guess it never occurred to us that it could have caved
in.
Sleepovers and telling ghost stories were a biggie for us.
"Let's pretend..." was the phrase of the day.
Going to Grandmother's house in the country and climbing up into a fig tree
and eating figs till we got a tummyache was "fun".
Tying a rope from a tree and swinging out over the pond and letting go....
We used to mix cocoa and sugar together and pretend it was "snuff".
KOOL AID!
Ahhhh, memories. SO much more fun than watching TV or playing a video game.
The only BAD thing we heard was that kids would get electrocuted from time
to time when their kite got tangled with power lines.
Gloria
Mary Campbell
And those over-zealous parents, lawyers and government regulators happen
to be those carefree kids who grew up without rules in the 40s, 50s, and
60s! So what does that mean?
>
> Man, who peed in *your* Wheaties? It was just a fun little thing to read.
> Does someone always have to get all serious about every little thing? I
> remember alot of those things and as a forty-something I have often
> reminisced about days gone by, it's kind of a rite of passage thing.
It was a fun thing to read until, as the poster above pointed out, you get
to the part about how "lawyers and government" made all the fun go away,
which just seems stupid. Lawyers and government keep kids indoors playing
Nintendo and don't let them drink from the hose? Whatever.
I'm forty-something too, and I remember a lot of those things. Growing up
in the country, we didn't even have Little League. Play was just
completely spontaneous, we did whatever we felt like doing that day. It
was wonderful.
mc
Trudi Marrapodi wrote:
> In article <20030830212451...@mb-m29.aol.com>,
> ladyau...@aol.comnojunk (LADYAUSSIEFAN) wrote:
>
>
>>I'm over 30 and I loved reading this and I hope you do too:
>>
>>For those of you who may not have read these tidbits before, it is worth the
>>read. For those of you under 30, please learn what your "elders" did as kids
>>and that they are somehow, despite the odds, still around to recall how things
>>were when life was simpler ...... and more fun!
>
>
> I tend to regard with skepticism any spam-statement that indulges people's
> tendencies toward easy nostalgia.
>
>
>>People over 30 should be dead.
>
>
> And some people in that generation did die before they ever neared 30.
>
>
>>According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in
>>the 40's, 50's, 60's, and the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived.
>
>
> And some didn't. Tell me you don't remember when you were a kid hearing
> about a kid you knew who died from some accident or danger. And I don't
> mean an urban legend kind of thing, either. I mean, a real true story.
Oh, now, let's not take the fun out of this!
scaperchick
>For those of you who may not have read these tidbits before, it is worth the
>read. For those of you under 30, please learn what your "elders" did as kids
>and that they are somehow, despite the odds, still around to recall how things
>were when life was simpler ...... and more fun!
Reminds me of George Carlin's bit about Dangerous Fun. I boggle
sometimes, at the insane lengths people go to these days to bubblewrap
their kids. Gosh, how did we ever survive without all of the new
protective gadgets, rules and legislation? Amazing humans managed to
evolve at all. ;)
scaperchick
<krei...@nospamforme.com> wrote:
>Someday our kids will be out on their hover-decks drinking synthetic wine,
>talking about how huge the cel phones used to be when *they* were kids.
Hehe, they'll be talking about how, instead of having an implant in
your ear, you actually had to *hold a phone up to your ear*.
Predatory Rock Chick
> Sad to think that people over 30 make up all the restrictive laws,
Bing-oh, baby. I also had to laugh at the claim that Baby Boomers are some
of "the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever."
*LOLOL*
(Esp.) Given their great #'s, I'd say the opposite is clearly true.
Howls,
Janice
----------------------------------
(-)> *peep* (-)> *peep* (-)> *muckmouth*
Big J
news:bitjsl$2q6$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca:
Yeah, I thought that part sucked big time. I get the nostalgia and
sentimentality thing, but it quickly got absurd. What made me quit reading
was the victim mentality. All these wonderful things existed way back when
and they're gone now - and it's the damn fault of all these stupid lawyers
and government guys. What a crock!
While we're at it, are we also nostalgic for how polio killed people? Or for
how incest and rape were covered up, under reported and not prosecuted?
Anyone nostalgic for Jim Crow laws? Or how no one survied cancer of
practically any kind? Remember how the flu used to kill lots of people?
It's easy to grow nostalgic when one's memory is selective. Or defective, as
I think some have shown here.
Big J
-----
Bill Diamond
>
> Bing-oh, baby. I also had to laugh at the claim that Baby Boomers are some
> of "the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever."
>
> *LOLOL*
>
> (Esp.) Given their great #'s, I'd say the opposite is clearly true.
Oh? How many of you under-30s had anything to do with the creation of the
internet and the operating systems you use today?
That's right. Nothing.
Yours is the generation that plays with the toys my generation built.
Yeah, and we did it all wearing punked up hair, skin tight pants, waking
up, pushing off whoever we fell asleep under and went right back to work.
Such a prissy generation, this kiddies.
Bill
km39497
"Big J" <bi...@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:Xns93E895629FEA6...@216.65.3.131...
I suppose you could call it selective. If it were a serious essay on the
past and how things have changed since "back in the day" then of course you
would need to balance the good with the bad. However, for example, I can
think of my father without also thinking of his agonizing death. I can
remember the happy times in school without thinking of the times that a
boyfriend broke up with me or I failed a test. Does every nice memory
*have* to be tempered with a *but.....* ?
Predatory Rock Chick
> On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 21:38:24 +0000, Predatory Rock Chick wrote:
>
>>
>> Bing-oh, baby. I also had to laugh at the claim that Baby Boomers are some
>> of "the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever."
>>
>> *LOLOL*
>>
>> (Esp.) Given their great #'s, I'd say the opposite is clearly true.
>
> Oh? How many of you under-30s
Actually, I'm 32. But Gen-X -- not a Boomer.
>had anything to do with the creation of the
> internet and the operating systems you use today?
I thought the internet was "invented" in the early '50s, & that most of the
"Fathers of the Internet" were born before 1946.
But leave it to baby-boomers like Algore to take credit for it.
Just like they try to take credit for "classic rock" when almost all the
"classic rockers" (Stones, Beatles, Doors, Janis, Jimi, &c) were born before
'46.
>
> That's right. Nothing.
Nbody under age 30 had anything to do w/ OS?!
>
> Yours is the generation that plays with the toys my generation built.
> Yeah, and we did it all wearing punked up hair, skin tight pants, waking
> up, pushing off whoever we fell asleep under and went right back to work.
I thought y'all were wearing polyster, puca shells & perms.
*LOL*
>
> Such a prissy generation, this kiddies.
Indeed. You've given us Bill Clinton, Owlgore & Shrub already.
'Nuff said.
Hugs,
Bill Diamond
> Bill Diamond wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 21:38:24 +0000, Predatory Rock Chick wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Bing-oh, baby. I also had to laugh at the claim that Baby Boomers are some
>>> of "the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever."
>>>
>>> *LOLOL*
>>>
>>> (Esp.) Given their great #'s, I'd say the opposite is clearly true.
>>
>> Oh? How many of you under-30s
>
> Actually, I'm 32. But Gen-X -- not a Boomer.
>
>
>>had anything to do with the creation of the
>> internet and the operating systems you use today?
>
> I thought the internet was "invented" in the early '50s, & that most of the
> "Fathers of the Internet" were born before 1946.
>
No, the foundations for the internet were developed starting in 1969. The
switch to Internet from ARPAnet started in 1980. I was a systems
programmer back then, working on it.
> But leave it to baby-boomers like Algore to take credit for it.
> Just like they try to take credit for "classic rock" when almost all the
> "classic rockers" (Stones, Beatles, Doors, Janis, Jimi, &c) were born before
> '46.
I'm so not going tere. Really.
>
>>
>> That's right. Nothing.
>
> Nbody under age 30 had anything to do w/ OS?!
Name one the GenXers have designed.
>
>>
>> Yours is the generation that plays with the toys my generation built.
