www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall FOR THOSE OF US OVER 50!

HAPPY 2005 !!!!!

TO THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 40's,

50's, and 60's First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

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

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

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 actually died from this.

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

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

If we had streetlights.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .

We did not have Play stations, 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.......... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

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

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

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

The past 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!

And if you are over 50---YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

Thanks, Fr. Gregory!

Been there, done almost all of it [at least the part girls did and lots the boys did too] No t.v. for me as a kid either- only the good old radio.

Mary Jo...delighted to remember how we did all of it and especially the neighbor kids who were my bestest friends ever.

Ha! I still do some of those things .

So what's wrong with blue cheese dressing on the salad? I rather like it myself. Though I suggest avoiding compromise and using only roquefort.

Incognitus

Nowt's wrong with Blue Cheese - either as dressing or as wonderful roquefort

Well - umm - err and I don't think this will apply to Incognitus [ hehehehe] BUT the big snag is it's made from raw milk - and that is not good if you are pregnant - or so I'm told . But then when I was just a wee twinkle in my mother's eye - you could not get pasteurised milk :p

Anhelyna - showing her grey hairs

Don't forget the Caesar dressing with the coddled egg.

Tammy, who remembers all these things and is only 37. Really.

Oh da good old daze, B&W TV, three stooges, Roy Dale & Pat(don't ferget Trigger & Nellie Belle), The Honeymooners, Jack Benny etc etc

Oh well, at least I have tv land & video's of Archbishop Sheen.

james

I remember standing on the front seat of our old '54 Chevy with my left arm around my Mother's neck. When we had to stop, she'd just raise her right arm as a barrier across my chest. That old car had a painted steel dashboard - no padding whatsoever, much less airbags! - and not a seatbelt to be found.

When my brother and I had to ride in the back because the front seat was full with Mom and Dad, we still had fun, because the rear floor was rusted through, so we could drag sticks along the road as we cruised along!

Oh, and just so you know, I was born 5/7/55, so I haven't quite reached the "big 5-0" just yet.

Is maybe life nowadays just a bit to cushy ?

God Bless,

Sam

Mary Jo's post just reminded me that, even though I don't remember life without TV, I DO remember rabbit ears, broadcast only TV AND having to wait for the "set" to warm up before we could watch cartoons on Saturday morning.

Sam

P.S. - My kids laugh when I tell them about the TV actually getting hot in the back!

Does anyone else remember UHF converters? We had to have one attached to our black and white TV to get UHF stations, since TVs only received VHF channels.
As they say:
At 50 you still have that gleam in your eye - or is it the glare from your bifocals?
At 50 life is no longer passing you by - it's trying to run over you.
At 50 you are in danger of getting the furniture disease - that's when your chest falls into your drawers.
At 50 your wild oats turn to oatmeal.
At 50 everything that doesn't hurt doesn't work.
At 50 you're stuck somewhere between the "young and the restless" and the old and the senseless.
At 50 you've reached the metallic age - gold teeth, silver hair, and a lead butt.

Gee thanks, Charles...

Something to really look forward to in four years.. :rolleyes:

Alice

If you are 46, you are still a teenager.

Sam that sounded like fun and you got to where you needed to go!

I remember those Charles, the UHF converter. Also, one of our friends dads, this was in the '70s, had made a thing so he could quiet the commercials. He hated them. Silly me, I just thought that was so funny. Now days I use the remote to quiet the commercials.

I remember those times well.

I can remember moving back home to my grandparents with the duck and chicken tied in crates to the top of the car. They just quacked and clucked away, never thought about them being uncomfortable, they were just going home with us.

Though I am 56, we had a Model A Ford, my dad had bought up in the mountains and put back together, so I was blessed enough to learn to drive that.

In South Carolina at the time, the high school kids drove the school buses, I don't know if they still do or not. But anyway, you had to drive a stick. The Volunteer Fire Dept. had an old WWII Army Jeep. I learned to drive a stick shift in that old army jeep...talking about shifting geers I got really good at grinding those babies. Oh yeah, I did drive the school bus for my part of town. Made a whole $40 a month, had my own clothing account at the loacl store too. And the big time was that one of the stores in town gave us all presents when we graduated, seems to me it was dusting powder. Imagine that.

There was a huge briar patch that animals had made a path through at some time and was no longer used by them. Some were industrious enough to get in there and finish cleaning it out. So we had a wonderful hideout in the briar patch.

Our oldest still had the blessing of those days, he is 29. Wherever all the neighborhood kids were that day, that mom fed lunch to the crowd. They knew to be home when the street light came on, they tried hard to make it. He rode standing up in the front of the car, driving a motorcycle all the time.

Ah, reminisces,

Those over 50 will likely remember when

Three Musketeer bars were bigger, cost a nickel, and were so formed as to be broken in three and shared with two friends ,

Reaching into a chest of ice cold water , allowed you to dredge up a glass bottle of soda, pop, or tonic (depending on where you lived) that was going to cost you twelve cents, of which two cents was the returnable deposit,

The insurance man came to your door, weekly or monthly, to collect quarter premiums on life insurance policies and make a note to that effect in the little book that your parents safeguarded closely,

Soda fountains were a fixture in corner drugstores, as were lunch counters at Woolworth's and similar five and ten cents stores ,

Church bells chimed the Angelus at 6 o'clock,

Fire department ladder trucks were called "hook and ladders",

Jack Paar was Johnny Carson, Hugh Downes was Ed McMahon, and Jose Melis was Kevin Eubanks, and Paar's show was followed by the National Anthem, after which TV went off the air until morning,

Virtually anywhere on the East Coast, on a clear night, your car radio would pick up either KDKA in Pittsburgh or WBZ in Boston, the two clear-channel high-wattage stations, to the exclusion of all others,

Howard Johnson's was more than a brand in the frozen food section (in fact it neither existed there nor, in most cases, was there even such a section ),

The President's golf score was regularly reported and nobody wondered (or cared) from which designer Mamie bought her clothes (one hopes, in retrospect, that no one claimed bragging rights for having designed those ).

Many years,

Neil, who thinks that he and Father Gregory hit the same number this year - and, if so, it's getting a lot closer to 60 than it is to 50

Neil,

While your pondering the old days, could you create some space in your PM box ?

Also, don't forgot to send the conversion story!

Its a shame what is happening to the old and beautiful parishes.

james