Growing up in the '70's
- Thread starter wheatgrinder
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Ain't it the truth. If my parents were to raise me today the way
they raised me in the 70's they would be in jail for child endangerment.
In my Jr. High (middle school for you youngsters) our theater used
carbon arc followspot. 14/15 years olds using those dangerous lights.
I would come home with burns on my hands, arms and even face
because I was, well, I was 14. My dad would get made at me - not
at the school. "Wear the gloves, kid!" Today a stupid 14 year old
ignores the safety precautions and the school is sued. So kids today
cannot even operate a followspot in a school.
they raised me in the 70's they would be in jail for child endangerment.
In my Jr. High (middle school for you youngsters) our theater used
carbon arc followspot. 14/15 years olds using those dangerous lights.
I would come home with burns on my hands, arms and even face
because I was, well, I was 14. My dad would get made at me - not
at the school. "Wear the gloves, kid!" Today a stupid 14 year old
ignores the safety precautions and the school is sued. So kids today
cannot even operate a followspot in a school.
No dodgeball? That just makes me sad. I mean, if you can't catch, you dodge. Then you get good at dodging so you're the only one on your team left. Then the teacher calls "free for all" and the entire other team gang up on you and pelt you (because you aren't particularly well liked anyway). Then both teams start over.
Anyway, broken bones build character! Of course, my parents probably weren't so keen on me spending so much time in abandoned factories, but what they didn't know......
Anyway, broken bones build character! Of course, my parents probably weren't so keen on me spending so much time in abandoned factories, but what they didn't know......
Kids do find ways! Last weekend I got to watch my 11 year old nephew "drop" into half pipe, no pads, helmet or anything..
I had a chemistry set that would cause your house to be declared a HAZMAT site now.
Meh. Times haven't changed that much. I mean, yeah, you've got a bunch of terrible parents ruining the school experience for everyone, suing and making recess illegal etc. Still though, I'm a child of the 90's and after school and summer were pretty much entirely unsupervised from the time I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. The only rule: come home when the street lights come on (also: don't get caught.)
Sorry, Dready, but times have changed. A lot.
Teachers cannot, by law, hug a student - that law didn't exist
in the 70's. Little boys under 10 are officially labeled sex offenders
because they peeked under a little girls skirt. Not by terrible parents,
by the state. That didn't happen in the 70's. Recess games and
playground equipment are not banned because of terrible parents,
but by the laws of the states trying to protect children from getting
hurt or having their feelings hurt - that didn't happen in the 70's.
There were terrible parents in the 70's - it is the laws that changed.
I suspect that because you were't a teen (or under) in the 1970's
that you do not fully appreciate just how different it is now. The
so-called "nanny state" has it's heart in the right place - protecting
the innocent - but like many things, putting more laws on the books
does not, always, make things better. I appreciate that your parents
pretty much left you unsupervised from the time you were maybe 7
or 8 - but the laws governing your school were very different than
the laws I grew up with. Our parents may have been very similar, the
laws are not. Today, a 14 year old learning stagecraft in middle school
is not even allowed to operate a followspot because they may get burned
touching the hot metal.
Oh yeah things have changed. There is a primary school here in Melbourne that just recently banned contact between students. No hugging no high fives and no playing tag.
Times really have changed.
At the age of ten I could ride my bike two miles to the hobby shop. The traffic density of that area is easily five or six times what it was when I was a kid; I would be nervous as an adult riding a bike there now. I live in what is considered a very safe neighborhood, yet none of the parents nor my wife and I will let our pre-teen kids play unsupervised in the street in front of our homes, much less travel a couple of miles.
When I was a kid, spring through fall - when homework was done - was pick-up baseball games, fishing, exploring abandoned "haunted" houses and cemeteries, going to the beach, pick-up basketball games, building tree houses, pick-up football games, riding our bikes everywhere we went. Winter was sledding endlessly, or skating when the pond was frozen enough. Todays kids are glued to video games, cell phones and laptops. In fact, in my town, you can't have a pick-up game, you need to get a permit to use the facilities in the park.
I called the parents of my friends Mr. or Mrs. or sir or ma'am - not by their first name as kids do today.
My dad traveled a lot on business. I was a semi-celebrity when my father called us from Nigeria; a transAtlantic phone call was still a big deal in 1966.
I remember the both of the Kennedy assassinations, and also MLK and Malcolm X. I remember the riots, and the protest marches, and Kent State, and the brothers of friends dying in Viet Nam, or coming home really screwed up. And I remember watching Armstrong make his one small step. And Nixon resigning. I remember the gas crisis' - I was pumping gas during the second one.
