Reality Check

The following post is actually from one of the many e-mail forwards I get. E-mail forwards are a huge pet peeve of mine, especially the ones that predict doom and bad fortune if not sent to 20 people in the next 5 minutes. But, once in a blue moon or two, I actually find something entertaining or worthwhile amidst the stinkers.

This one was entitled, “To All the Kids Who Survived the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.” Kind of catchy in a run-on, incomplete sentence way, wouldn’t you say? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. Personally, I think it should be called something like this:

“Here’s a Reality Check for the Younger Generations”

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked or drank alcohol (or both!) while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then, after that unspeakable trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints with slats far enough apart for us to get our chubby arms and legs in between.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps on instead of helmets on our heads.

As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes. (I even remember riding on my dad’s lap while he drove down the interstate… good fun.)

Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat… sometimes even sitting on the open tailgate.

We drank water from a garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends from one bottle and no one actually died from it.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon and we drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar… and we weren’t overweight. Why? Because we were always outside playing!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day, because we didn’t have cell phones. And we were okay.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, 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 video games, no 150 channels on cable, no DVDs, no surround sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no internet or chat rooms. Instead, we had friends and we went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cuts, broke bones and knocked out teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and we did not put out everyone’s eyes no matter what our mothers told us.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell.

Little league had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. And those who did learned that the losing teams didn’t get trophies, too.

When we got a little older, the idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Image that!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

If YOU are one of them… congratulations!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?