Good Old Days

[Norrec]

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those
of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably
shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with
brightly coloured lead-based paint, which was promptly chewed and
licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on
doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and
fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would
ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger
seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it
tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with
sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always
outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no
one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went
top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.
After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve
the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long
as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and
no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No
99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile
phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms. We
had friends - we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt!

We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones but there were no
lawsuits.

We had full on fistfights but no prosecution followed from other
parents.

We played chap-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the
owners catching us.

We walked to friends' homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on
mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard
of...They actually sided with the law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and
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.

And you're one of them. Congratulations!

For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to
read about us.

This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a
smile on your face:

The majority of students in universities today were born in
1986........They are called youth.

They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and
the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have
never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda
Carlisle .

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam .

AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they
were born.

Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can' t
Imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films
from last year.

They can never imagine life before computers.

They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the
Famous Five.

They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You.

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed. And
they Will never understand how we could leave the house without a
mobile phone.

Now let's check if we're getting old...

1. You understand what was written above and you smile.

2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a
night out.

3. Your friends are getting married/already married.

4. You are always surprised to see small children playing
comfortably with computers.
5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time
around.

7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good
Old days, repeating again all the funny things you have experience
together.

Norrec

[dazbeattie]

Yep.... That sum's up my childhood.... It is really bad looking back at some of those things... my babysitter loves the 80's stuff, so when I question her about it, she wasn't born until 87 !!!!

How old ???

Daz

[Hyno]

I'm 38 - I still remember Beta recorders!!! ops:

[Nutty_ZA]

I'm 37....

I still remember watching the Original Star Wars when it first came out
(the greatest film ever, if you were a 7 or 8 year old boy)
My Chopper Bicycle...
Skateboards (the original craze, when boards were still made out of wood)
Olivia Newton John in Grease (what a crush I had on her)
The Original Battle Star Galactica, Jaws, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind...
Buying my first 7" single (Mirror Man by the Human League)...

Listening to The Beatles and thinking that the 60's was a realllllly long time ago when in reality, more time has elapsed since 1984 when I was 15 to today (22 years :shock: ), than between 1984 and 1964 when the Beatles first became world famous )