Set the Wayback machine to the years you were growing up.

[Target_For_Exterm]

What was better or worse then than it is now?

My family was really poor, and I remember picking up commodities from the government when they used to actually hand out food. And my father killing a Jackrabbit for us to eat and him being mad because it had worms in it (and so was inedible). I remember going to school many a day and having only a jam sandwich or half a jam sandwich to eat.

Things were harder for women, I think. Sexism was acceptable. Women didn't do a lot of jobs when I went into the work force. There weren't as many appliances to make the double duty housework you had to do when you got home easier. And the expectation was that you'd be a perfect housewife as well as work 8+ hours a day.

It was a more innocent time. You didn't hear about the horrific crimes that you hear about in the news today.

We weren't at war. We were a more insular country. Outsourcing hadn't happened yet. Drugs were around, but not in schools so much.

Inflation was out of control, and we had long gas lines (Carter oil imbargo). When you could get gas (because a lot of stations were out).

What do you remember about when you were growing up - what was better or worse?

[jannyk]

1. We were poor too

not dirt poor, but I remember painting twigs when we couldn't afford a christmas tree. Jam Sandwiches and lots of Marmite sandwiches for school lunch. Hems on dresses let down as we grew, and it always left a circle around the bottom of a different colour.We never had a car until I was 14 - dad used to go to work on a moped - I loved riding on the back of that thing when I was a kid.

But, we kids were as happy as clams. We were never indoors and could safely wander the streets until well after dark just playing - we had to be dragged inside screaming. Didn't know we were poor - everyone I knew had about the same - school uniforms are also a great equalizer.

We did always have a holiday though. Somehow, dad always scrimped enough up for us to go to the south of england (devon, cornwall or similar) by train each year. We stayed at a lot of 'Fawlty Towers' type places and always a long hike to the beach - but we loved it.

I don't remember ever needing anything or feeling deprived - of course I wasn't bombarded with ads 24/7 either. I'm a 1952 vintage, how about you

[DumpDavisHogg]

2. Everything was better in the '70s than it is now

At least in the late '70s we had a real President.

[GreenZoneLT]

8. Are you kiddin?

Now, sure, I was a big Carter fan, and things were more egalitarian, and TV news was way better. But I wouldn't say EVERYTHING was better in the '70s. Sexism, racism and homophobia were far more institutionalized. Crime was WAY worse in the '70s than it is now. There was a lot more teen drug use, which I guess could be considered pro or con, depending on your personal taste. The economy sucked balls in the late '70s. American cars in the '70s were the worst cars ever made. Every form of music was distorted into disco (I like Donna Summer and Kool and the Gang as much as the next guy, but disco jazz SUCKS). The Soviet Union was fomenting war and misery around the world (Bush dreams of fomenting misery the way Leonid Brezhnev did). All the future "Asian Tiger" nations were oppressive dictatorships wracked by poverty.

Plus, I had really bad acne.

[Target_For_Exterm]

10. The politics we can gloss over with the reverse rosy colored glasses...

But the memory of really bad acne sticks with ya forever!

:blush: :)

[petgoat]

18. The 70's were strange because there was no point in working

for money; inflation turned money to crap in a few months.

So people spent it on cocaine, and found work without taxes.
The fear of the oil running out and nuclear war made planning
for the future seem silly.

[sandnsea]

20. Gosh - and here I thought I was havin' fun

But then, my acne went away in 1973 - maybe that was the difference. :)

[butterfly77]

36. Are you kidding ....

I don't know where you live but crime is no way lower now than it was in the 70's, maybe you have been reading some of the phony statistics put out by the Bush adm...

[Target_For_Exterm]

6. I'm 1962 vintage. I remember watching the moon landings

at school, and thinking how cool it was that we got to watch TV at school (which had never happened before).

[jannyk]

24. That was on my 17th birthday July 21st, 1969

I remember staying up all night to watch it - and then had to go to work with no sleep.

[Frustratedlady]

3. Life was easier, more peaceful and family oriented.

I grew up on a farm in the Midwest, so we always had plenty of food. Mom made our clothes, canned/froze fruits and veggies from a huge garden, raised chickens/eggs and cold-packed much of the chicken and beef. Most everything was made from scratch. I remember when sliced bread was introduced, as well as cake mixes.