>> Yeah, and we did it all wearing punked up hair, skin tight pants, waking
>> up, pushing off whoever we fell asleep under and went right back to work.
>
> I thought y'all were wearing polyster, puca shells & perms.
That was only for a brief period during my Alicia Bridges "I Love the
Nightlife" phase. And, it wasn't polyester. It was Qiana .. .and Angels
Flight trousers. Nyah.
>
> *LOL*
>
>>
>> Such a prissy generation, this kiddies.
>
> Indeed. You've given us Bill Clinton, Owlgore & Shrub already.
Don't even think about blaming me for them C&G. I voted against them twice.
If I'd lived in Chicago, I would have voted against them more.
>
> Hugs,
> Janice
Back at ya!
Big J
news:bitt4i$tsp$1...@ins22.netins.net:
Try reading the last part of the article before making such a simplistic and
unthinking response. It is definitely NOT a "nice memory" as you say it.
Here are some quotes:
Tests were not adjusted for any reason.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids,
before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good...
These quotes are NOT just nostalgia or a nice memory. If the note were just
fond "remember when" things, I'd have no gripe. But it gets insipidly
comparative and denigrates all that is today for all that was yesterday.
It becomes tripe. It makes the statement that "lawyers and government" have
made all these changes for the worse.
I stand by my original comments - it's a piece of selective memory.
Big J
-----
km39497
Okay, now, since I am a fan of yours and your mainly level-headed responses,
I have performed a deeper analysis of aforementioned trip down memory lane
and I do see your points. I must admit that I was lost in the haze of the
earlier part of the essay as well and tended to tune out the, well, less
than positive points. In my own defense, I find that no matter how hard I
try, no matter how much I keep up on gossip, no matter how low I wear my
trousers, and remain as hip as possible.....It's happening. I'm turning
into a geezer. And I think a symptom of impending geezer-hood is
remembering your youth in glowing terms. I do apologize for being simple
and unthinking.
Big J
news:biu8q2$5fj$1...@ins22.netins.net:
Fair enough and I'll admit that I'm extra grouchy today and could be a bit
less curmudgeonly, in addition to admitting I'm well on the way to being a
geezer myself.
Thanks for being level-headed yourself.
Big J
-----
Tina
>Fair enough and I'll admit that I'm extra grouchy today and could be a bit
>less curmudgeonly, in addition to admitting I'm well on the way to being a
>geezer myself.
See what happens when you spend too much time cruising the retirement
homes....they begin to rub off on you. ;)
Big J
news:20030901000949...@mb-m15.aol.com:
Just as long as they rub....
Big J
-----
Trudi Marrapodi
<krei...@nospamforme.com> wrote:
[snip, in response to me]
> Man, who peed in *your* Wheaties?
Nobody. I just exercised my right to respond as I pleased to the post.
> It was just a fun little thing to read.
For you, maybe.
> Does someone always have to get all serious about every little thing?
Obviously, the post was meant not just in jest, but seriously. Otherwise
there never would have been all that business in it about how much better
life was "before the government regulated us."
> I
> remember alot of those things and as a forty-something I have often
> reminisced about days gone by, it's kind of a rite of passage thing.
Sure it is, but let's remember things as they were, not as we'd like them
to have been.
> Someday our kids will be out on their hover-decks drinking synthetic wine,
> talking about how huge the cel phones used to be when *they* were kids. I
> would have thought about a paragraph into the thing that if this particular
> post wasn't you cup of tea, you could have clicked the the little button on
> the toolbar that says "next".
The Internet is for opinions. That means both positive and negative ones.
Post something, and there is the risk that someone just might comment on
it in a way *other* than to praise you and laud you and thank you for
giving them such a great chuckle for the day. That's the chance you take.
Nobody is required to silently move on just because they disagree with
you. Sorry if that knowledge ruins *your* day. Obviously, all you wanted
for posting this was either to be praised if people liked it, or not to
hear about it if people didn't.
--
Trudi
"Closed Due to Blackout. Pray for the Chocolate!"
Trudi Marrapodi
> Trudi ...... you very sad person.
claudine...you person who don't know how to write. ;-)
Trudi Marrapodi
<no...@nowhere.net> wrote:
[snip]
> > Man, who peed in *your* Wheaties? It was just a fun little thing to read.
> > Does someone always have to get all serious about every little thing? I
> > remember alot of those things and as a forty-something I have often
> > reminisced about days gone by, it's kind of a rite of passage thing.
> > Someday our kids will be out on their hover-decks drinking synthetic wine,
> > talking about how huge the cel phones used to be when *they* were kids. I
> > would have thought about a paragraph into the thing that if this
> particular
> > post wasn't you cup of tea, you could have clicked the the little button
> on
> > the toolbar that says "next".
>
>
> LOL! I was thinking the same thing.
Oh my. Yet another person who thinks the Internet is the land of "If you
agree with me, praise me and make me feel good. If you don't, just shut up
and ignore me."
--
Trudi
"Closed Due to Blackout. Pray for the Chocolate!"
Woodie69
LOL
Bicycles without helmets... I can't even remember how many times I would
walk into my grandmother's during the summer and say, "Break out the
tweezers, I've got gravel in my knee again." Or "I don't know how I flipped
the bike, maybe the ramp I was riding off of? Either way, grab the tweezers,
I've got gravel in my back." I'd always hear, "You think you're funny,
don't you?"
Swimming out to a friend's boat, after being told strictly that I couldn't
go because my grandmother was afraid something would happen, I was 13 and
did it anyway with a couple of friends. Two hours later, we heard my
mother's voice, I damned near almost died when I turned my head to shore and
saw her standing there. My grandmother called her at work and she drove
from Boston to Cape Cod to beat the hell out of me. :) Arguing the fact
that I could swim before I could walk didn't help my case at all. Or the
fact that I was the best swimmer on the beach didn't help my case either.
During the blizzard of '78 my grandmother had to go down to the Cape house
to make sure things were taken care of because she heard a bad storm was
coming. We stayed over one night, woke up the next morning to over a foot
of snow. I was the happiest 5 year old you ever saw! So happy that I
jumped out the second floor window into a snow drift. Heh, the poor woman!
With all the stunts I pulled from 5 to 18, it's amazing I didn't break all
the bones in my body. The worst thing that ever happened was a sprained
ankle and that was from my first pair of high heels, damned near almost
killed myself. From bikes to dirt bikes to skate boards to wake boards to
snow skis to water skis. Or getting caught making out... oh, the good ol'
days.
--
~*~ Keeper of Marcus Schenkenberg ~*~
Trudi Marrapodi
(Mary Campbell) wrote:
> "km39497" (krei...@nospamforme.com) writes:
> > "Trudi Marrapodi" <tru...@clarityconnect.competent> wrote in message
> > news:trudee-3108...@cci-209150250050.clarityconnect.net...
> >> In article <20030830212451...@mb-m29.aol.com>,
> >> ladyau...@aol.comnojunk (LADYAUSSIEFAN) wrote:
> >>
> >> > Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids,
> > before
> >> > lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good...
> >>
> >> ...And, of course, in the end the anti-government-regulation agenda that
> >> was the real point of the whole thing comes through loud and clear...along
> >> with encouragement to spam all your friends with this inspiring message.
> >> No thanks. In many of the cases cited above in which kids' lives today are
> >> different from the way they were in the past, "lawyers and government"
> >> have zippo to do with it. The explosion of technology, the proliferation
> >> of creepy people who don't get punished nearly enough for what they do to
> >> kids, and overly permissive or, on the contrary, overzealous parents, have
> >> more to do with the way life has changed for kids than the government
> >> does.
>
> And those over-zealous parents, lawyers and government regulators happen
> to be those carefree kids who grew up without rules in the 40s, 50s, and
> 60s! So what does that mean?
Yeah, really...there are some serious incongruities there.
> > Man, who peed in *your* Wheaties? It was just a fun little thing to read.
> > Does someone always have to get all serious about every little thing? I
> > remember alot of those things and as a forty-something I have often
> > reminisced about days gone by, it's kind of a rite of passage thing.
