When I was a kid

[EDELWEISS]

Maybe things weren't as good as I seem to remember them; but I know some things were better. So how'bout we try to remember

When I was a kid:
we did math without calculators

we read books at least as much as we watched TV--and we spent 10 times as much time outside

every family had someone who was in or had served the military

when someone did us wrong, one of us ended the day with a blackeye

we went to church every Sunday

[H60DoorGunner]

We worked hard. We earned what we had and learned responsibility.

[Dorkface]

The world is a different place. Its changed even since I was a kid in the 80s...

[SEANSTRAIT]

The world is a different place. Its changed even since I was a kid in the 80s...


It always has and always will. Our kids and grandkids will sit around bitching that their kids have it so much easier then they did.

[Ragsbo]

"we did math without calculators"

We did math on our fingers and toes! The only "calculators" were were some fancy adding machines that some accountants and such had.

We grew gardens, canned bean, froze peas and corn, butchered hogs/cows/chickens so we would have something to eat.
We came together as a family to do the above. Those were shining times.

[IANative]

We didn't have computers and smart phones. We had a cheap encyclopedia set, a dictionary and a thesaurus. We had a garden and we canned fruits and vegetables. We ate a lot of squirrel, rabbit, fish and venison. We had 3, sometimes 4 channels on the TV. Folks in town considered us poor, but we never felt that we were.

[Nabalfodrows]

I was born 61 years after the NFA was passed.

I was born 30 years after the Coinage Act and The Immigration and Naturalization Acts were passed.

I was born on the 22nd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade's passage.

I was born a year after the Assault Weapons Ban was passed.

How many other unjust laws and communist programs do I need to list off?

When I was a kid, I was subjected to state-sponsored brainwashing daily and watched my birthright sold/stolen before my eyes.

When I was a kid, I was told that my sex, religion, and the color of my skin were things to be ashamed of.

When I was a kid, I was told that no matter how hard I worked, everything I 'earned' was due to my privilege.

When I was a kid, I was banned from the school library for 'reading too much.'

When I was a kid, I was suspended for punching my bully.

When I was a kid, I watched Barack Obama get elected...twice.

When I was a kid, I saw US debt reach over $16 trillion, and unfunded liabilities soar over $200 trillion.

When I was a kid, I watched hordes of invaders go past our borders unchecked and commit crime unpunished.

Matthew 7:20 comes to mind when I think of people bagging on my generation and the generations after. Maybe we would have learned better if our elders weren't spineless cowards.

[cmcampbell]

I graduated high school in 1975.

Carried pocket knives to school from grade school on, no issues.

In high school a lot of students had guns in their cars, hunting rifles pistols etc... no shootings at schools, no drama.

[Pict]

When I was a kid if you got into an arguement you started the fight by handing your knife to a friend.

[Greg Nichols]

Dewy Decimal System was my google.

[H60DoorGunner]

Dewy Decimal System was my google.

I took my young son to the library about a year ago. They dont even use the duey decimal system anymore.

Apparently it's too complicated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Ragsbo]

At 17 Uncle Sam (Marine Corps) saw fit to hand me a M-16A1 rifle and told me to go kill a commie for mommy!

[Ryan Taylor]

I took my young son to the library about a year ago. They dont even use the duey decimal system anymore.

Apparently it's too complicated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was looking for a victor d hanson book the other day at my local oibrary, and thought I was a total moron for not being able to find it.

Then I realized that I was not the stupid one.

[EDELWEISS]

I was on the school Shooting Team (in Baltimore City no less). They had school indoor ranges and issued rifles, then "Santa" gave me a better rifle for Christmas and I carried my new rifle back and forth to school every day, and the school issued ammo. OH yeah you guessed it, there were no school shootings back then....

I did a report on ballistics for a math class and report on nuclear fallout for my history class. The guys in metal shop made desk size cannons. In physics we calculated artillery fire. We did archery and fencing in gym class.

We had Latin and French and German classes as well as Spanish. We actually read Shakespeare.

[45Smashemflat]

Walked to school in the snow, up hill both ways, wading through the barbed wire...

The phone was a party line

When we had dinner, dad would slap the bulb over the table, and we would use our biscuits to sop the shadow

But we were happy

:)

Sorry, but this is how these discourses go most times.

[ZeroTA]

The good old days, the good old days,
Which we so fondly speak of;
But if they ever should come back
We couldn’t stand a week of.

[Papa]

Tail fins. Candy stores. Kick-start Harleys and Speed Graphic cameras with flashbulbs. The made guy in the sharkskin suit on the next block over, standing on the stoop watching his red and black Caddy. Switchblades, street gangs, 4 engined turboprop aircraft landing at Idlewild. Porcelain handles and wicker seats on the El. Irish, Italian, German, Yiddish spoken in the streets. Converse All-Stars and cops with eight point hats and two rows of buttons on their tunics.

And the Bomb, informing and charging everything we did and said. Maybe not so different from now.

[DaveJames]

Love this thread, gave me a good reason to set back and see how lucky I was as a kid, I lived all over South East and middle Asia, and was always considered blessed to be an American, Like many I had a father who served in WW-2,Korea and Vietnam, just leaving his last tour there as I arrived for the first one. I grew up when a "man's word" was an oath not a snide remark, we had hand cranked gas pumps, few street lights in town, brick paved and dirt roads, and did most of the other things listed, about spit my coffee laughing when I read Greg's post about "Dewey", have spent the last years trying to instill those values in my great, grand and children I have been lucky enough to be involved with. The circle turns slowly but it turns, lost my Mother last mouth at 96, and my 3rd middle grand son has entered the Air Force wishes to be in Security Forces.

Remember Victory goes to the Intrepid!!!

[callmebubba]

Love this thread, gave me a good reason to set back and see how lucky I was as a kid, I lived all over South East and middle Asia, and was always considered blessed to be an American, Like many I had a father who served in WW-2,Korea and Vietnam, just leaving his last tour there as I arrived for the first one. I grew up when a "man's word" was an oath not a snide remark, we had hand cranked gas pumps, few street lights in town, brick paved and dirt roads, and did most of the other things listed, about spit my coffee laughing when I read Greg's post about "Dewey", have spent the last years trying to instill those values in my great, grand and children I have been lucky enough to be involved with. The circle turns slowly but it turns, lost my Mother last mouth at 96, and my 3rd middle grand son has entered the Air Force wishes to be in Security Forces.

Remember Victory goes to the Intrepid!!!
Is it possible that your father was one of the few holders of the 3rd Award CIB? I know it’s only vets of those 3 wars that we’re eligible.

[Michael Biggs]

We said Sir, Ma'am, please and thank you to strangers and family a like.

We learned and recited the Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school.

[Dorkface]

An interesting thing to consider is all the different types of temptations and dangers kids have to deal with these days. Anything from drugs to sexual predators that some people seem to want to tolerate to getting getting kidnapped and sold into all sorts of bad things.

On the flip side they have so many more advantages in pretty much everything. I love that I can do so much more for mine then my parents could do for me; And my parents did so much for me.

[Benjamin Liu]

From my observations on "good old days" threads I've read over the years is that most of the things that I agree are good about current times and bad about the past have to do with advances in technology, and most of the things I consider bad about current times and good about the past have to do with social and political factors. I consider stupid or bad things done with new technology to be social and/or political, so things like not reading books and instead relying on a 10 min Youtube video are not the fault of the technology.