Growing up in the 60s and 70s

Davmalk

Well-Known Member
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us to term.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and never got tested for diabetes.

Hell, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints and our rooms were heavy in asbestos.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets.

When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags and riding in the back of a pick-up was the norm.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight why? Because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We did not have PlayStation, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms but we had imagination and lots of it.

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

No one was able to reach us all day and believe it or not we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scrap wood, bent nails of all different sizes and then ride down the hill, only to realize we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We fell out of trees and stepped on glass and got cut, broke bones, chipped teeth and banged our knees all up and you know what there no such thing as a lawsuit from these accidents.

We ate worms played in ditches and gutters made mud pies from dirt, and played with frogs and tadpoles.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays and never shot out someone’s eye. We played with clackers. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and played hide-n-seek.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and just walked in!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with it. Imagine that!!

When we got in trouble with the police and they would take us home and we were most afraid not because of the police but were afraid of our parents.

When we got in trouble in school the principle handed out punishment.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 40 to 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!

We had the privilege to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
 

tyler.durden

Well-Known Member
Things were really different back then. Almost no one ever got shot, even in Chicago. Gangs were like The Warriors - I lived right on a Royals/Latin Kings overlap, and those dudes beat the shit out of each other. With their fists, like men. Sometimes there were bats or improvised weapons, but I only remember the LK's leader having a gun. And that was only for super serious shit. In the summer as kids we were gone from about 9am and only came back in time for dinner, and you better not be late. We ventured miles from home starting at age 8 or so. The worse thing that could happen is that, if you weren't careful, you'd get your ass beat by some older kids. And they didn't take your bike or your shoes, just the beat down. We did a lot of stupid shit and I'm kinda surprised we all didn't die at one time or another. If a fight started during recess, male teachers just watched while looking out for female teachers. If no ladies were around, they'd just let us fight. Things ran pretty smoothly with a clear hierarchy. You'd call out someone to fight you at a specific time and place, and half the school showed up to watch. I remember pulling stupid shit at friends' houses: the dad or mom would smack you, then bring you home and tell your parents what you did before they smacked you. Then your dad would smack you again. When we played games one side lost with dignity, and the other won without apology, and we all handled it just fine. Poor kids mixed with rich kids and everyone got to see how everyone else lived. Facts trumped feelings. I had a blast.

Having said all that, I never let my kid do the things I did. The world is way different, more dangerous, and makes much less sense imo. We could speculate all day why exactly this came to be. But I do feel sorry for today's kids in a lot of ways. They are softer, physically, mentally, and emotionally. When I took my 11 yo and his friends around, they'd ask to stop like every mile we walked, and were constantly looking for anything to do beside the thing we were already doing. I'm sure they have their advantages, but I'm glad to have grown up when I did...
 

Justin-case

Well-Known Member
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us to term

Hell, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints and our rooms were heavy in asbestos.

.
This explains a lot, dern gubment.

Huff some more gasoline retard
 

MisterBouncyBounce

Well-Known Member
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us to term.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and never got tested for diabetes.

Hell, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints and our rooms were heavy in asbestos.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets.

When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags and riding in the back of a pick-up was the norm.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight why? Because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We did not have PlayStation, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms but we had imagination and lots of it.

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

No one was able to reach us all day and believe it or not we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scrap wood, bent nails of all different sizes and then ride down the hill, only to realize we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We fell out of trees and stepped on glass and got cut, broke bones, chipped teeth and banged our knees all up and you know what there no such thing as a lawsuit from these accidents.

We ate worms played in ditches and gutters made mud pies from dirt, and played with frogs and tadpoles.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays and never shot out someone’s eye. We played with clackers. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and played hide-n-seek.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and just walked in!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with it. Imagine that!!

When we got in trouble with the police and they would take us home and we were most afraid not because of the police but were afraid of our parents.

When we got in trouble in school the principle handed out punishment.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 40 to 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!

We had the privilege to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
and what was the result of all that? Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump.
 

Davmalk

Well-Known Member
Remember the playgrounds of the 70’s? Dangerous, but fun as hell. Public playgrounds today are a fortress of nauseating safeness. We had large metal merry go rounds that spun freely in either direction. More like “puke and go round”. Metal animals that were attached to big springs that went forwards and backwards and if you weren’t careful you could bust a tooth out. The big spaceship with three stories and a metal slide that would rip your skin off on hot days. I’m not sure what you call it but there was a big metal half dome thing that was twenty feet high and the only thing separating you from the ground were the bars. Oh and the grounds we either sand or dirt.
 