>
> It was a fun thing to read until, as the poster above pointed out, you get
> to the part about how "lawyers and government" made all the fun go away,
> which just seems stupid. Lawyers and government keep kids indoors playing
> Nintendo and don't let them drink from the hose? Whatever.
Which was my point. It was yet another case of attempting to push a
political agenda via the sugar-pill of nostalgia. Funny, when politicians
do it, people usually realize they are being manipulated. But when someone
does it with Internet messages, they get all gooey and nostalgic, and spam
it on to 500 of their closest friends.
Besides which, I don't like messages designed to incite spam, whether
they're pushing a political agenda or not. I even trash those messages I
get from well-meaning female friends that have empowering messages about
women and say things like "Pass this on to EVERY WOMAN YOU KNOW...IT WILL
MAKE HER FEEL GOOD!" Please. Like she needs an over-quota mailbox to make
her feel good.
> I'm forty-something too, and I remember a lot of those things. Growing up
> in the country, we didn't even have Little League. Play was just
> completely spontaneous, we did whatever we felt like doing that day. It
> was wonderful.
And I too think some kids today are missing some of the fun we had as
kids. But it's not because the Big Bad Government makes them ride in car
seats (which it does) or prevents them from drinking from the garden hose
(it doesn't). It's because times have changed, and not always for the
better. And in some cases it's because we were too damn stupid to realize
how very dangerous some things really were. Think about it...how many
people do you see reminiscing about the good old days when schools used to
have ceilings full of asbestos and nobody minded, or when factory workers
used to be able to paint the radium onto the watch faces without having to
wear all that dratted protective equipment?
And altogether too many of the "things we kids used to do back in the good
old days because we didn't worry about whether it was dangerous or not,
and that kids don't do anymore" have nothing to do with the Big Bad
Government. They represent changes in the options kids have now that they
didn't have when we were young, such as the option to rot their bodies
away playing video games rather than playing outside. Yes, there's more
paranoia in parents now, maybe, too, and less sense of personal
responsibility, which is regrettable. But that's not all the fault of Big
Government. That's their fault.
It's true that I have read at least a couple of reminiscences in which
adults say that they remember when they were kids having fun in the summer
following the DDT truck around as it sprayed the neighborhood. Now there's
a form of kid fun you just don't see nowadays! They recall that kids used
to follow the truck around because it was fun to play hide-and-seek in the
mist, and the mist smelled rather sweet...it was kinda pleasant. But now,
of course, they shudder in horror when they think of what they were doing.
They don't *really* wish for those days back. And in at least one case,
the person in question was wondering whether it might have been
responsible for his adult leukemia.
Trudi Marrapodi
<krei...@nospamforme.com> wrote:
No, but if someone is going to get serious and imply that the government
and lawyers are responsible for the whole difference between Wonderful
Yesterday and Horrible Today--for the worse--someone else is bound to
shoot holes in that implication by pointing out that a) it's not always
true and b) Yesterday wasn't always so Wonderful and Today isn't always so
Horrible.
Bill Diamond
> During the blizzard of '78 my grandmother had to go down to the Cape house
> to make sure things were taken care of because she heard a bad storm was
> coming. We stayed over one night, woke up the next morning to over a foot
> of snow. I was the happiest 5 year old you ever saw! So happy that I
> jumped out the second floor window into a snow drift. Heh, the poor woman!
You were 5 in 1978? Whippersnapper. I was on active duty in the Air
Force, going to Language School in Monterey.
My childhood was almost totally uncontrolled. We didn't have scheduled
playdates. Well, unless you consider my mother grabbing all five us by
the ears and throwing us out the back door and telling us to get the hell
out of her hair.
We'd ride our bikes everywhere with our friends, go play on the banks of
the river. Go swimming in the creek, and try to jump across it with the
tire swing we had on a tree. We'd catch snakes and frogs.
We'd buy firecrackers and light them off, lots of bottle rockets and
sparklers in the summer. We'd go to the communtiy rec center and play
foosball, pool, and other games. I'd ride my bike into downtown - about
12 miles away - every year to ride in the Bike-a-thons.
My favorite memory was of those incredibly summer night skies, laying in
the fields at the park near the Missouri river. No lights, just billions
of stars overhead. We'd make campfires and roast hotdogs and
marshmallows. My best friend and I used to buy junked tube-type radios
and fix them - usually with them still plugged in.
We never got in any trouble, certainly nothing more than the normal bumps
and bruises. But wow, were we ever some confident little yard monsters.
I don't think we had a clue what it meant to be afraid. We just dove in
and did it.
It wasn't a bad childhood.
Bill
Trudi Marrapodi
<krei...@nospamforme.com> wrote:
[much snippage, responding to Big J]
> Okay, now, since I am a fan of yours and your mainly level-headed responses,
> I have performed a deeper analysis of aforementioned trip down memory lane
> and I do see your points. I must admit that I was lost in the haze of the
> earlier part of the essay as well and tended to tune out the, well, less
> than positive points. In my own defense, I find that no matter how hard I
> try, no matter how much I keep up on gossip, no matter how low I wear my
> trousers, and remain as hip as possible.....It's happening. I'm turning
> into a geezer. And I think a symptom of impending geezer-hood is
> remembering your youth in glowing terms. I do apologize for being simple
> and unthinking.
LOL. Hey, it happens to everyone. It happens in stages:
1. Youth: "Ooh, this new thing is cool/Ooh, I hate this new thing."
2. Young adulthood: "Oh yes, I remember that thing from when I was a
child. I loved/hated it. But that's neither here nor there, as it's not as
if it's the stuff of nostalgia anyway. I'm far too young for the stuff of
my childhood to be nostalgic."
3. Later adulthood: "OH YES! I REMEMBER THAT! I *LOVED*/*HATED* IT!
Wow...I haven't seen/heard/though of that in a LONG time...Oh my God, I'm
*old*."
4. Middle age: "You mean, you've never *heard* of that? What do you mean,
you were born the year it came out? What do you mean, it came out *before*
you were born?...Oh my God, I'm near death."
It took me at least until age 19 to realize it was possible to be
"nostalgic" about one's own past, and that the older you get, the worse it
gets. But before I knew it, there I was, listening with bizarre fondness
to songs like "Billy Don't Be a Hero" and "Little Willy" and "The Night
Chicago Died" when they were played in public places, and singing the
Schoolhouse Rock songs with other people after drinking, and watching
performances of The Real Live Brady Bunch. It was scary.
That's when you desperately start trying to remember the REALLY bad things
about your growing up. You begin doing this as an attempt to tell yourself
you're better off living in the present than in the past. But eventually,
if you're not careful, it segues into:
5. Senility: "When I was your age, we didn't have MTV, and the only video
game we had was Pong, and we only had three TV channels, and if we missed
a show we really MISSED it because we couldn't tape it and watch it later,
and when we talked on the phone we had to stay in one place, because it
was attached to the wall...AND WE LIKED IT! Sheesh, how do you soft little
kiddies survive?"
Yes. I find myself doing it, too.
Lynnoleum1
were gay but because your were the most obnoxious, self-important,
overwhelmingly analytical BOOR on the face of the planet?
Lynn
Kaiju
Big J called it right on this one, and he is still as charming as ever
despite the fact that you don't get what he's saying here. I wonder
about your manners, however.
I finally read through this little piece that has engendered such
disagreement, and I find that it is a total political screed of the
worse kind. It is openly manipulative. Yeah. Pretending to invoke
nostalgic memories when it is really criticizing governmental
regulations today. Must have been written by a libertarian.
What is most amazing is all of those so eager to trash those who saw
through the manipulation. One more nod to mediocrity for sociability's
sake, I suppose. I disagree with Big J and Trudi, however. The real
tenor and absurdity of the piece started with the first example of "how
good it was in the old days", and went downhill from there. I didn't
need the preamble, it was useless excess. Feh.
Considering how many people here missed the real intent of the piece,
maybe this one would make an excellent question on the GRE or LSAT
exams. Har!
