And We Were Grateful for What We Had

[Phil Elmore]

When I was your age, we didn't have it so good.

We had only thirteen channels of basic cable. I used to have to cross the living room -- uphill, in the snow, both ways -- just to turn the channel or change the volume.

We sat too close to televisions that were about three feet deep while absorbing those thirteen channels, constantly standing and sitting when our fathers used us as human slaves to adjust volume from the other end of the living room. I probably absorbed enough rads that my children will be born with three arms -- and they still won't appreciate what I went through at their ages.

We had a really big, aesthetically unpleasant microwave whose touch-sensitive buttons didn't always work. I had video games, just like you -- video games in which one block pushed another block across a screen so the block on the opposite side could send the middle block back to the first block. This looked nothing like the cover art for the video game box, of course, which was an oil painting of two sweating tennis players with rippling muscles smashing a ball between them. Those were tough times, young man.

Worse, we were still expected to GO OUTSIDE at that age.

My parents spent my entire childhood trying to kill me. They sent me out on my bicycle without any pads or helmet at all. Imagine that -- I rode all over the neighborhood on my orange banana-seat bike, my head exposed to traumatic brain injury, my knees and elbows completely unarmored against the of asphalt and gravel. My contemporaries did the same. I knew one kid who fell off his bike and hit his head. We worried about him a lot and wondered why, oh WHY, society did not do something about the mortal peril in which we found ourselves daily.

We went to the playground and climbed jungle gyms mounted on concrete slabs. The jungle gyms were fifteen hundred feet high and topped with barbed wire. Well, okay, they weren't quite that bad, but they were still high up enough that none of us were surprised at the grim fates awaiting us when Billy Simmons fell off and broke his arm and showed up in second grade wearing a cast that we all autographed with trembling hands.

To tell you the truth, it's a miracle I'm even alive and relatively intact at my age. Listen well, young fellow -- for when you're my age you're going to have to think of something to tell your children about how bad you've got it now.

 

[Kirk]

Originally posted by Sharp Phil
My parents spent my entire childhood trying to kill me. They sent me out on my bicycle without any pads or helmet at all. Imagine that -- I rode all over the neighborhood on my orange banana-seat bike, my head exposed to traumatic brain injury, my knees and elbows completely unarmored against the of asphalt and gravel. My contemporaries did the same. I knew one kid who fell off his bike and hit his head. We worried about him a lot and wondered why, oh WHY, society did not do something about the mortal peril in which we found ourselves daily.

And your folks had NO idea where you were at all. You wouldn't
get in trouble if you were home before the street lights came on.

Thanks for sharing your writings Phil-arama!

 

[Ender]

*LOL...good one!..I enjoyed it!


by the way, we WERE the remote control. our dad would bark out orders to change the channel..*G

 

[Shadow Hunter]

I stopped by my old elementary school recently. I fondly remember my favorite thing to climb on. It was several old telephone polls with several tires bolted to them at various levels. I had to have fallen off the things dozens of times.

They are not there anymore. There is not even a hole where they used to be. Just a layer of sawdust.

Sad.

But I wonder, why the heck are Big Wheels still around? I can't be the only person who nearly killed himself multiple times on those things. You take a corner too fast, you scrape the skin off of some weird places and you wallow in the horrified screams of your mother when you come home as well as the envious looks of your friends when you show off the scabs. There has got to be a few greedy lawyers who salivate at the idea of taking that company to court.

 

[Phil Elmore]

Big Wheels were great. Those plastic tires had no traction whatsoever, so you could get yourself going at horrific speed and then skid for blocks trying to stop, knowing you'd just have to bail and dump the thing, the detachable, sort-of-adjustable seet tumbling behind you like the hubcap spun free from a wrecked automobile.

Even better was the Green Machine, the much-cooler-than-a-Big-Wheel contraption that steered with two levers, one on either side. Somehow its being more difficult to steer made it more cool. I dunno why.

My orange banana-seat bike was quite the geek conveyance. It had oversized aftermarket handle-bar cushions of ribbed rubber, and a basket on the handlebars. I learned to ride a two-wheel bike on that thing. It started out with plastic fenders, but I smashed the front one crashing into the metal guidewire on a telephone pole.

I tried to do a wheelie once and the bike came down right on the basket. My father, an engineer by trade at the time, bent the basket back into something like its original shape, though it was never quite right and never looked quite right again.

At some point I actually managed to break the frame on that bike. My undaunted father took it to work and welded the tubing back together. For the rest of its life it had this hideos blackened patch in mid-frame, at the center of which was a blob of solder.

It's a miracle the neighborhood children didn't take one look at that bicycle and beat the crap out of me on principle alone.

 

[Cryozombie]

Originally posted by Sharp Phil

Even better was the Green Machine, the much-cooler-than-a-Big-Wheel contraption that steered with two levers, one on either side. Somehow its being more difficult to steer made it more cool. I dunno why.

I HAD ONE OF THOSE! ONE OF ONLY TWO KIDS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD WITH ONE! WE were like the biker gang of our bigwheel group!

