It's a MiracIe We Survived!

I thought this was funny because it describes my childhood almost to a T...so I thought I would share.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1950's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies (I still prefer to sleep that way!) in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets. When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking (Diana, remember hitchhiking home from PG?! I can't believe we are still alive!). As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags (We took family vacations in our HUGE brown LTD...all 9 of us...with the littlest kids sleeping on the floor and in the back window!!). Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because, WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! (Okay, we weren't overweight and we were ALWAYS playing outside, but when we made cookies, my mom made us use whole wheat flour for at least 1/2 of the flour it called for!)

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on (I actually think that is exactly what my mom would say to me). No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill (Diana, does doubling up skateboards and riding down Indian Hills Drive sound something like this?) only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, (okay, we did have a Nintendo when I was about 12 years old. We had Atari before then, too, I'm not THAT old!) no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable (I didn't have that until I was married!!!) no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones (again, not until I was married!), no personal computer's, no Internet or chat rooms.......WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees (Alisa did this...I never did), got cut (my middle name was "accident prone"), broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt (or we just bathed in a muddy canal...our own version of a spa treatment!). We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house 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. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! (Hot tamales anyone?) These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, 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! (Hopefully our children will learn all the same "skills" we supposedly did...actually, hopefully even more!)