Kaiju <who will never be nostalgic for the '50's and '60's...and
probably not even the '70's...>
--
No more fiendish punishment could be devised,
were such a thing physically possible,
than that one should be turned loose in society
and remain absolutely unnoticed.
-- William James
Kaiju
I had a very different childhood. Not all of it was depicted by the
freedoms listed in this faux nostalgia piece. In fact, our parents
protected us against the same things the piece claimed used to be the
norm.
Our mothers kept a close eye on us from the first time we were able to
crawl. They never let up, and arguably, they still keep an eye on us.
Har!
As a child of the city, the most we could do was walk to school 5-6
blocks away...and only if there were at least of two of us. Never
alone.
We didn't visit our friends, even if they lived a block away, without
our parents' permission. The parents worked it out together. There
were certain blocks in the general neighborhood where we weren't
allowed, even if the other kids' parents invited us.
All of the adult neighbors had the right to discipline us. We didn't
ever dare to cross the line for that reason. We all respected our
elders. We didn't dare talk back to any adult, no matter who it was.
Nobody built go-carts, primarily because there were no hills nearby to
use them on. We did build scooters and skateboards, however.
We were very mindful of bad men who might try to harm or kidnap us...and
this was in the 1960's. It wasn't unknown then, not in the city. We
knew there really were things that went bump in the night. And day.
By the time I was 10, our mothers did allow us to walk to the
supermarket to buy milk and bread, but never alone. There had to be at
least two of us. Our mothers had the trip timed, and if we weren't back
within the allotted time, they would come looking for us. No way could
we just wander around the neighborhood on our own. By the time my kids
were 10, in the same neighborhood, such an errand was unthinkable. The
city had changed, even if the neighborhood hadn't. Those who would
attack children had cars and hunted down unaccompanied children all over
the city.
Smog in Los Angeles was so bad when I was a child, we literally couldn't
go outside to play many days of the year. The sky was literally
overcast, day after day, during the smog season. If government
regulations took care of that problem, and it has, give me more of it.
We don't have Smog Days now.
There were strict class barriers to certain city youth activities. Poor
kids were simply not allowed access to certain supposedly "open"
activities because the rich kids' parents would object.
My best friend died of leukemia when we were 9. She would have survived
with the current medical advances.
When we traveled to the Southern states, there were "White Only" and
"Colored Only" signs everywhere. My parents would refuse to trade at
any store or gas station with those signs. They would carefully map out
trips to avoid those gas stations without running out of gas en route.
Thank goodness for the Howard Johnsons.
In the late 1970's, we were driving to a Southern state, and heard on
the CB that we were being threatened with physical harm because we were
in a new Lincoln Continental with California plates. The FCC got on the
CB to announce they had traced the threats and were taking action.
Fortunately, a few appalled truckers took on the responsibility to
escort us to our destination. We drove in a caravan of long haul trucks
surrounding us for four states...the truckers handing us off to another
set of protectors along the way. It was a wondrous end to an ugly
situation, both actions demonstrating the beauty of human nature, and
the baseness of it simultaneously.
Blacks and hispanics were routinely attacked by both the police and
civilians with no provocation, and also with no retribution, in most
major cities.
In college, in Boston, black students couldn't find an apartment in the
safe part of town unless their classmates intervened. And then the
black students had to take extra security steps because residents of
South Boston would troll the neighborhood to beat any black they
encountered. It simply wasn't safe to leave or return to their
apartments on the days the Sox played at home.
> It wasn't a bad childhood.
I could have lived better without much of it. The bright spots were the
interactions between families and friends. It was safe there, and we
took care of each other. It wasn't ever safe outside of our tight knit
circle.
Kaiju
Big J
> Big J called it right on this one, and he is still as charming as ever
> despite the fact that you don't get what he's saying here.
<blush>
Can't stop to talk now, I'm busy being "the most obnoxious, self-important,
overwhelmingly analytical BOOR on the face of the planet."
That's hard work!
Big J
-----
km39497
"Trudi Marrapodi" <tru...@clarityconnect.competent> wrote in message
Ahhh the evolution of the geezer. Careful though Trudi, this looks like one
of those spam-things that everyone starts mailing around ;)
Big J
news:3f5854b3....@news.cis.dfn.de:
> On 1 Sep 2003 08:53:22 -0500, Big J <bi...@myrealbox.com> dented &
> constricted & squeezed out the following:
> You are?
Not really. It was just some troll blather. But I will be busy today
kicking back, cooking and maybe catching some of the L&O marathon.
Big J
-----
Trudi Marrapodi
> Lynnoleum1 wrote:
> >
> > Big J, did your original wife (the heterosexual one) leave you not
because you
> > were gay but because your were the most obnoxious, self-important,
> > overwhelmingly analytical BOOR on the face of the planet?
> >
> > Lynn
>
> Big J called it right on this one, and he is still as charming as ever
> despite the fact that you don't get what he's saying here. I wonder
> about your manners, however.
Yeah...one has to wonder.
> I finally read through this little piece that has engendered such
> disagreement, and I find that it is a total political screed of the
> worse kind. It is openly manipulative. Yeah. Pretending to invoke
> nostalgic memories when it is really criticizing governmental
> regulations today. Must have been written by a libertarian.
Or a Republican who still truly believes that government should get out of
people's lives...as opposed to a Republican who believes that government
should force kids to pray in school, etc. Either way, the original author
has a right to push his politics...but I have the equal right to oppose
them.
> What is most amazing is all of those so eager to trash those who saw
> through the manipulation. One more nod to mediocrity for sociability's
> sake, I suppose. I disagree with Big J and Trudi, however. The real
> tenor and absurdity of the piece started with the first example of "how
> good it was in the old days", and went downhill from there. I didn't
> need the preamble, it was useless excess. Feh.
Well, I could see from there how it was most likely to go. I just wanted
to give it the generous benefit of the doubt.
> Considering how many people here missed the real intent of the piece,
> maybe this one would make an excellent question on the GRE or LSAT
> exams. Har!
>
>
> Kaiju <who will never be nostalgic for the '50's and '60's...and
> probably not even the '70's...>
It's OK to be a bit nostalgic about some things...but then, if you have
half a brain, you remember others and say "Whew! Glad that's over."
I sometimes wonder: If I fell into a time warp and landed at my current
age (NOT as a child!) back in the year, say, 1971--which was really not
all THAT long ago--how long could I stand to live there? I mean, think
about it:
--It would be hard to even try to get a job I enjoyed. The ads would most
likely still be divided into "Help Wanted: Male" and "Help Wanted:
Female." When I interviewed for a job, I'd probably be asked how quickly I
could type.
--If I did get a job in an office somewhere, I'd have to use a typewriter.
Roll the paper in, set the margins, type on the paper, make sure it
doesn't roll off the platen before I stop. Good luck. And if some man
pinched me on the job, or denied me advancement, I'd have no recourse.
None.
--When I picked up the paycheck, I'd have to go to a bank and deposit/cash
it...when the bank was open...and make sure I took out enough money for a
good long while, because it's not like I could just go to the ATM and get
money anytime.
--I'd go shopping for groceries, and probably find little to no microwave
food at all for those busy days. (Not that microwave food is great
cuisine, but sometimes it's handy.) There would be a lot less variety in
food in general. Chances are my local market would not have anything even
remotely approximating ethnic food, for example. And when I say that, I
mean the bakery wouldn't even sell bagels.
--I'd go home and turn on the TV. There would be three to five channels to
watch. What happened to my 74-odd channels of junk? What happened to my
VCR? Oh, and forget about renting a movie.
--If I chose to go out and see a movie, I'd have the choice of one to see
per theater. I miss those old movie palaces as much as anyone, but one
advantage to the Tinseltown Googolcomplex or whatever they call it is that
at least you have a variety of garbage to choose from.
--Of course, no Internet.
And all this is just a start. OK, so prices would be lower, and there
would be no AIDS, and I wouldn't have to agonize over which phone company
to choose. But really, there are times when the past is not better than
the present.