I could go on and on, but urban sprawl, population growth and technology (to name just a few things) have created a vastly different world than the one in which I grew up.
You experience a lot and see a lot more in a lifetime. The world is very different. It's not better, it's not worse, but it is very different.
Hope this is NOT boring...
I feel 35 on most days... look only a little older (or so people say -- they might just be 'being nice'). But I remember "I Like IKE", duck and cover and I had the coolest Davy Crockett 'coon skin cap' till I washed it (I was six in'56) and it smelled like a dead rat (so my dad tossed it). I cried for a week.
We didn't have a TV till I was nine. I remember Superman, Ruff N Ready and Dick Van Dyke... My favorite show was Boris Karloff's Thriller and Twilight Zone, Route 66. We had a fishbowl black and white set! A tiny screen with poor reception...
In the 50's we had to make do with what we could find to keep us 'kids' active. Unsupervised sports in the heat and bike riding 20 miles from home to explore 'unknown' cool caves (by the Akron/Canton airport) in the summer with snow tag in the winter. We played 'war' by the blocks as kids -- bang your dead. Some of us read from books for entertainment and went to double features on Saturday for 25 cents... I remember Black and white CREEPY & all the colorful Marvel heros. Our imaginations soared. We wanted to make movies. Wanted to write! Some of us wanted to be artists...
In the sixties everything changed. Thank you Beatles! Some of us wanted to be rock and rollers after that fateful Ed Sullivan Sunday night; learn guitar and make pretty girls scream with desire. Then came the Kennedy assassination, Civil Right's marches and many of us became political... ah the sexual revolution, anti Nam and the drug culture. I was at the 1968 Democratic convention (and was tear gassed in Hyde Park), Kent State (tear gassed on Water Street), when the National Guard followed orders and shot into the students and was at Ohio State when the National Guard was brought in by Gov. Rhodes' orders (I was one of those singing M I C, see you soon, K E Y, why? because we love you) as they tear gassed High Street. I was a student at OSU then, remember that there were bricks used as pavers, in the sidewalks back in those days...
Seems like yesterday. Forty some years later...
My son just graduated from High School and is off to OU (this fall) in Physics, Astro Physics and Mathematics. His summer day is playing 3D video games on a 73 inch, HD with surround sound while talking to friends through a bluetooth headset. A downloaded movie is watched at leisure on his laptop, comedy shows through Netflix and he plays tennis in an air conditioned bubble or early morning 'summer' Saturday's (before the temps go ballistic). He cannot live without air conditioning. Hates politics. Won't read fiction unless required. Caves, climbing mountains, hiking is boring, "just rocks".
People are basically the same as they were when I was a kid. However now, there are a lot more people. Stupid and smart. Apathetic and involved. Ignorant and informed. Creative and not-so creative. Some loving and some filled with hate. Some with mighty big egos running wild with an unchecked, major power need and in a frenzy. Unfortunately, one percent of America owns 40 percent of the wealth.
Shame. When I was a kid -- we had so much hope for the future. Never thought I would see the middle class become the working poor. Never thought I would see so many dreams become nothing more than dreams (for so many people). Hard work no longer opens doors. It comes down to birth-right and who you know.
My two cents. I am not rich or famous. I do not know anyone who is rich or famous. I just like making stuff.
LOL. Old farts reminiscing... When I was young... had to walk ten miles to school up hill, both ways...
I feel 35 on most days... look only a little older (or so people say -- they might just be 'being nice'). But I remember "I Like IKE", duck and cover and I had the coolest Davy Crockett 'coon skin cap' till I washed it (I was six in'56) and it smelled like a dead rat (so my dad tossed it). I cried for a week.
We didn't have a TV till I was nine. I remember Superman, Ruff N Ready and Dick Van Dyke... My favorite show was Boris Karloff's Thriller and Twilight Zone, Route 66. We had a fishbowl black and white set! A tiny screen with poor reception...
In the 50's we had to make do with what we could find to keep us 'kids' active. Unsupervised sports in the heat and bike riding 20 miles from home to explore 'unknown' cool caves (by the Akron/Canton airport) in the summer with snow tag in the winter. We played 'war' by the blocks as kids -- bang your dead. Some of us read from books for entertainment and went to double features on Saturday for 25 cents... I remember Black and white CREEPY & all the colorful Marvel heros. Our imaginations soared. We wanted to make movies. Wanted to write! Some of us wanted to be artists...
