Thread: Over 60? How did we survive?

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

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 or shoes, 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 Bakkie on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Steers, Nandos.

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Chappies, Wilson 's Toffees, Wicks Bubble Gum and some crackers to blow up frogs with.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks 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.

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. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on DSTV, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile 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.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time.......no really!

We were given pellet guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays!!

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

We played 3 tins,rounders,bare feet soccer,hide and seek,hopscotch and read comic books.

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT AND NOT DUE TO BLACKMAIL, THREATS AND GUILT FROM THE PAST..... strange but true!

Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather staps and bully's always ruled the playground at school.

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

They actually sided with the law!

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'

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

The past 70 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!


PS -The big type is because your eyes are not too good any more . Right?

Originally Posted by Luckydog

PS -The big type is because your eyes are not too good any more . Right?

Great OP and my eyes are just fine with the help of a pair those sugar laden coke bottle bottoms.

Are you sure you were not in our gang !!
Seem to remember all those !


No you weren't - we never blew up frogs - we used to depth charge newts and minnows !

Originally Posted by Luckydog

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt,

You could have been my long lost brother if it wasn't for the eating worms claim.

Maybe you were my next door neighbour! Is your name Dean?

Good OP mate and it certainly just about sums my youth up.

Originally Posted by Happyman

Are you sure you were not in our gang !!

Well spotted Spanky! Buckwheat to my friends

Originally Posted by Happyman

No you weren't - we never blew up frogs - we used to depth charge newts and minnows !

Cherry bombs or dynamite caps?

Not 60, but 53.

30, I was amused I'd made it.

40, Don't be daft.

50, Shit, this is serious. Lost Mum, Dad, nearly, friends going. Fucks sake, lets get off.

51, dumped some stuff.
52, more stuff dumped.
53, I think I might, might eh, have got rid of the "stuff" She's good. Now it's down to making money for a year or so to cover the recent losses, then relax.

End of story, for the time being.

Originally Posted by Norton

Quote: Originally Posted by Happyman No you weren't - we never blew up frogs - we used to depth charge newts and minnows ! Cherry bombs or dynamite caps?

Sodium chlorate , Charcoal powder, magnesium flash powder and potassium permanganate packed into an aluminium cigar tube with a small coil of 2A fuse wire embedded in the middle for the fuse!
Couple of lengths of connecting wire and a 9v bell battery - KA- F*CKIN- BOOM

I'm only 30 odd and it pretty sums up my childhood, although we did have ZX Spectrums to play on and we didn't get beaten with sticks

Did anyone use to try doing BMX jumps over other kids.... always doomed to failure that one, but for some reason we kept on trying.

Lighting fire to anything that we could was another favourite pastime.

Grew up near a new estate being built, which meant hundreds of half built houses to play in, plus unattended building machinery

Regular James Dean you must of been NicK!

60 year old Baby Boomers are a bunch of cunts.

Please die soon. You made it this far.

Please die.....azzholes!

^ Hope your not delivering my milk tomorrow morning!

Glad I know what to look forward to.

Great OP

Originally Posted by Luckydog

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!

So true, when you see the laden trolleys now because the shop closes for one day, you think wtf is going on.

^ Don't have to be 60-plus for that! I remember my first Thai village. Market open from 4-8am. Grocery open 5am-8pm. You shopped those hours. Then came 7-11 and Tesco....horrid.

Ahhh, the good ol days where we had:

Airplanes with propellers
Milk carts pulled with Horses delivering milk poured from a churn
Trams
Wind up turntables
Wind up telephones
Nylons with suspenders
Triumph Thunderbirds and Nortons
Side valve V8 engines
Jobs for everybody
Clothing Labels with Made in England on them
TV in Black & white
Crappy little German cars
Crappy little Japanese everything else
Biggles
Girls that got pregnant "disappearing"
Clockwork toys
Food that tasted the same, but with different names
Computer memory stored on Cards with punched holes
The men wore earrings

We didn't have:
Health and safety
Chavs
Political correctness
Airbags
Fat girls (well, not many)
Party political advertisements
Coloured Politicians.
Speed cameras
Uppity women (except for my Mum)

Originally Posted by peterpan

Wind up turntables

Didnt have one of them. We must have been modern in our home, had a bloody big radiogram, with turntable on top. Single record play only, and after playing about 1/2 hour of records had to change the needle because it got blunt.

Must a pattern between the OP and what there are less 60 year olds in the world compared to kids these days

At about 5 years old, my Mum would give me a written shopping list and some money and I'd walk a couple of klm to the local shop for some essential supplies.

I can remember a couple of years ago giving money to my then 15 year old to walk the 200 metres to the shop because she wanted a donut. She asked "Drive me Dad?".

Robert Paterson's Weblog: Risk - Are we paranoid?

loook another person asking the same question and using the same material he found on te internet as well

How original Lucky Dog. Aren't you blessed with a good head on your shoulders.

Plagerising tosser

He's an incontinent ol cvnt and smells strongly of piss, you really can't expect him to have his own idea's can you?

it's been around for ages, I don't think DDs claiming at as his own original.

Nowhere near 60, but almost everyone of the OP's things - apart from eating worms.

Another favourite pastime was ripping asbestos from garage roofs, making fires and chucking said asbestos on it and seeing who was hard enough to stand closest to the fire whilst waiting for the asbestos to blow.

Kind like Russian Roullette.

Good times!

Oh and yeah, none of us died!

I remember during the war, crawling through the barbed wire to go for a swim in the sea and taken home by the local bobby and him telling my mother that the beach was mined.

Buying methylated spirit and razorblades for the Russian prisoners of war that had gone over to the Germans so that they could kill themselves as they knew Stalin would when they were shipped back to Russia.

Fixing up a Canadian soldier with our nurse, must have been good for both of them as we were given chewing gum and sweets after.

Driving Bren gun carriers in the tank compound, not bad for a ten year old!

Raiding the dustbins behind the billets of the Eighth army and smoking the packets of victory V cigarettes they had thrown away.

Taking the mickey out of the Canadian soldiers trying to shoot down a Doodle Bug with their Bofar gun, they never did hit one, but saw a spitfire tip a wing on one and turn it back out to sea.