Maybe some of the reason it's so tempting to reminisce about when you were
a kid is that you WERE a kid, and you didn't have to suffer the same
trials that adults did at the time. The more I think about what it would
have been like to be an *adult* back when I was a kid, the less nostalgic
I get!
Bill Diamond
Just a freekin' minute, J. I'm running for that seat. If you try to get
in my way I'll go Madonna on your butt.
Bill
HudsonGrl
>From: tru...@clarityconnect.competent (Trudi Marrapodi)
>Date: 9/1/2003 12:09 PM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <trudee-0109...@cci-209150250210.clarityconnect.net>
>
>Maybe some of the reason it's so tempting to reminisce about when you were
>a kid is that you WERE a kid, and you didn't have to suffer the same
>trials that adults did at the time. The more I think about what it would
>have been like to be an *adult* back when I was a kid, the less
>nostalgic
>I get!
>--
i'm assuming you were a *kid* in the 70's. well, i was a teen and a young adult
then and it really wasn't so bad. life was simpler in a lot of ways. sure, we
has no internet and we had no cell phones as you mentioned. but, somehow life
seemed a little less hurried back then and people seemed a little more patient
and a little less self-centered. neighbors were, well... more neighborly. just
my 2 cents.
Hudson
Hudson
Trudi Marrapodi
> Bill Diamond wrote a bit of nostalgia about his childhood:
>
> I had a very different childhood. Not all of it was depicted by the
> freedoms listed in this faux nostalgia piece. In fact, our parents
> protected us against the same things the piece claimed used to be the
> norm.
>
> Our mothers kept a close eye on us from the first time we were able to
> crawl. They never let up, and arguably, they still keep an eye on us.
> Har!
Same for my mother.
> As a child of the city, the most we could do was walk to school 5-6
> blocks away...and only if there were at least of two of us. Never
> alone.
>
> We didn't visit our friends, even if they lived a block away, without
> our parents' permission. The parents worked it out together. There
> were certain blocks in the general neighborhood where we weren't
> allowed, even if the other kids' parents invited us.
I'm sure this was true in most cities. Part of the reason my childhood was
as liberal as it was was that I grew up in a small town.
> All of the adult neighbors had the right to discipline us. We didn't
> ever dare to cross the line for that reason. We all respected our
> elders. We didn't dare talk back to any adult, no matter who it was.
Which meant not only (positive side) that the kids were respectful and
strictly disciplined, but also (negative side) that if, say, some adult
was sexually abusing a child, that child knew he or she had to keep
utterly silent. If he or she spoke up, he or she would not be believed.
Adults, after all, were always right. If they said "You will get in
trouble if you tell our little secret, because I will tell everyone you
wanted it, and they will believe me," you shut up.
[snip of a lot of other good stuff]
> When we traveled to the Southern states, there were "White Only" and
> "Colored Only" signs everywhere. My parents would refuse to trade at
> any store or gas station with those signs. They would carefully map out
> trips to avoid those gas stations without running out of gas en route.
> Thank goodness for the Howard Johnsons.
The scary part is that I heard a man not long ago tell me that he still
maps out his routes carefully when he drives back down South to his
hometown. I thought "Him? Now?? This man I know only in his professional
role, who dresses so impeccably and always looks so great? How could
anyone mistake him for a troublemaker and give him a hard time on the
road?" It was a huge wake-up call to me as to how bad the "Driving While
Black" problem really is. Still.
> In the late 1970's, we were driving to a Southern state, and heard on
> the CB that we were being threatened with physical harm because we were
> in a new Lincoln Continental with California plates. The FCC got on the
> CB to announce they had traced the threats and were taking action.
> Fortunately, a few appalled truckers took on the responsibility to
> escort us to our destination. We drove in a caravan of long haul trucks
> surrounding us for four states...the truckers handing us off to another
> set of protectors along the way. It was a wondrous end to an ugly
> situation, both actions demonstrating the beauty of human nature, and
> the baseness of it simultaneously.
>
> Blacks and hispanics were routinely attacked by both the police and
> civilians with no provocation, and also with no retribution, in most
> major cities.
>
> In college, in Boston, black students couldn't find an apartment in the
> safe part of town unless their classmates intervened. And then the
> black students had to take extra security steps because residents of
> South Boston would troll the neighborhood to beat any black they
> encountered. It simply wasn't safe to leave or return to their
> apartments on the days the Sox played at home.
I am of the mind that a lot of the people who reminisce about the good old
days are white. ;-) OK, I'm white, too, but I like to think I have a
cognizant enough mind to realize that not everyone who wasn't white had
such a jolly time of it in the past.
> > It wasn't a bad childhood.
>
> I could have lived better without much of it. The bright spots were the
> interactions between families and friends. It was safe there, and we
> took care of each other. It wasn't ever safe outside of our tight knit
> circle.
For us, it mostly was...but that doesn't mean I'd go back.
Mary Campbell
> Bill Diamond wrote a bit of nostalgia about his childhood:
>
> I had a very different childhood. Not all of it was depicted by the
> freedoms listed in this faux nostalgia piece. In fact, our parents
> protected us against the same things the piece claimed used to be the
> norm.
>
> blocks away...and only if there were at least of two of us. Never
> alone.
>
> this was in the 1960's. It wasn't unknown then, not in the city. We
> knew there really were things that went bump in the night. And day.
The difference between a country and city background, I guess. Growing up
in the country at the same time, I don't remember being aware of possible
harm from other people, although I'm sure it was always there. My parents
both worked, as did practically everyone's, and we were expected to amuse
ourselves. We rode for miles on our bikes and went berry-picking and
fishing without supervision. When I was 10 and 11 our favourite pastime
was trespassing in abandoned homes (there are a lot of them in the
country). We could have gone through the floors of those places at any
time. We never told our parents, of course, since we knew perfectly well
that it was wrong to trespass. If my friends and I had been hurt in one of
those houses, we could have stayed there forever -- no-one would have ever
known we were there!
I don't remember any fatal accidents among the kids I grew up with and went
to school with, which is amazing given the many gruesome opportunities for
accidents that country life provides. It wasn't until we were old enough
for the combination of booze and cars that the body count went up.
Looking back, I suspect that what happened behind closed doors in certain
homes was probably far worse that anything that happened in the playground
or on our biking forays.
> My best friend died of leukemia when we were 9. She would have survived
> with the current medical advances.
Same here -- not my best friend, but a kid I knew and played with. Cancer
was the scary thing then, older people didn't even say its name. It was
years before I understood what was wrong with my friend - we were
just told that he was sick.
Another thing I remember -- you never saw kids with serious disabilities
-- brain damage, cerebral palsy, Downs and so on. They were either kept
at home all the time, or else institutionalised.
> In the late 1970's, we were driving to a Southern state, and heard on
> the CB that we were being threatened with physical harm because we were
> in a new Lincoln Continental with California plates. The FCC got on the
> CB to announce they had traced the threats and were taking action.
> Fortunately, a few appalled truckers took on the responsibility to
> escort us to our destination. We drove in a caravan of long haul trucks
> surrounding us for four states...the truckers handing us off to another
> set of protectors along the way. It was a wondrous end to an ugly
> situation, both actions demonstrating the beauty of human nature, and
> the baseness of it simultaneously.
What an amazing story. You must have been terrified.
Liz
"Trudi Marrapodi" <tru...@clarityconnect.competent> wrote in message
news:trudee-0109...@cci-209150250063.clarityconnect.net...
O ghee, did I say that??? ;^)
Bigolhomo
>
>Fair enough and I'll admit that I'm extra grouchy today and could be a bit
>less curmudgeonly, in addition to admitting I'm well on the way to being a
>geezer myself.
>
>Thanks for being level-headed yourself.
>
>Big J
>
>-----
Wow, I thought you officially became a geezer in 1986!
--
Bigolhomo
Bigolhomo
(Trudi Marrapodi) wrote:
>In article <3F5274...@night.com>, claudine <cla...@night.com> wrote:
>
>> Trudi ...... you very sad person.
>
>claudine...you person who don't know how to write. ;-)
Jane......you ignorant slut.