School was wonderful, but the teachers and parents worked together closely to make sure we were on the right track. There would never be any retaliation on the teacher if she disciplined us...in fact, once that fact was known, we were also made to answer when we got home.

We were highly respectful to our parents, teachers, neighbors, relatives and the professional people of the community. We did not have any drug problems...didn't even know about such things.

We didn't have air conditioning and I'd be hard pressed to give it up, today. Our furnace was stoker coal heat, which wasn't the most efficient. Washing was by wringer Maytag washer with no drier, except for a clothes line. No better smell than to climb into a freshly made bed with sheets that had been dried on the line in fresh air.

Neighbors helped neighbors and the village helped raise the kids. We had dozens of eyes watching everything we did and no one was afraid to call a parent if they thought the child was out of line. Divorces were very rare, so almost everyone had two parents unless one had died. Parents were very involved in school activities and supportive of sports and/or music programs and education in general.

Yes, I miss those days.

[cynatnite]

4. AIDS

When I was in high school during the 80's there were a lot of drugs at school and school violence was just beginning to be talked about. I remember the hostages in Iran, but very little of Iran/Contra.

Most of all, I remember when AIDS was that mysterious disease that no one knew what it was. I remember the protests and the huge quilt. This whole movement really resonated with me. Not just because of the gay friends I had, but also because of how this disease was striking down just about anyone no matter who they were. I remember the government (Reagan) practically ignoring the problem.

I especially remember crying when I watched a hearing with Paul Michael Glaser and his wife, Elizabeth talking about how AIDS had devestated their family. I remember Ryan White, too.

I followed the news very closely at this time when it came to AIDS and was very moved by it all. That's what stands out in my memory more than anything else.

[Warpy]

5. I remember outsourcing in the 50s

Northern textile mills were closing up shop and reopening in the south, away from unions. Other plants followed.

Things were a LOT harder for women who had to choose being underpaid in whatever profession admitted them (nurse, teacher, waitress, domestic servant, secretary), and if they married and got pregnant, they were immediately fired, whether or not the husband stuck around. There was no such thing as pregnant single women keeping their children. The whole thing was surrounded by shame and secrecy and girls either surrendered the infants to mom and pop (a rarity) or gave them up for an adoption as their fee for survival in an unwed mother's home. Oh, and a lot of them died from illegal abortion. I lost a friend that way.

Then there was the institutionalized racism. I didn't go to a segregated school until I was eleven, and it was a joke. There were Mexican kids, Asian kids, Cherokee kids, every color of the rainbow but African. African Americans weren't allowed to sit down at a lunch counter, they had to buy their food and eat it standing up, out on the street.

The 50s were great for white males unless their income was low, and low income for white males was rare. I knew a garbageman in Boston who'd managed to put his eight kids through at least junior college. For most of them, the laws were all on their side and poor employment prospects for women made certain that they had an unpaid domestic servant at home to take care of them like Mom did....with a little something extra thrown in.

Things weren't all that great for kids, although we did have something called FREE TIME when we could run around and play without being organized and supervised by adults. We could also be beaten at will, and unless we had multiple fractures, people looked the other way.

As for those horrific crimes, one of those happened in my family, and the perp was suspected of two other murders in that town. As for drugs, I found them in the early 60s when I was in high school. As for those gas lines, they signaled the beginning of the end, since the inflation that followed was blamed on working people, especially unionized working people, who were still getting paid a living wage. We've never recovered in purchasing power to those pre OPEC levels.

Anybody who gets nostalgic for the 50s and early 60s must not have been there.

[silverojo]

22. I agree with you!

Nostalgia is highly overrated. There's good and bad in every era. Live for today, hope for tomorrow, and learn from the past...because living in the past makes it impossible to enjoy the present.

[annabanana]

31. You pretty much nailed it.

As a white middle class kid, I had it pretty good. Dad paid for everything at the cost of our not seeing too much of him. Mom was always there. The neighborhood was ours for the exploring, with small patches of "wild" available to discover flora & fauna in.

We weren't allowed to cross the tracks.

[TygrBright]

7. Like you, I see "then" from "now" as a mixed bag.

We were poor, too. My mother was a divorced (i.e. disgraced) single mom who had to work to support her three kids. We ate macaroni a lot, and beans, and canned tuna, which I was allergic to and was sick a lot from. There was no commodity program then. My mom made barely enough to live on, although she was a skilled worker (she had a nursing certificate.) The Church had a lot of control over peoples' lives. The bad side was the mean-spiritedness, the repression, and the pressure to conform. The good side was that they wouldn't let anyone REALLY starve or any kid get REALLY sick without doing something about it although they'd get their pound of spiritual flesh for their "help" eventually. Still, if you were desperate, it was good to know that there was someone who would do something about it, RIGHT NOW, without a lot of paperwork and waiting periods and forms, etc.

