Hur länge har du varit med?

Looking back,
it's hard to believe that
we have lived
as long as we have.................

As children,
we would ride in cars
with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck
on a warm day
was always a special treat.
Our baby cribs were covered with
bright colored lead-based paint.
We had no childproof lids on
medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets,
and when we rode our bikes,
we had no helmets.

We drank water from the garden hose
and not from a bottle.
Horrors.
We would spend hours building our go-carts
out of scraps and then rode down the hill,
only to find out we forgot the brakes.
After running into the bushes a few times
we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home
in the morning and play all day,
as long as we were back when
the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
No cell phones.
Unthinkable.
We played dodge ball and
sometimes the ball would really hurt.
We got cut and
broke bones and broke teeth
and there were no law suits
from these accidents.
They were accidents.
No one was to blame but us.
Remember accidents?

We had fights
and punched each other
and got black and blue
and learned to get over it.
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter,
and drank sugar soda
but we were never overweight....
.....we were always outside playing.
We shared one grape soda
with four friends,
from one bottle and
no one died from this?

We did not have
Playstations, Nintendo 64,
X Boxes, video games at all,
99 channels on cable,
video tape movies, surround sound,
personal cellular phones,
Personal Computers,
Internet chat rooms,
............... we had friends.
We went outside and found them.
We rode bikes or
walked to a friend's home and
knocked on the door,
or rung the bell or
just walked in and talked to them.
Imagine such a thing.
Without asking a parent!
By ourselves!
Out there in the cold cruel world!
Without a guardian.
How did we do it?
We made up games
with sticks and tennis balls
and ate worms and
although we were told it would happen,
we did not put out very many eyes,
nor did the worms live inside us forever.

Little League had tryouts and
not everyone made the team.
Those who didn't
had to learn to deal with
disappointment.....
Some students
weren't as smart as others
so they failed a grade
and were held back
to repeat the same grade.....
Horrors.
Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own.
Consequences were expected.
No one to hide behind.
The idea of a parent bailing us out
if we broke a law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law,
imagine that!

This generation has produced
some of the best risk-takers
and problem solvers and inventors,
ever.
The past 50 years has been
an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure,
success and responsibility,
and we learned how to deal with it all.

And I’m one of them.
Thank You!