--
Bigolhomo
Big J
news:j6i7lv8thk89ik9u6...@4ax.com:
Nope, it was Late December back in '63 ....
Big J
(bitch)
-----
marika
> Kaiju (ka...@ecn.com) writes:\> The difference between a country and city background, I guess. Growing up
> in the country at the same time, I don't remember being aware of possible
> harm from other people, although I'm sure it was always there. My parents
> both worked, as did practically everyone's, and we were expected to amuse
> ourselves. We rode for miles on our bikes and went berry-picking and
hope it was strawberries and that strawberry shortcake is your faforit
according to one of thhose personality profiles if so Strawberry
Short Cake... Romantic, warm, loving. You care about
other people and can be counted on in a pinch. You tend to melt.
mk5000'
"Then it gives classzone awareness to refill_inactive so we make sure
to
make progress for non highmem allocs too and to shrink stuff properly,
the lists are global. Plus it checkpoints the point in the active list
where it stopped the last time."--andrea arcangel
FeAudrey
says...
>
>
> ... Gosh, how did we ever survive without all of the new
>protective gadgets, rules and legislation? Amazing humans managed to
>evolve at all. ;)
That IS how we evolved. Survival of the fittest, with
stickers-of-forks-into-electrical-outlets eliminated from the gene pool.
(doesn't explain why the script-kiddie/virus-spreaders are still here, though
...)
--
Visit my Iron Age Pages for technical and fun stuff (holiday specials, too)!
http://pages.prodigy.net/feaudrey
Kaiju
>
> Kaiju (ka...@ecn.com) writes:
> Looking back, I suspect that what happened behind closed doors in certain
> homes was probably far worse that anything that happened in the playground
> or on our biking forays.
And nobody said anything about what was going on behind closed doors.
Ever.
> Another thing I remember -- you never saw kids with serious disabilities
> -- brain damage, cerebral palsy, Downs and so on. They were either kept
> at home all the time, or else institutionalised.
That's true. We may have seen a few because some of the families were
too poor to cover the cost of institutionalization, and also because in
our culture families took care of their own. Regardless.
> > In the late 1970's, we were driving to a Southern state, and heard on
> > the CB that we were being threatened with physical harm because we were
> > in a new Lincoln Continental with California plates. The FCC got on the
> > CB to announce they had traced the threats and were taking action.
> > Fortunately, a few appalled truckers took on the responsibility to
> > escort us to our destination. We drove in a caravan of long haul trucks
> > surrounding us for four states...the truckers handing us off to another
> > set of protectors along the way. It was a wondrous end to an ugly
> > situation, both actions demonstrating the beauty of human nature, and
> > the baseness of it simultaneously.
>
> What an amazing story. You must have been terrified.
We were beyond terrified. My mom couldn't stop shaking and crying.
Those long country passages between towns and service stops? Oy.
Anything could have happened. But the truckers were wonderful. When
we'd stop for fuel, they'd stop. If we stopped for food, they'd stop.
We stopped once overnight, and the next day when we got back on the
highway, suddenly there was a new convoy of truckers surrounding us.
(Apparently the story had been passed along.) They never made
themselves known, they were just there silently and patiently watching
over us. We got on the CB and invited them to stop for dinner so we
could thank them, and they demurred, saying they just wanted to make up
for the bad truckers, and didn't want us to think all truckers were
murderous bigots. They were truly wonderful. When we got to our town
and exited the highway, they all honked at us as they passed.
Y'know? I miss CB's.
Kaiju
>
> In article <3F531879...@ecn.com>, Kaiju <ka...@ecn.com> wrote:
>
> > Bill Diamond wrote a bit of nostalgia about his childhood:
> > > It wasn't a bad childhood.
> >
> > I could have lived better without much of it. The bright spots were the
> > interactions between families and friends. It was safe there, and we
> > took care of each other. It wasn't ever safe outside of our tight knit
> > circle.
>
> For us, it mostly was...but that doesn't mean I'd go back.
I've long maintained that city kids can be more sheltered than suburban,
small town, and country kids. Especially now. My kids were driven to
school from pre-school until they finished high school. At least my
sister and I could walk to school, and later take public transportation,
for example. But a lot of that may depend on what type of city. Los
Angeles is so spread out, and the bad areas are adjacent to the good
areas...so one must pass through unsavory areas to get to the next safe
area. And as my son said, wearing a private school uniform on the bus
through a bad area was hazardous to his health! On the other side of
the coin, my kids had less opportunity to get into trouble because none
of the parents in our social set let the kids out alone. Instead of
wandering around town alone, they tended to hang out at each others'
homes with parents present. In fact, the same kids still hang out
together at each others' homes, even though they are now free, in
college, have jobs, and have their own cars. In fact, they're here
now... Interesting...
Kaiju <I may never get these people outta my house...>
Tina
>> homes....they begin to rub off on you. ;)
>
big J wrote:
>Just as long as they rub....
"rub" don't "gum" the one you're with...
Lily
<snipped very thoughtful post, most of which echoed my feelings:
<<No thanks. In many of the cases cited above in which kids' lives today
are different from the way they were in the past, "lawyers and
government" have zippo to do with it. The explosion of technology, the
proliferation of creepy people who don't get punished nearly enough for
what they do to kids, and overly permissive or, on the contrary,
overzealous parents, have more to do with the way life has changed for
kids than the government does.>>
Maybe what you can blame the government for --maybe--is the fact that
kids get less parental supervision and contact, because a large
percentage of women have to work to make ends meet.
And yeah, swell, kids could go to the lake all day and (maybe) be safe,
but in general they had far more parental oversight (usually by their
mothers) than today's kids do.
As for sickos who prey on kids, they've always been with us. I am
confident that every one of us was warned never to talk to or go
anywhere with strangers.
Lily
Lily
<<But leave it to baby-boomers like Algore to take credit for it. >>
Oh, for crying out loud, not again. Doesn't anyone check snopes any
more?
I guess not, when the accusation reinforces your political views.
Lily
Lily
<<I suppose you could call it selective. If it were a serious essay on
the past and how things have changed since "back in the day" then of
course you would need to balance the good with the bad. However, for
example, I can think of my father without also thinking of his agonizing
death. I can remember the happy times in school without thinking of the
times that a boyfriend broke up with me or I failed a test. Does every
nice memory *have* to be tempered with a *but.....* ?>>
A good point, but when someone is claiming generational superiority,
they've started an argument you may want to rebut. And to do so, you
have to point out the "buts."
Lily
Predatory Rock Chick
> Janice wrote:
>
> <<But leave it to baby-boomers like Algore to take credit for it. >>
>
> Oh, for crying out loud, not again. Doesn't anyone check snopes any
> more?
I don't need "snopes" to spin & interpret Gore's statement, which was--->
During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in
creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range
of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic
growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
HTH
Hugs,
Janice
----------------------------------
(-)> *peep* (-)> *peep* (-)> *muckmouth*
Lily
<<I even trash those messages I get from well-meaning female friends
that have empowering messages about women and say things like "Pass this
on to EVERY WOMAN YOU KNOW...IT WILL MAKE HER FEEL GOOD!" Please. Like
she needs an over-quota mailbox to make her feel good.>>
Oy. Those drive me nuts. If you're thinking about me, send me an
email, not a forward that will go to everyone you know Somehow those
things don't make me feel special.
Lily
Lily
<<Can't stop to talk now, I'm busy being "the most obnoxious,
self-important, overwhelmingly analytical BOOR on the face of the
planet.">>
Then come sit by me.
Lily
Lily
<<Try reading the last part of the article before making such a
simplistic and unthinking response. It is definitely NOT a "nice memory"
as you say it.
Here are some quotes:
Tests were not adjusted for any reason.
<Ever hear of grading on a curve?>
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
<And they still are. You think we're not tough enough? We try
11-year-olds in death penalty cases. >
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard
of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!>>
<Well, that's just a ridiculous generallization. MANY parents
certainly did try to bail their kids out, and many middle and upper
class parents were able to do it.