Everyone knew everyone, at least in our neighborhood. That was bad, because you couldn't get away with being different (my Mom got a lot of 'looks,' my older sister was considered 'fast' and the kind of kid other parents warned their kids about, etc.) It was also good, because you couldn't get away with anything (if I picked a neighbor's flowers, my Mom knew about it before I got home, even.) Also, when the neighbor's gas stove exploded and burned her face and arms and blew her kitchen all to hell, my Mom called a taxi and took her to the emergency room and my next-door neighbor watched all the kids and the people up the street sorted out the kitchen. And we had never even spoken to the woman whose stove blew up before that, she'd only moved in a few months before.

Choices were restricted then, just like they are now, but for different reasons and people didn't pretend otherwise. Nowadays choices are restricted because you don't make enough money or you don't have health insurance or you didn't go to school with the Good Old Boys' network or you don't wear the right designer clothes or you can't afford a car to commute, etc. But people still pretend that you have the choices anyway, you should just "work harder" or "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" even if you're already working 3 part-time jobs. If you just "made better choices" you could choose whatever you want. Back then choices were restricted because of the color of your skin or the shape of your genitals or the church you attended or the school you went to and no one lied about it. You just did the best you could with the choices that were available. It was unfair, but it was unfair to everyone like you and it wasn't because you "made the wrong choices."

People lied a lot then, just like now, but about different things. Textbooks in school pretended that the genocide of native peoples never happened and that after Lincoln freed the slaves we had "equality," and that other people in the world (except maybe some Europeans) were "backward" but we loved them anyway except the Rooskies who were all baby-eating evildoers who wanted to burn churches and make everyone work on collective farms. I don't really need to recount the lies of today, do I?

People seemed a lot less worried about their kids' safety then and perhaps as a consequence I felt safe almost all the time growing up. I never worried that I was bouncing around in the box of a station wagon with a couple of other kids and no seatbelts anywhere and the smoke from the grownups' cigarettes was all around us and we were drinking soda with potentially cancer-causing red dye in it. I hung around in the alley after dark playing kick the can with other kids and we laughed maniacally and rolled the trash bins of anyone who wasn't around to stop us until some adult came out and yelled at us to knock it off or they'd call all our mothers and by god they knew who we were, yes, you, Pat S, and you Mike K, and you, Missy W., and YOU, Miss Bright. And even if my mother wasn't home then because she was working a late shift, I knew she'd hear about it. So we'd wander along in the dark and tell each other urban legends and dirty made-up stories about the nuns and we all lived to grow up anyway.

I guess it was good. I think I liked it better than what I see of today's kids' lives. We lived or died by whether you had Keds or Red Ball Jets but neither was all that expensive. The cool toys were things like "Shoop-shoop hula hoops" and "Slinkies" and they didn't cost much compared to the video games of today. We had a black and white TV and were only allowed to watch certain programs and then only with the whole family watching "The Wonderful World of Disney" or "Car 54", or else a few kids' programs like "Lunch With Casey" when you came home for lunch that you could watch on your own. But we could read all the books from the library that we wanted and we walked there every Saturday morning and later rode our bikes there and stocked up with 10 books to last the whole week. If you hung out with your friends and played it was games like "Statuemaker" or "Red Rover," or else you made a "Starship Enterprise" from the box that the neighbors' refrigerator was delivered in and colored in the viewscreen with markers and bitched over who got to be Spock last time. We had to make a lot of our toys just because you COULDN'T buy them. No one made them.

Was that better than today? Maybe just different, except for the feeling safe part. Do today's kids pretty much feel safe all the time, all strapped into their protective gear and monitored by cell phone?

curiously,
Bright

[fairfaxvadem]

9. things seemed a lot more dynamic back then.

