And We Are Still Alive....

I got a funny email today.  I'm going to condense it down a bit and add my own personal twists to it.  I just had to share it because there were so many things I remember doing and I'm still alive!  Go figure!

• Black and white tv (no color quite yet).  Less than a handful of channels if you could spread the rabbit ears and adjust the aluminum foil just right to avoid the snow.  "Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."

• Mom cut everything on the one cutting board (or counter) without bleach and we didn't get food poisoning.

• Defrosting hamburger or the Thanksgiving Turkey on the counter.  School sandwiches wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag without ice-pack coolers....nobody got sick, we just all swapped sandwiches.  And we got to eat peanut butter at school without every other kid having and allergy to it.

• Swimming at the beach without tar on our feet, no hyperdermic needles to worry about and just had to watch out for the jelly fish.

• Cell phone would be a call from jail and text is what is printed in a book...remember reading those?

• Gym class and not PE.  Kids wore Keds and canvas hi tops (weren't those the official basketball shoe back then?)  Nobody got hurt because they didn't have the $100 air cushion athletic shoes--that nobody laces anyway.

• Did anybody flunk gym if they were there every day?  Now PE has a state test here in Washington. 

• We said the pledge and had a moment of silence to start every morning in school. 

• School nurses were at the school every day! Not just once a month.  And they could really give you medicine other than Ritalin.

• Remember playing outside with a card table and blanket as your fort?  Or sitting on  my front porch railing pretending it was a space ship launching me to faraway places.  No video games, no cable!  We rode our bikes round and round the block...and it was fun!

• How about when we fell down, we got our cuts and scrapes scrubbed up and then went back to playing.  No Neosporin, no trips to the ER for antibiotics.  When did dirt become so dangerous?

• We called adults by their last names following Mr. and Mrs.  And there were no tantrums or whining...we actually had to say please and thank you!

• Land lines attached to the wall.  And wasn't it really special when you got the really long cord so you could talk to someone in a different room than the one the phone was in.  Anybody else see a cord disappear under a closed door?   Hey at least you couldn't lose it!

• When Johnny fell on your front steps doing a trick on his rollerskates and got hurt, we weren't worried that his parents would sue us for having steps.  We just gave him a bandaid and a washcloth with ice in it.  Then went on playing!

I'm sure there are other fun memories that we 'survived', but now we have to survive the new modern age and try to salvage the old one for our kids!