I'm with Big J all the way. This list is political.
Lily
scaperchick
>Considering how many people here missed the real intent of the piece,
>maybe this one would make an excellent question on the GRE or LSAT
>exams. Har!
I don't feel like I "missed" anything... I laughed at the bits I
related to, and skipped over the ones I didn't. Nice chuckle, on to
the next message. I guess I'm not feeling particularly political this
week? Now that I've read the above posts I can see that it was
politically-slanted, but the initial quick scan left no such
impression on me. Sometimes life's too short to take everything
seriously (especially email forwards!).
scaperchick
(Trudi Marrapodi) wrote:
>It's OK to be a bit nostalgic about some things...but then, if you have
>half a brain, you remember others and say "Whew! Glad that's over."
Would anyone here go back to their childhood, really, for any amount
of money? (If you would, I envy you.) Isn't the whole point of
nostalgia to try and forget how crappy things really were - and are?
edonline
"scaperchick" <bead...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:vam9lvoiuvfu6ba65...@4ax.com...
It depends on what you would want to go back and experience. Some of the
big fads and fashions I could go without. Spending some of my fondest
memories with my grandmother (now deceased)? I definitely would.
Bill Diamond
That's a pretty decent summation. It's probably the same reason that we
looked so astonished that our parents loved "The Waltons". What the heck?
They were dirt poor and ait was a big deal when John-Boy got a stack of
Indian Chief pencils and writing pads for Christmas.
There's a very similar view in Germany now, called "Ostalgie". It's a
nostalgia for ... believe it or not ... East Germany. Very trendy.
Bill
Big J
news:vam9lvoiuvfu6ba65...@4ax.com:
Absolutely. The "good old days" never were that good. Or as the old saying
goes "the older a man gets, the better an athlete he was in his youth."
Big J
-----
Woodie69
: nostalgia for ... believe it or not ... East Germany. Very trendy.
:
: Bill
My boyfriend's sister was talking about that when we had to go to Stuttgart
for his father's funeral. I just sat and listened because I was a little
surprised. Here they couldn't wait to liberate the East, now they miss it.
It's a little mind boggling.
--
~*~ Keeper of Marcus Schenkenberg ~*~
Bill Diamond
It shouldn't be, though. Much of the current government there is
dominated by former communists. Their current foreign minister, Joschka
Fischer, trained with the PLO as a terrorist in the 1960s.
Bill
Woodie69
Stuttgart
: > for his father's funeral. I just sat and listened because I was a
little
: > surprised. Here they couldn't wait to liberate the East, now they miss
it.
: > It's a little mind boggling.
:
: It shouldn't be, though. Much of the current government there is
: dominated by former communists. Their current foreign minister, Joschka
: Fischer, trained with the PLO as a terrorist in the 1960s.
:
: Bill
Um, Bill... I wasn't around during the 60s. :) Besides, my family is from
Switzerland, it's his family that's from Germany. I'm not up on the current
status of what's going on in Germany except that it's been hotter than hell
with the heatwave.
Trudi Marrapodi
huds...@aol.com (HudsonGrl) wrote:
> >Subject: Re: OT:People over 30 should be dead
> >From: tru...@clarityconnect.competent (Trudi Marrapodi)
> >Date: 9/1/2003 12:09 PM Central Standard Time
> >Message-id: <trudee-0109...@cci-209150250210.clarityconnect.net>
>
> >
> >Maybe some of the reason it's so tempting to reminisce about when you were
> >a kid is that you WERE a kid, and you didn't have to suffer the same
> >trials that adults did at the time. The more I think about what it would
> >have been like to be an *adult* back when I was a kid, the less
>
> >nostalgic
> >I get!
> >--
>
> i'm assuming you were a *kid* in the 70's.
Not quite. I was a kid for part of it, and a teen for the rest.
> well, i was a teen and a young adult
> then and it really wasn't so bad. life was simpler in a lot of ways. sure, we
> has no internet and we had no cell phones as you mentioned. but, somehow life
> seemed a little less hurried back then and people seemed a little more patient
> and a little less self-centered. neighbors were, well... more neighborly. just
> my 2 cents.
And I'd be willing to bet that if you had to go back there and really live
it for a day, it wouldn't really be the Norman Rockwell, Country Time
Lemonade experience you seem to think it would be.
--
Trudi
"Closed Due to Blackout. Pray for the Chocolate!"
--sign in Cleveland store, 8/14/03
____
Say NO to secret judging and corruption in skating --
support SkateFAIR!
http://www.skatefair.org
Trudi Marrapodi
Lil...@webtv.net (Lily) wrote:
> Trudi wrote.
> <snipped very thoughtful post, most of which echoed my feelings:
>
> <<No thanks. In many of the cases cited above in which kids' lives today
> are different from the way they were in the past, "lawyers and
> government" have zippo to do with it. The explosion of technology, the
> proliferation of creepy people who don't get punished nearly enough for
> what they do to kids, and overly permissive or, on the contrary,
> overzealous parents, have more to do with the way life has changed for
> kids than the government does.>>
>
> Maybe what you can blame the government for --maybe--is the fact that
> kids get less parental supervision and contact, because a large
> percentage of women have to work to make ends meet.
To some extent, yes. Of course, the solution isn't to force all mommies
back into the home, but both parents need to take greater responsibility
for, well, being parents, when they can't be home all the time.
> And yeah, swell, kids could go to the lake all day and (maybe) be safe,
> but in general they had far more parental oversight (usually by their
> mothers) than today's kids do.
In many cases, yes.
> As for sickos who prey on kids, they've always been with us. I am
> confident that every one of us was warned never to talk to or go
> anywhere with strangers.
Yes...but only now are people owning up to the real truth...that danger
doesn't always come from strangers. That there is such a thing as "funny
uncles" and daddies who love their little girls in "private" ways and
next-door-neighbors who are so nice that surely they wouldn't harm a
fly...yet they do. I don't think people were as willing to face up to that
back in the "good old days."
Trudi Marrapodi
bead...@yahoo.com wrote:
Well, sometimes one is better off for questioning what one gets in e-mail
forwards, lest one be taken in. Think of how many people have been fooled
by virus hoaxes, for example.
Someone earlier mentioned Snopes. Well, Snopes has a word for these little
inspirational e-mail forwards--"glurge." On the surface, they seem like
sweet, sentimental messages, but all too often they have a caustic little
agenda--conservative, liberal, libertarian, religious, whatever--attached.
If you pay attention to only the sweet little message, it's easy to get
taken in by the proselytizing. I would just as soon not be--whatever side
of the spectrum it comes from.
I don't like messages, in general, that urge me to feel rather than to
think--to disengage my brain in order to exercise my heart, and to simply
"go from Statement A directly to Conclusion Z. Do not pass Go, do not
collect $200." I tend to be downright suspicious of them. I'm just funny
that way. And believe it or not, this doesn't make me the somber, unhappy,
no-have-fun person that some surely believe I must be not to take full
enjoyment from messages like these. Not at all. It's just that I think
reruns of MST3K or SCTV are way more fun.
HudsonGrl
>From: tru...@clarityconnect.competent (Trudi Marrapodi)
>Message-id: <trudee-0309...@cci-209150250171.clarityconnect.net>
>
>And I'd be willing to bet that if you had to go back there and really live
>it for a day, it wouldn't really be the Norman Rockwell, Country Time
>Lemonade experience you seem to think it would be.
i don't know about that. i met my husband in the 70's, and was going to
college. they were very happy years for me. i have mostly good memories of that
era.
Hudson
Trudi Marrapodi
<bi...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
I can never think of any of this without thinking of that scene in the
play "Our Town" in which the dead Emily chooses to go back and relive her
11th birthday. She ends up begging to go back to the grave...in part
because the memory of living is too painfully poignant to endure, but also
because she has to go back in the past knowing what she does about how
things will turn out. Seeing people she knows will die, etc. (If you've
ever seen the movie "Peggy Sue Got Married," in which a woman goes back in
time to her high school years knowing what she knows as an adult, one of
the saddest moments is when she picks up a phone call from her
grandmother, who in her adult life is dead.)
