Black and White
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)


You could hardly see for all the snow,

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,

"Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."



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

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it 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 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 took gym, not PE.. and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym)
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 gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, 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.

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 hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom 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 butt spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood 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 social 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
Irish

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Irish---Better to be dead & cool,then alive & uncool!
(Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man)

I'm under 40 and they all are familiar One person's "Good Ole Days" and another person's "Stone Ages"

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The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.~ Betty Grable

If I wanted your opinion, I'd remove the duct tape and ask you for it.~ Me
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
One man's dream is another man's nightmare~~~~> §¤ Lilith ¤§
~>My Scribbles<~
==>Gone Shopping<== ~Just a Quickie~ *~A Celebration Vacation~* ~Surprises~ Sleeping With the Window Open
What Did You Do Today? Self Defense Class ~Short Sweet Snippets~ § Summer Spin § Story Challenge Submission Pajamas

I'm 39 but still remember the majority of those things...... and miss those days as well.

In my family Mercurochrome was called "Monkey Blood" though. Not sure why but that's what my grandpa always called it.

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It takes a gutless mouse to play only when the cat's away.

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever. ~~ Francois Mocuriac

Confucius say, "He who masturbate into cash register come into money."

An optimist looks at the glass and says it's half full. A pessimist looks at the glass and says it's half empty. A Cubs fan looks at the glass and says, "When's it gonna spill?"

Deus Impetitio Esuritori Nullus

Lilith---You have my permission to change the title of the thread.I only sent it
in because everyplace you go,you see everyone on a cellphone & my wife has
asked me many times-How did we grow up without a cellphone?Our oldest
daughter,will be 40 this Sept. Irish

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Irish---Better to be dead & cool,then alive & uncool!
(Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man)

I don't see any reason to change it. I've seen this email before too. I am grateful everyday for cellphones. They work a lot of the time here in Florida when traditional phone lines are down. They are a nuisance at times too but I sure am glad to have them as an option.

__________________

The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.~ Betty Grable

If I wanted your opinion, I'd remove the duct tape and ask you for it.~ Me
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
One man's dream is another man's nightmare~~~~> §¤ Lilith ¤§
~>My Scribbles<~
==>Gone Shopping<== ~Just a Quickie~ *~A Celebration Vacation~* ~Surprises~ Sleeping With the Window Open
What Did You Do Today? Self Defense Class ~Short Sweet Snippets~ § Summer Spin § Story Challenge Submission Pajamas

I just think of my cell phone as a teeny-tiny ham radio ......... without the car batteries ........... and without the mores code key ........ or earphones,... or forty foot cable going to a 60 foot antenna, ...that fits in the watch pocket of my jeans.

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Yup, remember those days!!!

Remember it all ! We tried to stay away from the bees if we got stung we got a wad of grandpas chewing tobacco taped to our arm,leg wherever,and we stayed out after dark to play hide and go seek and didnt have to have a rescue squad come and find us either

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The mind never forgets what the hands have learned

In the summer we would all leave the house after breakfast and return at bath time. We made our own fun. Garbage can lid sheilds and stick swords and nobody every lost an eye.

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Did we survive, or just think we did?

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

Funny... Cobalt and I were just talking about this recently. How, when we were kids, we survived all sorts of stuff. We rode bikes without helmets... I skateboarded down a hilll that led to a bridge that was under construction... my mom would have had a heart attack, but I was the hero of the neighborhood... lol. I didn't break a bone until I was an adult.

We made our own fun.. didn't have the video games, internet, etc. We were amazed when the neighbors down the road got cable!

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A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

It is amazing we survived some of the things we did: jumping off hay lofts and having to clear the farm equipment to land in the hay, pulling a hay wagon to the top of a hill and riding it down jumping off just before it hit the stone wall, we rode our bikes everywhere and never hesitated to accept a cold drink n cookies if anyone offered along the way, nor did we think twice about putting the bikes in the back of a pick up truck we'd never seen before to hitch a ride home.....

Yes, in some ways those were the 'good-ole-days' but I wouldn't go back to Mom's wringer washing machine, the tiny 2 channel black n white TV, the lack of knowledge in the medical field, or the fridge that somehow kept the milk just barely chilled.

Thanks Irish for posting this. It was fun to read and did bring back some good memories.


PS: Did anybody else have those horrid one piece gym suits? ughhh!!!

Nope dont remember one piece gym suits, but I remember you had two sets of clothes, school clothes and play clothes. You ran home from the school bus, changed and couldnt wait to get outside to play. No video games, no tv, if it was raining you were bummed out because you couldnt play with your friends, not that the Directv was working.

Was your gym suite blue or the green one?

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Pepto Bismal pink