Submitted by
Name: joe schiller
From: langley, bc
Name: joe schiller
From: langley, bc
Comments:
This is long but certainly took me back to the day -
® My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.
® My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes too, our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
® Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
® The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.
® We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.
® Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.
® Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson [and provided comic relief] by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system.
® Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.
® I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was anyway)
® What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.
® I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.
® I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
® I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some guy's vacant lot, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot? He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.
® Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
® We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our b*** spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
® We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our b*** spanked (physical abuse) there too and then we got b*** spanked again when we got home.
® Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks (Remember why Tonka trucks were made tough .. it wasn't so that they could take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.
® Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.
® Summers were spent behind the push lawn mower and I didn't even know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive. How sick were my parents? Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.
® To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that? We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes!
® We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
® LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA!
This is long but certainly took me back to the day -
® My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.
® My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes too, our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
® Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
® The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.
® We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.
® Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.
® Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson [and provided comic relief] by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system.
® Speaking of school, we all sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.
® I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was anyway)
® What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.
® I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.
® I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
® I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some guy's vacant lot, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot? He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.
® Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
® We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our b*** spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
® We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our b*** spanked (physical abuse) there too and then we got b*** spanked again when we got home.
® Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks (Remember why Tonka trucks were made tough .. it wasn't so that they could take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.
® Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.
® Summers were spent behind the push lawn mower and I didn't even know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive. How sick were my parents? Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.
® To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that? We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes!
® We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
® LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA!
Added: December 3, 2006
Name: Lynn Jeffrey (nee Mills)
From: East Sussex, England
E-mail: Amaryllis53@hotmail.com
A Special thought for the Christmas Season! Please read this poem.
T' WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, HE LIVED ALL ALONE, IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE, MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY, WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE, AND TO SEE JUST WHO,IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
I LOOKED ALL ABOUT , A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE, NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS, NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY THE MANTLE, JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND, ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES, OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES, AWARDS OF ALL KINDS, A SOBER THOUGHT, CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT, IT WAS DARK AND DREARY, I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLIDER, ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING, SILENT, ALONE, CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR, IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE, THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER, NOT HOW I PICTURED, A CANADIAN SOLDIER.
WAS THIS THE HERO, OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?. CURLED UP ON A PONCHO, THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALISED THE FAMILIES, THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT, OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS, WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT, SOON ROUND THE WORLD, THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY, AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE, A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM, EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR, BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS, LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
I COULDN'T HELP WONDER, HOW MANY LAY ALONE, ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE, IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGHT BROUGHT, A TEAR TO MY EYE, I DROPPED TO MY KNEES, AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED, AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE, "SANTA, DON'T CRY, THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE.
I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, I DON'T ASK FOR MORE, MY LIFE IS MY GOD, MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS."
THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER, AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP, I COULDN'T CONTROL IT, I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS, SO SILENT AND STILL, AND WE BOTH SHIVERED, FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.
I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE, ON THAT COLD, DARK NIGHT, THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOUR, SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER, WITH A VOICE, SOFT AND PURE,WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH, AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT, "MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."
This poem was written by a peace keeping soldier stationed overseas. The following is his request. I think it is reasonable.
"PLEASE. Would you do me the kind favour of sending this to as many people as you can." Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our Canadian Service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us. Please, do your small part to plant this small seed.