I don't know. I don't think I could stand going back to my childhood
knowing what I know now, although some of it might make me laugh--and I
equally can't imagine going back with the amount of ignorance equal to
what I had then and feeling nostalgic about it. At most, I could stand it
for a few hours. Then I'd probably come back saying "Sheesh, I forgot how
out of control kids are of their own lives, and how much I hated that," or
"I forgot how much I'd miss having _______."
Trudi Marrapodi
<wood...@tampabaySPAMLITE.com> wrote:
I wonder, if they really could, if they would go back. Hey, everybody,
let's go for a joyride in the old Trabant!
Sometimes I think nostalgia is a protective little amnesiac disease nature
gives us so we can forget how bad things were in the past and not get so
traumatized by memories that we can't function in our present lives.
Rather like when people wake up from a terrible car accident and realize
they have no memory of the accident itself, or women recover from
childbirth and say they have no real memory of how bad labor felt.
HudsonGrl
>From: tru...@clarityconnect.competent (Trudi Marrapodi)
>Message-id: <trudee-0309...@cci-209150250171.clarityconnect.ne
>
>Sometimes I think nostalgia is a protective little amnesiac disease nature
>gives us so we can forget how bad things were in the past and not get so
>traumatized by memories that we can't function in our present lives.
interesting post. just curious, did you really have that many horrible things
in your past you want to forget? hmm. i can honestly say, most of my past has
been positive.( that's not to say there hasn't been a *little* rain here and
there.)
Hudson
Bill Diamond
> I wonder, if they really could, if they would go back. Hey, everybody,
> let's go for a joyride in the old Trabant!
Don't laugh. There's a very popular movie that came out a few years ago
in Germany. It's all about a merry old Trabi and its adventures.
Apparantly, a nostalgic film about the second-worst car(1) ever made brings a
tear to one's eye. Well, it should. I mean, if you've ever breathed in
the vile sulfurous smog belched from one of those ozone-hole-makers, you
know what I mean.
(1) The worst car, of course, being the Wartburg. Molded of plastic body
parts, they were known to melt in the sun.
Bill
scaperchick
(Trudi Marrapodi) wrote:
>Well, sometimes one is better off for questioning what one gets in e-mail
>forwards, lest one be taken in. Think of how many people have been fooled
>by virus hoaxes, for example.
I know what you're saying... and I understand the reference to
"glurge". You can take bits from glurge that you find amusing, and
drop the rest, without paying any mind to the "message" of the whole
thing. Most of it is utter crap, but occasionally there's one that's
worth a skim and a laugh.
I guess if you get sucked in to preachy movies and Oprah and
Afterschool-Special-type things (and virus hoaxes), then yeah, you
could have absorbed a message from that forward. And we all know folk
of that ilk.
> I'm just funny
>that way. And believe it or not, this doesn't make me the somber, unhappy,
>no-have-fun person that some surely believe I must be not to take full
>enjoyment from messages like these. Not at all. It's just that I think
>reruns of MST3K or SCTV are way more fun.
Skepticism is good, especially when it comes to these things. I don't
think it makes you somber or not-fun. Personally, I find that it's
easier to have a filter of sorts so that I can absorb select bits of
info instead of the whole, slanted thing. Maybe I've been doing it so
long that I don't do it consciously any more. If it's of no interest
to me, then life's too short to get worked up about it. I say this as
someone who suffers from anxiety, so choosing my battles is important
to my survival.
And yes, MST3K reruns are definitely more fun. Now I'm getting all
nostalgic... *wink*
Trudi Marrapodi
huds...@aol.com (HudsonGrl) wrote:
It's a combination. See, that's the thing: if you really had to relive it,
you couldn't just pick the good stuff. You'd have to take the bad with the
good.
Trudi Marrapodi
bead...@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 00:31:30 -0400, tru...@clarityconnect.competent
> (Trudi Marrapodi) wrote:
>
> >Well, sometimes one is better off for questioning what one gets in e-mail
> >forwards, lest one be taken in. Think of how many people have been fooled
> >by virus hoaxes, for example.
>
> I know what you're saying... and I understand the reference to
> "glurge". You can take bits from glurge that you find amusing, and
> drop the rest, without paying any mind to the "message" of the whole
> thing. Most of it is utter crap, but occasionally there's one that's
> worth a skim and a laugh.
Everything has its moments.
> I guess if you get sucked in to preachy movies and Oprah and
> Afterschool-Special-type things (and virus hoaxes), then yeah, you
> could have absorbed a message from that forward. And we all know folk
> of that ilk.
Yeah, and they can jam your mailbox in no time at all, too!
> > I'm just funny
> >that way. And believe it or not, this doesn't make me the somber, unhappy,
> >no-have-fun person that some surely believe I must be not to take full
> >enjoyment from messages like these. Not at all. It's just that I think
> >reruns of MST3K or SCTV are way more fun.
>
> Skepticism is good, especially when it comes to these things. I don't
> think it makes you somber or not-fun. Personally, I find that it's
> easier to have a filter of sorts so that I can absorb select bits of
> info instead of the whole, slanted thing. Maybe I've been doing it so
> long that I don't do it consciously any more. If it's of no interest
> to me, then life's too short to get worked up about it. I say this as
> someone who suffers from anxiety, so choosing my battles is important
> to my survival.
I guess. I just like making cranky comments on modern life. It's fun.
> And yes, MST3K reruns are definitely more fun. Now I'm getting all
> nostalgic... *wink*
Now there's something worth getting nostalgic about! Actually, all this
reminds me of Joel's soliloquy during "Catalina Caper" about what life was
like for kids in the '60s. You know, having no padding under the
playground equipment and all, so if you fell off, you cracked your skull!
HudsonGrl
>From: tru...@clarityconnect.competent (Trudi Marrapodi)
>Message-id: <trudee-0309...@cci-209150250106.clarityconnect.net>
>
>
>It's a combination. See, that's the thing: if you really had to relive it,
>you couldn't just pick the good stuff. You'd have to take the bad with the
>good.
true, but, living in the present, and future, for that matter, we have to take
the bad with the good too.
Hudson
Aozotorp
will move and think once in a while!
mc
Trudi Marrapodi wrote:
> In article <20030901131505...@mb-m01.aol.com>,
> huds...@aol.com (HudsonGrl) wrote:
>
>
>>>Subject: Re: OT:People over 30 should be dead
>>>From: tru...@clarityconnect.competent (Trudi Marrapodi)
>>>Date: 9/1/2003 12:09 PM Central Standard Time
>>>Message-id: <trudee-0109...@cci-209150250210.clarityconnect.net>
>>
>>>Maybe some of the reason it's so tempting to reminisce about when you were
>>>a kid is that you WERE a kid, and you didn't have to suffer the same
>>>trials that adults did at the time. The more I think about what it would
>>>have been like to be an *adult* back when I was a kid, the less
>>
>>>nostalgic
>>>I get!
>>>--
>>
>>i'm assuming you were a *kid* in the 70's.
>
>
> Not quite. I was a kid for part of it, and a teen for the rest.
>
>
>>well, i was a teen and a young adult
>>then and it really wasn't so bad. life was simpler in a lot of ways. sure, we
>>has no internet and we had no cell phones as you mentioned. but, somehow life
>>seemed a little less hurried back then and people seemed a little more patient
>>and a little less self-centered. neighbors were, well... more neighborly. just
>>my 2 cents.
I miss the neighbor part. Everyone seems to speed into their garages
after work and no one really knows their neighbor.
> And I'd be willing to bet that if you had to go back there and really live
> it for a day, it wouldn't really be the Norman Rockwell, Country Time
> Lemonade experience you seem to think it would be.
I certainly don't think so. I'd just like to take bits and pieces, like
kids being able to play freely without supervision. Nostalgia is funny,
it clouds your vision. Like when you remember only the good things
about a bad relationship.
MC
Keeper of Giovanni Ribisi and Dennis Farina!