In the sixties everything changed. Thank you Beatles! Some of us wanted to be rock and rollers after that fateful Ed Sullivan Sunday night; learn guitar and make pretty girls scream with desire. Then came the Kennedy assassination, Civil Right's marches and many of us became political... ah the sexual revolution, anti Nam and the drug culture. I was at the 1968 Democratic convention (and was tear gassed in Hyde Park), Kent State (tear gassed on Water Street), when the National Guard followed orders and shot into the students and was at Ohio State when the National Guard was brought in by Gov. Rhodes' orders (I was one of those singing M I C, see you soon, K E Y, why? because we love you) as they tear gassed High Street. I was a student at OSU then, remember that there were bricks used as pavers, in the sidewalks back in those days...
Seems like yesterday. Forty some years later...
My son just graduated from High School and is off to OU (this fall) in Physics, Astro Physics and Mathematics. His summer day is playing 3D video games on a 73 inch, HD with surround sound while talking to friends through a bluetooth headset. A downloaded movie is watched at leisure on his laptop, comedy shows through Netflix and he plays tennis in an air conditioned bubble or early morning 'summer' Saturday's (before the temps go ballistic). He cannot live without air conditioning. Hates politics. Won't read fiction unless required. Caves, climbing mountains, hiking is boring, "just rocks".
People are basically the same as they were when I was a kid. However now, there are a lot more people. Stupid and smart. Apathetic and involved. Ignorant and informed. Creative and not-so creative. Some loving and some filled with hate. Some with mighty big egos running wild with an unchecked, major power need and in a frenzy. Unfortunately, one percent of America owns 40 percent of the wealth.
Shame. When I was a kid -- we had so much hope for the future. Never thought I would see the middle class become the working poor. Never thought I would see so many dreams become nothing more than dreams (for so many people). Hard work no longer opens doors. It comes down to birth-right and who you know.
My two cents. I am not rich or famous. I do not know anyone who is rich or famous. I just like making stuff.
LOL. Old farts reminiscing... When I was young... had to walk ten miles to school up hill, both ways...
Remember when you could find ads in Field & Stream magazines to buy rifles and have them mailed to your house?
How many of us spent hours in the back window of the car playing with toys while mom and dad drove to vacation.
Seat belts? Kids in the back seat didn't need seat belts!
In fifth grade, eleven or tweve years old, I'd ride my bike across a sprawling Santa Clara CA residential commercial district for hours and hours. My parents didn't have the slightest idea where I was. H3ll. I didn't either. Always found my way home. And I often had my little ten year old brother with me.
Would you let your little kids loose in that? Today?
For hours and hours? Day in, day out?
Just crazy.
Anyone have these at their local public school anymore?
Don't see these no more.
Porn mags at the convenience store didn't come in plastic bags.
How many of us spent hours in the back window of the car playing with toys while mom and dad drove to vacation.
Seat belts? Kids in the back seat didn't need seat belts!
In fifth grade, eleven or tweve years old, I'd ride my bike across a sprawling Santa Clara CA residential commercial district for hours and hours. My parents didn't have the slightest idea where I was. H3ll. I didn't either. Always found my way home. And I often had my little ten year old brother with me.
Would you let your little kids loose in that? Today?
For hours and hours? Day in, day out?
Just crazy.
Anyone have these at their local public school anymore?
Don't see these no more.
Porn mags at the convenience store didn't come in plastic bags.
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Wow, this way primary school in Afghanistan is more fun...
Trying to exclude risk is utopia.
But people demand it: they are afraid of risk.
The government wants it, because people want and because it's easy politics. Instead of dealing with real problems they can micromanage schoolyards and get applauded.
I guess in the US the large financial claims are also a reason for a lot of laws.
In The Netherlands we see similair things (but not the big claims).
Every incident gets seized (?spelling?) by politicials to express their sympathy, to yell it's an outrage that it could happen and to promise to handle the problem with new laws. This way they looks really 'hands-on' and prepared to do what's needed, but in the meantime the important decisions are being postponed for decades.
I was always fascinated by the fact the the literal translation of "Utopia" in No Place.
And that is why it's called utopia; the perfect place that doesn't exist.
I recall it was Thomas More who wrote the book Utopia as a 'manifest/protest' about the 16th century English society. In fact is was about the fictious island Utopia that was 'a perfect society'. Now I have to use Wikipedia
It seems to me it was a mix of socialist (common interest over personal gain), communist (no private property) and liberal/progressive elements (female priests, euthanesia).
Anyway: a lot of things conservative people fear