Not sure about how much better or worse, from my perspective, especially post-Watergate, post-Viet Nam. I am 42, so I straddle both the Cold War years, and the era of Glasnost. Plus my folks kept up with world events, so I have some very vivid memories of "the news." Economically, that was the beginning of the end of the middle class that my parents came from. I remember alternate gas days very well. And yet, my folks had an 8-cylinder Mercury Marquis. The "Blue Boat" we used to call it. It could haul ass, that's for sure. And my folks were rabid Nixon/Reagan haters, being the pinko, commie, Catholic, pro-labor San Franciscans we were/are.

But, the best way to make this point: back during the '04 election I was at a restaurant bar in DC one evening, and started chatting with a man from Germany. He and I were the same age. We started comparing notes, a la 9/11. The bombing of the German discos, the whole fiasco in Lebanon (not just the bombing of our troops), all the hijackings and watching that TWA pilot on the tarmac, I forget where, being interviewed, the Achille-Lauro, the Soviet/Afghanistan war, all the "radical leftist" terrorist groups of the '70s, the freakin' Iran/Iraq war for Pete's sake. He and I were asking each other: does no one remember all of this crap? Why did everyone act so surprised, as if they'd never heard of a terrorist attack before 9/11? Was everyone asleep during the 70s and 80s?

I remember that time as when economic fear really set in. I remember a few of my friends' moms going back to work. I remember life changed, a lot, during the 80s. The 70s were one thing, the 90s another. But the 80s, well, that was the transition decade and I think very stressful for many people. You either adapted and survived, or you didn't.

[MADem]

11. This is a WONDERFUL THREAD and I am RECOMMENDING IT!!!!!!!!

I'm enjoying reading everyone's experiences so much, and noting the similarities and the differences. Everyone has a fascinating story to tell, even when discussing the mundane and personal aspects of their lives.

[mykpart]

12. 50s childhood, 60s adolesence.

I remember during presidential election years, the Republican and Democratic conventions were on ALL the TV stations (all 3 of them!). I really hated losing my summer viewing to politics in 1956, but by 1960, I enjoyed watching the Democratic convention. Many states did not have primaries back then, so the convention was really a lot of backstage dealmaking, and you really didn't know who the candidate was until the last vote. And of course it was John Kennedy.

Don't know if it was better or worse. I felt safer then, could go most places alone and be OK. I rode the bus everywhere. But we had fewer choices then - about how to dress, what to watch, what to read. I hear people say it was a more innocent time - but I prefer to say that people were more naive.

[Riddler]

13. It had to be better back then. When I grew up there was no rap music, no talk radio loudmouths,

No Bush family ruining the world, and the most right wing person in the US was Barry Goldwater!

[mykpart]

38. Right! And forgot to mention the only

TV Evangelists were Billy Graham and Bishop Sheen, who were on back-to-back on Sunday afternoons.

[Mythsaje]

14. My dad and stepmom were part of the

hippie exodus from California in the early seventies. We moved to Central Oregon before I entered 3rd Grade. We lived in town for a little while, then moved out to a large piece of property on the edge of BLM land. My dad bought me a horse.

The little town we lived in consisted of an elementary school, a gas station/general store, two restaurants, a tavern, a body shop, a feed store, and a post office. In a school chock full of white kids, I was the odd one. The only non-white was a big kid who carried the last name of "Chicano," of all things...but they made him change it when we were all in sixth grade. Since he was one of the biggest kids in school, the fact that he wasn't white didn't seem to matter to anyone.

KISS was huge, something I never understood. I grew up listening to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Moody Blues, Fleetwood Mac, and Jim Croce. And the occasional country song.

I played little league baseball, took care of rabbits, chickens, pigs, goats, and my horse, and spent a lot of time alone. I was a bit too weird to be particularly popular. I spent a lot of time riding in the wild lands on my horse, or alone with my books.

My dad has his own business and was pretty successful, as such things go. During the summer I'd spend time in town at his office and warehouse with my stepmom. I remember one time listening to a call in "I'm selling this--anyone interested?" show and someone called in and said there were a couple of pigs running around town.

Our pigs were escape artists, as was my horse. I knew instantly that it was our pigs, so we jumped in the car and raced home so I could round them up.

My horse used to escape from time to time and I'd have to walk up to my school, where he'd be visiting a pair of horses on a lot next to the school. I'd have to drag him back and get ready for school, then walk back.

I lived only a few blocks from school. I used to walk to school in the morning, but I was usually chased home in the afternoons. I was the fastest kid in my school, despite being smaller than most. I know this because I got lots of practice outrunning everyone else.

