[michael247]

I just received this from a friend of mine. I thought it was interesting enough to post...

BORN BEFORE 1986?

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint, which was promptly chewed and licked.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags and riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded. We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chatrooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them. We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt! We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones but there were no lawsuits. We played knock-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friends' homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

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

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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 you're one of them.

Congratulations!



BORN AFTER 1986?

For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us. This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on your face:

The majority of students in universities today were born in 1986....

The Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel.

They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam. AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born.

Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films from last year. They can never imagine life before computers. They'll never have pretended to be the A-Team, the Dukes of Hazard or the Famous Five.

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed. And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

[Adollobdeb]

come on, you mean never knowing Billy Joel and Bananarama is a bad thing?

[beckercpa]

Thanks now I feel old. Funny to think these kids never had a TV with rabbit ears and dials. I remember when only rich people had more than one phone line in the house.

We played knock-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

I figured you Brits would come up with a better name. It's Ding-Dong-Ditch on this side of the pond.

[alexbookhyip]

Umm... try born after 1996, not 1986. I'm a 1989er and I know what it was like without CD's or mobile phones and pretty much everything on your list there.

[Progniusis]

Considering CDs were invented half a decade before you were even conceived, may I offer my condolences?

[unmalryAlalry]

Hey Scott, that was great!! When I was a kid (born in 1980) I could happily disappear for the whole day and noone thought nothing of it. I still have a TV with rabbit ears and a dial, because it has a better picture than the one I bought last year.

Im very happy about how I grew up - no mobile phones, no CDs, 2 TV stations (my old country town now has 3, woohoo!), NO JUNK FOOD of any description, ahhh... at the time I winged about how boring I thought it was, now I realise just how lucky I was.

I have just bought tickets to see Billy Joel later this year!

[agolutuaddiff]

Well considering I was born in the late 50's I remember all that stuff and more....lol. Every decade has it's pluses and minuses.

[Tumarimmicdak]

This makes me feel... good?

[egoldhyip]

I figured you Brits would come up with a better name. It's Ding-Dong-Ditch on this side of the pond.

It was called "Knock down Ginger" where I was from - a reference to knocking down the cat in your haste to evade pursuit!

[vNQmO2BF]

We called it "Knock and Bolt" and it was harmless fun for us kids. Until we got caught by some young guys who lived in one house and payed the price. It was still fun though.

I didn't miss TV or video games and I always made the record player jump when listening to music. I spent most of my time on motor bikes in the bush with my air gun. Too many things to do to stay inside and watch the tube.

Now I live in Tokyo which has no bush and has TVs on the side of many buildings. I now have a bath that tells me it's ready and a heated toilet seat during winter. Do we really need all this junk????

[Manteiv]

Do we really need all this junk????

No, but I do enjoy those heated toilet seats in January. What puzzles me is that we have talking baths and heated toilets, but the Japanese have failed to grasp simple luxuries like insulation and double-pane windows.
You have to climb into the mountains (more like moles-hills really) just to experience some nature here. Such is life in the Japanese urban sprawl.

[chinesemedicine]

Being 21 and all (born in '84), I don't remember much of the 80s and stuff, but reading some of the descriptions really do ring true with my childhood.

I think I still might have it, but I had one of those audio record books. Yes, you heard it, audio record. It wasn't a cassette, wasn't a CD, but it was a record. If I remember correctly, it was a 45 or the smaller variety.

I also do remember telling my parents that I was going outside and I would be gone all day as long as I stayed relatively close to home (within the neighborhood) and came home before dark. As far as what I was doing, it was a lot of random games we make up and some video games. We would even stop playing games to go outside and play.

As I now look back in sadness as to how nice life for me was back then, I also realize that times have most definately changed. Living in fear of child predators and stuff have restricted outside access for kids in most areas. Also, the advent of the internet, online gaming and many more channels (I hear that there are 4 times the amount of channels now in the US than there was in 1998 or something), it's easier to interact with the computer screen than it is to round up a group of friends and play outside. Also, there is the fear of violence and childhood predators. I don't know if it's the fact that they are more apparent in the news or if the cases have increased, but it has instilled some sort of fear among some parents to become overprotective and only allow them to play in the front yard as opposed to the neighborhood.

