Thursday, August 8, 2013

Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s

    They were dangerous times for a kid, we played with dangerous toys, rode our bikes without helmets, shot BB guns, and played baseball in the street. We watched cartoons where all the characters wanted to blow each other up. We ate lots of candy, red meat, drank sugary drinks, and piled on the fried food at every meal. We played with matches and fire crackers and terrorized ants,frogs,doodle bugs,June bugs,firefly and snails. All with little or no adult supervision and we even trusted strangers and ice cream men. Our toy guns looked real, our pocket knives were real, and we carried them everywhere along with packs of candy cigarettes that looked just like dads.

  We didn't watch our calories, count our carbs or take pills to make us behave. Our parents didn't analyze our feelings or send us to child psychologists. We did play outside in the parks, the fields, the lakes and woods. We would sneak out dads old Penthouse's to have something to read around the campfire we started with gasoline of course! And somehow despite all of this, most of us managed to survive by some miracle. And had a blast doing it!

And despite all this "dangerous" behavior we felt safe in a way most kids growing up now will never know. We didn't worry about going or playing anywhere in the neighborhood or cutting through the woods to walk to the store or walking to school. The reason our parents gave us these freedoms is people actually trusted other people back then and they trusted their kids to have the brains and common sense to not get into too much trouble. There were no street gangs, drug dealers, or others that would do us harm, people were different then, the world was different then. The music we listened to had actual singing and talent, lyrics that were about fun things, not about demeaning others and promoting drugs and violence. Neighbors took care of neighbors and us kids went wherever the Kool-Aid or the biggest back yard was.

Anyway that's what this blog is about, its about the good times and memories of anyone who grew up in that more simple time. And maybe helping us remember some of the good stuff we forgot along the way.

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