I did have friends, but most of them lived in the next town over, the kids of my dad's and stepmom's friends. Counter-culture kids who didn't think I was all that weird, I guess. People that didn't think it was all that strange that I liked to talk about bigfoot and UFOs and ancient myths and legends.

My life changed completely when my dad and stepmom broke up. I was twelve and my dad and I packed up one day and moved to Boise. Then, from there, we moved to Washington State. And, for the most part, Washington has been my home ever since.

I could tell stories about what my teenage years were like. I've shared a few here already. But for a fair reflection of what high school was like, may I recommend the movie, Dazed and Confused? Though it was set in the seventies, it was, like I said, a fair reflection of my own high school days in the early to mid eighties.

There were good things about my childhood, and bad things. Like most people, I would think.

[Chipper Chat]

15. Hobos

I can remember hobos. We lived with my grandma & grandpa because Dad was off fighting in the Philippines (1943). Grandpa worked as a brakeman for the Nickel Plate Railroad. Hobos were common then and he would invite them to our house for a meal whenever they passed through (there were 3 major railroads in our small town -Nickel Plate, C&O, and the Wabash). You ALWAYS heard train whistles - day and night! It was common to be frequently stopped for a train on many streets. A man would come out of the guardhouse and hold a stop sign until the train passed (no flashers back then). Anyway, back to the hobos - they were always alone and would come to the back door and knock. Whoever was home would invite them in and fix them a sandwich and coffee or a bottle of orange soda (or Grapette). They would talk a blue streak. The back door was always unlocked and if no one was home the hobo would just come on in, fix his own sandwich and plate of fruit or whatever. We would come home and see the dishes all washed on the sink. We never had any problem with thievery or messiness.
Wow - have times changed. Homeless people are now dirty and scorned - mainly because people dont trust them or are turned off by them, scorn them and dont give them food and clothes - a viscious cycle.
Well, that's one of my many stories of growing up in the 40s & 50s.

[randr]

30. I remember the sign of the hand

Itinerant peoples lived in a camp near the tracks about a mile from my home through the woods. My parents and others in the area would put a piece of paper in the window with an outline of a hand to indicate a friendly place where one could find a meal or spare change if needed.
I would wander down to the "camp" on occasion and was always welcomed by the band of Gypsy's, tramps, and thieves who never stayed for long. I shared an occasional stew with these folks and always left more full with ideas and images. I thank my folks for putting out the "hand". They allowed me to grow up with out fear of strangers and to share in my fellow humans needs.
I now look back at this time and mostly remember the happiness of my mother and father who knew in their hearts and minds that we, my brothers and sister, would grow into a more prosperous, healthy, and peaceful world. It was as if we were on the trip with Tom and Huck and headed for some idealic future as slowly as the river flowed.
It was not long before the bubble burst. Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy shot, Viet Nam, Marin shot, Bobby shot, Kent State......
Things are definitely different now but I can still sense the wonder I felt at that time whenever I spend time with my grandchildren. The world around us may only be as friendly as we are taught and led to experience.

[K8-EEE]

16. Van Nuys Blvd. on Wednesday Night

This was in the seventies....we (a bunch of Valley girls, Catholic high school) would sort of yell out the car window at other people our age, all kinds of people from all over -- you know how a teenager can say "nice HAIR" and it's the worst insult. Or you can say "nice CAR" and it's a complement, that kind of thing, just lame.

Sometimes flirting, sometimes insulting people or getting insulted but never, never did it occur to us that we would piss somebody off and they would pick up a gun and shoot us. This was pre-Reagan era; in the 80's long after I was past cruising age I picked up the paper to see that they had permanently shut down Van Nuys on Wed., because that particular tradition had turned into a gang warfare thing with guns and all that, constant murders and arrests.

I feel a little bad for my kids that they live in such a scary world. They can't do half the stuff I did. These dances in these schools now, they don't even let you out. It seems like such a violent world; even the kind of drugs and sex the kids are into seem mean, not really fun. Meth -- what kind of drug is that?? Pot and quaaludes I can see the point of those, but drugs that make you a violent sociopath and make your teeth fall out and make you look 60 when your 29 and poison your environment! WHAT IS THE POINT! Crap drugs these days if you ask me! And with all the porn access, can you imagine what a warped view these boys have of women. Probably vice-versa too. Crap sex and crap drugs! No wonder we are in such a fix.