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tyler.durden

Well-Known Member
Remember the playgrounds of the 70’s? Dangerous, but fun as hell. Public playgrounds today are a fortress of nauseating safeness. Large metal merry go rounds that spun freely in either direction. More like “puke and go round”. Metal animals that were attached to big springs that went forwards and backwards and if you weren’t careful you could bust a tooth out. The big spaceship with three stories and a metal slide that would rip your skin off on hot days. I’m not sure what you call it but there was a big metal half dome thing that was twenty feet high and the only thing separating you from the ground were the bars. Oh and the grounds we either sand or dirt.
I remember all those things. I vividly remember two bigger asshole kids spinning the large merry-go-rounds so fast that the small kids were perfectly horizontal via the magic of centrifugal force, hanging on for dear life. One by one the little ones lost their grip and flew backward various distances, depending on their mass and aerodynamic qualities. These projectile children would often smash into other unfortunate and unaware children, and they'd all topple over. You got extra points for that...
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
you had a pocketknife that you learned how to use (yes, you had to cut yourself a couple of times to learn)

you had a BB gun you learned how to shoot (yes, any kid worth his salt got hit with a ricochet to learn what that was all about)

you learned to be a sneaky little shit cause you would get a whupping if you fucked up and got caught
 

sunni

Administrator
Staff member
Nice copy and paste mass Facebook post lol
Ironic


Anyways you can eat blue cheese if it's pasteurized
It's unpasteurized that MAY (keyword) get you sick

Anyways yes you all survived your drop cribs and your cars without car seats
How many of them during the time didn't though? Lots that's why they improved the safety

Lol

But I agree some of it today is almost too safe however I've noticed most mothers are more lenient than the safety standard guidelines
 

tangerinegreen555

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I remember all that stuff, some of it fondly. It was a different world then.

The biggest difference in my area between then and now was the mafia presence. Now I certainly realise the mafia were sociopathic killers and I could tell you many, many stories...

But when they 'ran' the local area, street crime was nonexistent. You could walk the streets at 3AM and nobody would bother you. The mafia made it safe as they wanted civilians to be able to walk safely into their casinos and brothels and spend money. So all the older people here now all say, 'it was better when the godfather was alive'. And in many ways it was.

The 'godfather' got his name after the movie came out. Before that he was simply Mr. M. It wasn't like the Soprano's where civilians were killed. They only killed other mafia guys. So the majority of people liked their presence.

My dad ran a club for a while in the late '50's-early '60's. The mafia owned the vending service that owned all the machines in bars and clubs. They would come once a week to clean out the money from those machines. I would be there as a 5 or 6 yr. old watching my dad clean up. He would say, 'the racketeers are coming today, you better behave'.
Then they would come in. Everything ran on nickeIs then. Pool tables, pinball, jukebox, little slot machines, etc. They would empty the money boxes of nickels into a big automatic rolling machine that rolled the nickels and put them into rollers. They all talked to me, a little kid, while they worked with their nickels. On their way out, they would give me as a gift, a couple rolls of nickels for free and a box or 2 of the old 45RPM records out of the jukebox that they replaced. $4 was a dollar less than most relatives gave me on Christmas. These guys gave me $4 and free used records every time I was there when they came. I thought they were great at the time.
It was the 9th biggest mafia family in the US. I read that in a new book recently. They owned casinos in Cuba, flew guns into Cuba, and were actually investigated by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1977 for involvement in the JFK assassination. (they didn't do it.)

They did a lot of bad shit too, don't get me wrong. But I didn't see that part of it, I mostly remember the rolls of nickels. They were a major presence growing up here. Everybody knew who Mr. M was.

disclaimer: I do not endorse organized crime and murder. The true stories above are for historical value only.

edit: I should also point out that my dad stopped taking me to the club on mornings they were coming as it didn't sit well with him that they gave me money all the time. So I only was there maybe a dozen times to see them.
 
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Jimdamick

Well-Known Member
You could buy zips of the best herb in the world, like Panama Red and Acapulco Gold for $25, and go drinking in bars when you were 17 as long as you had a printer and a draft card. If you drank too much and couldn't drive, the local cop would give you a ride home, instead of to jail You didn't have to worry about AIDS and the music was great, not like that Hip Hop shit they call music today. You would hitch hike without fear and it was normal. You could have a job at 12 delivering news papers and caddying to pay for that good herb, and that bike with the sissy bar on your own. Damn, that was a good time to grow up because life was full of hope. Your mom didn't have to work and would make you a home cooked meal every night and your Dad could afford to pay for all his kids going to college without going broke. What the fuck happened? Oh, I know! The Kennedy's and King got shot, Viet Nam, and this country started to elect Republicans, and it has all been downhill ever since. As they say, times change, but it's sad they turned out like this.
 
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