When I have children, I wish I could raise my kids the same way I was, but then I do need to adjust with the times. There are a lot more electronic sources so that increases the amount of things to do than run outside and climb the tallest tree in the neighborhood and stuff. But I do really hope that I can instill that there is more to life than the internet and video games and it's just more beneficial to get out there and play. But I would also hope that he/she would take up kendo as well . But, I don't have any kids, nor do I know much about what it's like to take care of one so I really can't say too much until I get one myself.

Before I go, one thing I did notice in my neighborhood is how few children there are playing outside. In fact, some kids have only started playing outside in the past two years or so. Now some are riding their bikes and some minor skateboarding but it isn't anything resembling my early days. But when I first moved to this neighborhood, it was pretty much dead all day every day. It's nice to see the change though as I like a little life in the neighborhood and shows me some sort of effort to curtail America's childhood obesity epidemic.

[jacknates]

It's weird to think of myself as having been alive in '77, when punk broke. Being only 4 years old, I had no idea such a event could be taking place. I was living the suburban life, being driven to the mall, listening to Debbie Boone on the tiny, squawky speakers in my dad's monkey shit-brown Volvo. I sure enjoyed my (allready antiquated) 8-track of "Yellow Submarine", though. And those Abba records I would bust out on slow Sunday afternoons because noone in my family liked Mott the Hoople.
These days, I find any cultural artifact from the early 80s fascinating, and it's become one of my favourite eras for music: The Fire Engines, Vic Goddard and the Subway Sect, The Fall, Elvis Costello, The Scientists, etc. etc. Though, again, these were artists I was never aware of back in the day. Shunning Costello as a ponce with thick glasses, I was content to beg my mom for money to buy the latest Men at Work tape (or, eek!, Spandau Ballet).

And contrary to what the author of the article says, I never went out to play. I spent all my free time inside watching syndicated episodes of Sccoby Doo and Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman in its vastly inferior anglicized form) and playing Burger Time on the Intellivision. That must be why I never got got at sports and why, presently, I'm engaged in the painful project of undoing 32 years of physical neglect.

[Beatris]

Hey Scott, that was great!! When I was a kid (born in 1980) I could happily disappear for the whole day and noone thought nothing of it. I still have a TV with rabbit ears and a dial, because it has a better picture than the one I bought last year.

Im very happy about how I grew up - no mobile phones, no CDs, 2 TV stations (my old country town now has 3, woohoo!), NO JUNK FOOD of any description, ahhh... at the time I winged about how boring I thought it was, now I realise just how lucky I was.

I have just bought tickets to see Billy Joel later this year!

Yes, you are indeed lucky to have grown up without computers and what not. I'm pretty much addicted to the "couch potato" ways of watching TV and going on the computer. There are several things today that is getting me to do more and more physical activities, but I would have loved to have grown up kicking balls and running around instead of being addicted to computer. *sigh*... I REALLY need to get out and excercise more often.

[autoloanexpert]

Any of you old timers remember these?

http://magliery.com/Graphics/wups/

[tarmpriopay]

Or these?

http://www.victoryseeds.com/candysto...rathon_bar.htm

Or these?

http://www.micro-outpost.com/

http://www.feelingretro.com/view_toy.cfm?id=24

Best of all:

http://www.landofthelost.com/pictures.htm

Sleestaks RUEL!!

http://www.sleestaks.com/

[nickayary]

Any of you old timers remember these?

Oh good God yes. They were stuck on everything. I remember how they used to get all cruddy from people touching them, and the toes used to curl up.

*EDIT Sleestacks use to scare the piss out of me.

[Aleksis]

hey scott. that was ace, thanks. i had like 10 spokeydokeys on my bike (had to share with my brother and sister)
and our first colour telly was covered in wood vaneery stuff
and i remember getting our first video player-yes we were poor
but we called knock on the door and runaway, bobby knocking

[_tppga_]

Some of the best cartoons were made and shown in the 80s....(Thunder! Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats! HO!!!!!!!!!)

[alexosnasos2]

Road Runner and Willey E Coyote

not to forget Bugs Bunny with his stuttering friend who's name I've forgotten due to sleep deprivation.

Sylvester and Tweety.

Now we got all the same kinda crap cartoons