I'm not blaming the kids now though as much as my generation; we are the ones who made things like this, the 80's were all about greed and money and everything has seemed to be going downhill ever since.

Jerry Brown was our governor and the CA schools were the best. Public schools! I went to Catholic school because of the Catholic thing, not because my parents would be afraid I'd get hurt at school. And community college, my current governor (blech) and mayor (Villaraigosa) both went to community college, we had the best in the nation, what a shambles it all is now, no funding, no nothing.

I would never have suspected looking back on high school in the late 70's as a time of innocence (sex drugs and rock & roll after all!) but I could have never even conceived that the public sentiment would become so fearful and war-mongering. It's sad, sometimes I would like to get in the wayback machine, but I don't miss battling with my hair to get it Farrah-like, or those awful Jordasche Jeans that were so tight that you had to lie down to zip them up!

[Rageneau]

17. When I was growing up, I lived in the greatest country on earth.

Now, I live in a belligerant, self-centered, xenophobic land whose people are either ashamed or should be, and whose former admirers now despise.

And the change from one to the other began with the "Reagan Revolution."

[silverojo]

23. Now that's an accurate summary of events! n/t

[jannyk]

25. Oooh, did you grow up in England too? ;)

We're all raised to believe our country is the greatest show on earth I'm afraid. That's where many of the problems start.

[eridani]

19. 50s childhood, 60s adolescence in small town Midwest

On the one hand--

My parents were partially disabled and couldn't get health insurance at any price. Nobody dared talk about domestic violence or mistreatment of kids--all of that was "private". One of our neighbors, a cop, tied his kid to a leash on a tree in his front yard, and nobody ever did anything about it, even though every other kid on the block begged their parents to do something. Another neighbor had a miscarriage and bled to death in the town Catholic hospital while the doctors were standing around waiting for the fetus to come out so they wouldn't be arrested for having anything to do with an abortion. Double standard in full bloom--boys just couldn't help being horny and irresponsible, and it was the job of girls to manage that, and make him buy the cow before giving away any free milk. Help wanted:male, and Help wanted:female. The list under "female" was a lot shorter and really crap. Zero support at school, even through the college level, for any girl who read Marie Curie's biography and wanted to go and do likewise.

A solid, firm color line--no houses sold to black families west of a particular street, and no one talked about it. The Rooskies were going to come over and enslave us if we didn't watch out, and small towns were certainly on their target list, so we did our duck and cover drills. Lots of teen pregnancy, ending either with very early marriage or a trip out of town, never mentioned in polite company. Gay = non-existent. "Queer" was a general insult, but I was 18 or so before I had the vaguest clue what the word referred to. On the day I found out that you weren't supposed to wear yellow on Thursday, one of my playmates informed me that since I was wearing a yellow sweater, I'd have to go and kiss Jimmy who was wearing a yellow shirt because we were both queer. Did I mention that this was not a particularly sophisticated town? :) We smoked wild marijuana--we dried the stems, cut them up into cigarette-length pieces, and SMOKED THE STEMS!

On the other hand, even financially marginal people could afford to own houses. With endless refinancing, possible because the people at locally or regionally owned banks knew my dad personally and thought he was a good guy, we got through all major financial crises. Us kids always knew that our hungry nights were strictly temporary. Lots of factories with good-paying union jobs, where unemployment during a strike or business cycle downturn was also very temporary. The pregnant teens and their drop-out boyfriends could be financially independent adult heads of households at least, several years before they could legally drink or vote. A decent bus system, today unheard of in towns of that size. Major investments in public parks, with really good recreational programs in the summer. Locally owned department stores competing with franchises of better-known national stores in a vital downtown business area--now totally trashed by factory closures and WalMart. A good town library, with neighborhood bookmobiles, and my favorite librarian who got me an adult card a year early so I could escape the adult chauvinist restriction of only 8 books per week per kiddy card. Much less supervison of kids, who could safely run around just about anywhere. A lot of families with kids around my age, who socialized with each other and organized fun things to do in the neighborhood.

Well, six of one and half a dozen of the other, I'd say. When I bounced out of bed every morning, nothing hurt.

Now thirty feet tall
The former Arbor Day twig
Still grows without me.

[silverojo]

21. The more things change

The more they stay the same.

