We should all be dead---seriously.
I was born in the mid 60's,and am amazed that I, or any of my buddies, made it out alive.
Today's emotionally, and physically, bubblewrapped, 'helicoptered' kids have no idea what we 'went through' growing up...
Our playground equipment was metal...steel.
It froze your fingers off in the winter, and scalded your legs in the summer. I can still feel the blisters, and smell the metallic residue, it left on our hands. We were allowed to climb to the top of everything, and swing from it. If you fell off, you landed on compacted dirt...not 14" deep mulch or spongy rubber chips.The only goal was to NOT land in the mud puddle under the swings...or at the end of the slide.
We played on rusted out teeter-totters, and climbed trees.
We built forts...real ones constructed from found plywood, sticks and brush.
When I went over to a friends house, we played outside...the whole day.
(You were allowed to come inside---briefly for triage---if you were obviously bleeding.)
We were allowed to come in for bathroom breaks, and lunch...and that's pretty much it.
We rode on bikes that were way too big for us---sometimes with someone on the handle bars. And helmets?---nah. Why would we need helmets? We were not playing football...
We played outside barefoot...we had splinters in our feet from the dock, and we occasionally got stung by bees.
My friends and I had free range of the neighborhood.
We actually had to keep ourselves occupied!
We jumped on other people's trampolines---with no safety nets or pads around them. We 'double bounced' people.
There was a rope swing that went out over Crystal Lake that we were all quite fond of...although, in the winter we did get in trouble for swinging out over the water.
We obeyed and respected all grown ups. We followed directions. We listened.
If someone's mom made you a liver sandwich for lunch---you ate it, and said 'thank you'. None of us had food allergies...we ate peanut butter, drank whole milk, and ate food that had real fat in it...and we all hated raisins and broccoli.
We ate raw cookie dough!
We used soap and water to wash our hands...we actually had to sit at the table to eat.
We usually ended up with some kind of scrape,or skinned up knees, from rollerskating(on 4 wheels strapped to your sneakers), skateboarding (again with no helmets) or playing tag on cement.
The only 'time out' was to get a wet paper towel (handed out to you from the back door) to clean off scraped knees or elbows---the objective was to get outta there before a mom came at you with the Bactine spray, or Iodine.
We listened to the radio and played cassette tapes...we thought it was super cool when the 'boom box' came out.
We danced, and sang out loud---all of us!
The phone was attached to the wall---and you had to actually dial the number. We had to ask permission to use it...no one had an answering machine...you were either there...or not.
And the biggie? Only 3---yes three---television stations!*gasp*
(Oh, it was just 'miserable'!)
The one really good thing?
We did not have to walk 6 miles barefoot in the snow to get to school---like our parents did.