 

[Phil Elmore]

The Green Machine

 

[progressivetactics]

yep the bikes that almost got us killed are still around and yet the Lawn Jarts had to be removed from the shelf because too many people were lobbing them into their neighbors skulls and killing them, in self defense-i'm sure.

 

[kkbb]

Originally posted by Sharp Phil
We had a really big, aesthetically unpleasant microwave whose touch-sensitive buttons didn't always work.

At least you had one! I wasn't so lucky. Then when they did finally get invented, and were affordable, people tried to cook EVERYTHING in them. My favorite though was homemade (already oven baked) bread, topped with big chunks of chedder!.... hmmmm yummy. Can still remember the smells.
My Grandmother didn't know or care to learn to use one. she just used hers as a bread box! Thats only because her ovn was full of bread & potatoe chips & rice. They used to keep fresh in the oven because the pilot light would throw enough heat to ward off the dampness.

I remember being in my dad's old Plymouth fury II. It was brand new & my dad was very proud of it. I generally rode in the back seat (no seatbelts of course). My Dad would just crank the SINGLE (and only) speaker on the dash until it crackled. It was brutal but Motown never sounded so sweet. Believe it or not kids, we did not even have and 8 track player. AM radio! Thats it. At that time AM/FM was an option and good old 8 track was not even invented yet! It didn't matter though. We always enjoyed the things we had.

 

[Kirk]

Originally posted by kkbb
I remember being in my dad's old Plymouth fury II. It was brand new & my dad was very proud of it. I generally rode in the back seat (no seatbelts of course).

I rode in my dad's station wagon (fake wood paneling on the
side) in the very back seat in the tailgunner position. Having to
stare at the driver behind the car, at traffic lights. Sometimes I'd
stand up in the seat, and ride that way.

 

[tkdcanada]

I think in a lot of ways, those were better times. Kids and people in general are so used to having so much that they become spoiled and materialistic losing sight of what's really important. Back then, life was so much simpler and people didn't waste so much time worrying about what they don't have.

 

[kkbb]

Originally posted by Kirk
I rode in my dad's station wagon (fake wood paneling on the
side) in the very back seat in the tailgunner position. Having to
stare at the driver behind the car, at traffic lights. Sometimes I'd
stand up in the seat, and ride that way.

:rofl:
Ya I remember those station wagon rides. Mini vans were unheard of .... large vans were mainly panel vans (no windows)... and with the three kids it was to crowded in the Fury....my dad also picked up a station wagon.... "come on dad...roll down the back window!" No...yuo'll get gased":rofl: Way to funny....
Always knew where we had been though!

 

[kkbb]

Originally posted by tkdcanada
I think in a lot of ways, those were better times. Kids and people in general are so used to having so much that they become spoiled and materialistic losing sight of what's really important. Back then, life was so much simpler and people didn't waste so much time worrying about what they don't have.

I agree with you to certain point... times were different but were they better? I was discussing this with my wife and she said to me "I don't really think so, women for the most part were treated poorly, almost second class. Women's issues have come along way. People, in general, only lived to age 65 or so (I agree with her here too..I remember an old guy back then was in his 60's now they are in there 80's). People are better educated now, not kept in the dark about the ways of government, health care, technologies...etc... " She went on to name a few more valid points. We agreed on one thing for sure though... both times, past & present, now and then, have their own precious memories.

P.S.
I don't think that anybody can convince me that today's generations are the "survivors" we were.

 

[Ken JP Stuczynski]

Originally posted by Kirk
...

Thanks for sharing your writings Phil-arama!

This has been floating around email circles for way too long. Do we really need a thread for it?

How about, "When I was your age, we didn't use padding when we sparred" ?????

 

[tkdcanada]

kkbb,

That's why I said "in a lot of ways"

I agree with you that many things now are much better than they were and I would not want to give that up, but.....

it all comes at a price. People tend to be much less genuine now and so caught up in the rat race

....which is sad.

But you are very right on all your points. I agre completely.

 

[Phil Elmore]

This has been floating around email circles for way too long. Do we really need a thread for it?

I can't speak for anything that may be ciculating that sounds similar, but I WROTE THE COLUMN POSTED TO THIS THREAD. I don't paste things people send me via e-mail.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I saw something similar a while back, but Phil's an original.

Heck, my grandfather told me something like this a ways back.... They are all funny.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Originally posted by Kirk
I rode in my dad's station wagon (fake wood paneling on the
side) in the very back seat in the tailgunner position. Having to
stare at the driver behind the car, at traffic lights. Sometimes I'd
stand up in the seat, and ride that way.

I have one of those wagons....

I heard someone say I looked real good for my age.....had my nephew in there with me...they thought he was my grandson....

:rofl:

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Originally posted by Sharp Phil
The Green Machine

I had one. Prefered the Big Wheel. (Wore that SOB out...my dad def. got his moneys worth there.)

 

[theletch1]

I have one of those wagons

My first car was one of those wagons. It was a 1973 Plymouth Satellite or something along those lines. I bought it for 100.00
when I was 16. I don't recall either of the back seats actually ever being in the upright position. Man that thing was huge and had enough room in the back for....... well, it was roomy.