CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHO WERE BORN IN THE

1940's, 50's, 60's and 70's !


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 cots 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.


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, Subway or 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 Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers 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 old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.


We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY, no video/dvd films,
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...



We were given air 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!

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



Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes 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'



We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO
DEAL WITH IT ALL!




And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!


You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.


And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

And most often we even had to 'abuse ourselves'!!

__________________
'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

some of us still do

Bugger off old man!

Anyway it was your generation who made the world we live in now the one that you decry so much!

Also bikes more powerful, faster and much more fun! I'm glad I have a modern 400cc bike that does 240kph.

George

Totally off topic, but is Sark big enough to get up to that speed?

I was about the last person to have final exams in an engineering degree. Trying to remember stuff with a three year long hangover seems to prepare you better for the real world than all this gap year stuff!

Anyone else remember those biscuits that were totally green or orange? I mean the whole thing not just the creamy bit. That could explain a lot of my subsequent life.

I've no idea how we got to the "modern" situation. As a 34 year old I passed through most of the changes. I only learned metric until I hit uni, I did GCSE's but old style A-levels and degree, CBT but old style part 2 test, I knew teachers who had the cane but never used it and so on. I don't know anyone my age or older that knows why we changed. Until this year I was the only person in our office who could use the paper file system when the computers went down, the twenty year-olds didn't seem to know AB comes after AA. I worry that in my old age they'll make me keep working whenever the fuses on the server blow!

Andy

When I was about 14, one day in school I asked if I could sharpen my pencil. Master said ok.. I had an enormouse pencil and a very small penknife.. The master said 'boy, I think you need more knife and or less pencil'

The following week I asked again, and was again given permission.
This time I had a short stub of a little pencil and a 16" bladed machete (the one we used for kindling and killing chickens). After the laughter subsided the master said.. I think you need a combination somewhrre between the two. From there I went back to my desk. and after school home... With both the pencil and machete. There was no thought to confiscate the machete, it was in my desk the whole day, and I cycled home (2 1/2 miles) with it.
a year or two later Later I used to visit the post office in town each Saturday morning to pay a little into my post office savings book. From there I would walk up through the rail yard through some old cuttings, still carrying my 12 bore shotgun or .22 rifle looking for rabbits/foxes. I never possesd a cover for either gun.

How do you keep your pipe alight and your cap on your head at that speed ?

__________________
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

And when we grew up we were able to plan and execute an overland trip on our motorbike without the benefit of the internet, mobile phones, satellite phones, gps and satellite tracking. Although most of us took the wrong bike and wrong equipment we all survived to tell the tale!

Or another way to look at it is, in 50 years time you will all mostly be dead and I will still be alive, that seems a good thing about being young!

Master Po: What do you hear?
Caine: I hear the grasshopper.


Kung Fu (TV) 1972

__________________
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

Yes, and you will be able to text the nurse you need the toilet, just hope it figures out the satnav in time to get to you

watching the 'progess' on this planet just reinforces my belief i should have been born 30years earlier!

OK, but please note that I intend to use all the petrol, drink all the alchohol, smoke anything I fancy, eat all the red meat and then use the fact that I've nothing better to do to get them all banned

Andy

the same as the current generation of 'old gits' then?

Sounds like you'll be lucky to make it to 50, with your wind up attitude!

Bet it will be one of us older bikers who helps get your optimistically speedo tuned 150 MPH (yes, we use this measurement for speed in the UK!) poxy 400 going when it next breaks down at the road side, as another thing we used to do in those days, was fix our own bikes!

Sark Biker? that must be a contradiction in terms, as I thought you lot were limited to horses and bicycles! Good sheep race though! although I personally prefer the Isle of Man TT. Young bikers are friendler there too!

Angry reply expected and anticipated.

Chill out BFS, to use your vernacular, as we are all bikers at the end of the day and the older ones are just luckier to get there!


Chris
Live dangerously, for as long as you can!

__________________
[/SIZE] "Live dangerously for as long as you can!"