Proud to be old.
\nAccording to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were
\nkids in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s probably shouldn’t have survived, because :
\nOur baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint
\nwhich was promptly chewed and licked.
\nWe had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or
\ncabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
\nWhen we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and
\nfluorescent ‘clackers’ on our wheels. (I think you will find they were known as spokey dokeys – some old git wrote this)
\nAs children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags
\nriding in the passenger seat was a treat.
\nWe drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it
\ntasted the same.
\nWe ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar
\nin it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
\nWe shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and
\nno-one actually died from this.
\nWe would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top
\nspeed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.
\nAfter running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve
\nthe problem.
\nWe would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as
\nwe were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.
\nWe 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
\nphones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends we went
\noutside and found them.
\nWe played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really
\nhurt.
\nWe fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no
\nlawsuits.
\nWe had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other
\nparents.
\nWe played knock-down-ginger and were afraid of the owners catching us.
\nWe walked to friend’s homes.
\nWe also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn’t rely on mummy
\nor daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.
\nWe made up games with sticks and tennis balls.
\nWe rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
\nThe idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of.
\nThey actually sided with the law.
\nThis generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
\nsolvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion
\nof innovation and new ideas.
\nWe had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
\nhow to deal with it all.
\nAnd you’re one of them. Congratulations!
\nPass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as real kids,
\nbefore lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
\nFor those of you who aren’t old enough, thought you might like to read about us.
\nThis my friends, is surprisingly frightening……and it might put a
\nsmile on your face: The majority of students in universities today were born in 1983……..They are called youth.
\nThey have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and
\nthe Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel.
\nThey have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena or Belinda
\nCarlisle.
\nFor them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.
\nAIDS has existed since they were born.
\nCD’s have existed since they were born.
\nMichael Jackson has always been white.
\nTo them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can’t
\nimagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.
\nThey believe that Charlie’s Angels and Mission Impossible are Films
\nfrom last year.
\nThey can never imagine life before computers.
\nThey’ll never have pretended to be the A Team, Red Hand Gang or the
\nFamous Five.
\nThey’ll never have applied to be on Jim’ll Fix It or Why Don’t You.
\nThey can’t believe a black and white television ever existed and don’t even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.
\nAnd they will never understand how we could leave the house without a
\nmobile phone.
\nNow let’s check if we’re getting old…
\n1. You understand what was written above and you smile.
\n2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night
\nout.
\n3. Your friends are getting married\/already married.
\n4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably
\nwith computers.
\n5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.
\n6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time
\naround.
\n7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good
\nold days, repeating again all the funny stories you have experienced
\ntogether.
\n8. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some
\nother friends because you think they will like it too…
\nYes, you’re getting older!!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Proud to be old. 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.puerilis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}