# Read this only



## newtgadget (Jul 9, 2006)

>Another Goody  For The Oldtimers 
> 
>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 Keds (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  det ention 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 bott le 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 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 
>Pass this to someone (over age 40, of course),  and brighten their day 
by helping them to remember that life's most simple  pleasures are very 
often the best! 
>I'd say Amen, but that wouldn't  be 
>politically correct.


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## Dutch (Jul 15, 2006)

Hey, Newt-Thanks for the memories. . . 8) I'll be turning 50 next month.   :(


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## dave11 (Jul 15, 2006)

Thanks for the post Newt! Ill be sending it to friends. Earl, Ill be 50 in Sept. I know how ya feel! Those were the good old days!


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