Got to be over 40 to understand

A different slant on an old theme. Gotta Be Over 40 to Understand


Mum used to cut chicken, slice eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't get food poisoning.



My Mum used to defrost mince-meat on the kitchen sink AND I used to eat a bite raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper, in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, but I can't remember anybody getting e.coli.



Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.



The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.



We all played sport, and also did PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of Dunlop runners (only worn in the gym or the sports ground) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built-in light reflectors.. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened, because they tell us how much safer we are now....



Flunking sport was not an option.... even for stupid kids! There were not many fat kids.



Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the National Anthem and got free school milk for strong bones and teeth, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.



What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything, and she could even give you an aspirin for a headache or fever.



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.



Oh yeah..and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!



We played 'king of the castle' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mum pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our hair ruffled and got told to get back out there! Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mum calls the Solicitor to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.



We didn't misbehave at the mate's house either, because if we did, we got our bum smacked there, and then we got bum belted again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front veranda, just before he fell off. Little did his Mum know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a yobbo. It was a neighbourhood run amuck.



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 needed to get into group therapy and 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

B****y young cynic.:D

My old man was a village bobby in the UK in the 50's and 60's.
If kids played up they were brought to the house/police station for a dose of leather belt.
I still remember hearing the cries of anguish from the garage some weekends, and none of those kids ever went to court or got a criminal record, most went on to make something of their lives and were respected community members (even the current vicar:D ).

A push bike was something you built out of junk

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Originally Posted by Iain

... most went on to make something of their lives and were respected community members (even the current vicar:D ).

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which do you mean Iain? That he went on to become a respected community member or that he became a vicar :confused:

Richard

The current vicar and I went to school together, he got caught pinching apples from a local farmer and received a prescription of belt, at his fathers request, I was never in trouble (read never got caught:p )

Baz

Well done. The good old days

Good days and as Baz says I never say anyone get sick from food and no modern cooling like we have today. The river and the river farms were our playground. Plenty of fresh fruit for snacks:p :p

Never owned a pair of shoes until high school came along. Allsport was played in bare feet:cool:

The free milk I was a monitor mainly because it got you out of some class time and some extra milk;)

Ian

Yes I can remember. I grew up in Quensland, 5 children 3 wild boys. We didn't have to go to the station, if in trouble it happened where caught and if not caught then the sergeant would visit the old man and then we were for it. Nothing bad just boys being boys


Memories

Cheers Sam:)

Love the post Baz, brought back a lot of good memories.

Mind you, my memories of the milks isn't that good. They had to move the milk rack one year (can't remember why) to where the sun got to it in the mornings. When they forgot to wet down the hessian the milks got a bit lumpy:( - but we were still forced to drink it:mad: . I have never drunk plain milk since.

I remember when my brothers bike was passed down to me. He got it when it was 10 years old and had it for another 10 years. I was so proud just to have a bike, the thought that it was 20 eyars old didn't even cross my mind. These days if it isn't brand new, the latest brand, cost a bloody fortune, the kids don't want it.

timres ther a changing

Baz,

Brings back a memory or two, really do not know how I have survived to 62!

What about the copper with the number nine boot up the butt.

Regards Mike;)

The most frighterning thing a copper (The town Seargent Mr Mackinnon ) ever said to me was " I'll be speaking to your father about this"
And all my old man did was tell me he was disapointed in me , and that was worse than any belting I ever got.
Rgds

Have you ever gone into a fast food outlet or cafe and watched the young kids who serve up the food? They usually have greasy pimples which they pick with dirty fingernails while they wait for some equally grotty kid to fill and pack the order. They usually have lank long hair which sheds itself into the roll or bag of chips you just bought. :mad: They always smell of cheap 2 dollar perfume to cover the fact they only bathe once a fortnight if they can be bothered. Visit one of your teenage grots at their flat and there will be dirty underwear and clothes stacked knee high in every available space. The toilet will look more like a pubic fur coat than enamel and the bath will have a sleeping dog (probably a Staffy) in it. :eek:
I read the other day where golden staff and strep were becoming more prevalent outside hospitals. The simple reason is that young people have absolutely no concept of personal hygeine. And we eat the food they serve up at McCrap and the Colon CHook shop. :mad::mad::mad::mad:
Rant ends....

Being a young merely 41 years and having kids that are in primary school now I can say there is still hope *G*

Kids need leadership and boundaries set. You don't get to hit them the way we were hit but you do send them off to the laundry for a bit of time out. Kills them when they know they could be having fun.

The legal system well what can I say. The Lawyers really have taken over. It is all about rights and no responsibility. Did you hear about the subbie that got sued by the council for a job he did and they signed off on 15 years previous because the council was sued for someone tripping over a crack in the pavement? The advice he got was don't fight because you will lose. He tried and just ran out of money. Either way he was going to end up bankrupt. There is too much of the idea that the legal system is a pot of gold for anyone who can dig into it. The thing I really want to know is who does the system answer too? Who does the High Court have to justify it's decisions to? It wouldn't be such a bad thing if they had to go before Parliament and be questioned about what they had done each year. You can't have Parliament overturning cases but if there were a public reckoning of sorts it wouldn't be bad.

God I can go on at times

It does cheer me up to see all the Baby Boomers here talking like this. You guys are meant to be the selfish screw the world as long as I get mine generation. Goes to show that idea isn't entirely true.

We were talking about kids and growing up with a stand on your own feet and don't ask for a handout. Well isn't that the only way to bring kids up. One day they will have to stand on their own feet and life doesn't give you any handouts until you earn them. Best to teach them young I think.

Studley

As I recall Nuffa Bath used to deliver the milk in the morning, on his trusty ute, then deliver firewood in the afternoon, these days you need a van built to spec to put the milk in.

My first bike didn't have any tires
just metal rims War on. it went ok on grass.

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Originally Posted by Geoff Odgers

As I recall Nuffa Bath used to deliver the milk in the morning, on his trusty ute, then deliver firewood in the afternoon, these days you need a van built to spec to put the milk in.

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And the rabbitoh came on Saturday morning. Sixpence a pair. And I used to get threepence for a rabbit's skin I got with my ferrets. Ah those were the days. And when you had a lamb roast on Sunday you knew it was fed on grass and not bloody hormones. :) And kids rarely had asthma then some moron bought a McCrap franchise for Sydney now the junk food generation cost this country gazzillions in health care costs for obesity, dibetes, asthma, ADHD blah blah blah. :mad:
Crikey. 2 rants in one day...hang on, damn I forgot my happy pill. :cool:

Sure can remember that warm strawberry milk,yuk.
Cheers
Barry