When I was growing up (school years 1971-1983), we had latchkey kids, drugs and drinking in schools (in 3rd grade, I caught some 2nd graders fighting over a can of beer), bullying (because I was a smart kid, I was nearly strangled in 1st grade, had a knife pulled on my in 2nd grade, my wrist nearly broken in 3rd grade). We had Nixon and Watergate. For fun, kids were singing songs about dope. If you were 10 years old, and were still interested in toys instead of making out, you were considered weird.

No, this wasn't a big city, but a small red-state town where we were the only family that voted for McGovern.

In high school, drugs got worse, AIDS reared its ugly head, we were shocked by the news that Reagan had been shot, funding for our schools was being cut, small islands were being invaded by larger countries, yadda yadda yadda.

The only thing really different now is that we have the internet and other high-tech goodies. But the other problems are still there: corrupt government officials, rampant drug and alcohol abuse, latchkey kids, the whole bit. Vietnam/Iraq, AIDS is still around...same sh*t, different cast of characters.

[WinkyDink]

26. It was the 50's and the 60's. 'Nuff said.

[Lasher]

27. 1949 model here

I can remember steam engines pulling the coal trains that went through our little town where I have lived for all my life. There was a small open coal fireplace in only one of the two bedrooms of our house. My mother and father took the unheated bedroom and tucked my brother and me into the warm one. We didn't have indoor plumbing except for cold water to the kitchen sink. It was a brisk trip to the outhouse in the dark when nature called on January nights. I remember how I looked forward to having fried chicken on Sundays. We raised the chickens ourselves and had a garden every year.

My mother stayed home to raise us. In most families only the father worked. My dad was a WWII veteran who went through college on the GI Bill. He thumbed (hitchhiked) 20 miles to and from college every day. That was not as hard as it sounds. People would pick you up back then because they didn't think you might kill them.

My dad was principal of the four room grade school (grades 1 to 8) in our little town. I started school in the first grade because kindergarten hadn't been invented yet. Principals were full time teachers back then, in addition to being administrators. They taught 2 grades at once.

When my brother and I rode to school each morning in his car we had to slow down to a crawl because of thick smog. It was caused by a burning slate (coal mining waste) dump that was near the school. It was no big deal then but now such emissions are considered toxic. I wonder who changed the slate dump smoke. They should still have the safe kind like we breathed back then.

Lots of coal mines were closed in the early '50s so unemployment was common. We didn't have much but were pretty well off compared to most folks in our community. We had hot lunches at our school but they were not provided free for kids whose parents couldn't afford them. The poor kids would bring a biscuit and sausage that their moms made extra when they fixed breakfast. They would hide behind the school to eat because they were ashamed.

Having been a country boy all my life I have enjoyed lots of good times swimming in the river. We would climb up the rock formations that are on top of many of the hills around here. Now people buy special helmets and ropes and call it rock climbing. We didn't know it was going to someday be a sport so we just climbed rocks. My father and his buddy Ish would take us boys hunting, fishing, and camping. Ish brought 2 sons most of the time so there were four of us. It was a boatload of fun.

A lot has changed since those days. When I was 9 my father built a nice 3 bedroom ranch home with a real inside bathroom. The little grade school is long gone now. Now there's bigger schools with separate rooms for every grade and the poor kids get to eat lunch with everybody else. The principals don't teach any more because it's all they and a full time secretary can do to keep up with all the bureaucratic chores. These days I can eat fried chicken any time I want (except now I have to watch my weight), and I don't have to hack their heads off and pluck their feathers.

Work can be hard to find these days but the employment situation here in West Virginia is not nearly as grim as it was back then. I managed to get a decent job after I got out of the Army in 1970 and I stuck with the same company for 33 years, retiring 3 years ago. I still raise a garden every year and put up lots of the produce in mason jars. I don't hunt or fish as much as I used to but still manage to get a good supply of venison every year.

My Little Dove and I own a pretty good sized home with central air & heating. We have a wood stove that we keep going most of the winter but we don't have to. And get this: We have two - count 'em two - inside bathrooms!!

Life is much much better today. Sure, I'm an old geezer now. But except for that, I would never go back to those days. If any of you want to relive them, build yourself an outside toilet to visit every night next month. You can't get the Sears & Roebuck catalog any more, but used newspapers should be an acceptable alternative.

[watrwefitinfor]

28. Fireflies. Where did the fireflies go?

Late '40s. Dusk. Gathering with the other kids in the neighborhood and playing games (red rover red rover send johnny right over) and catching fire flies till our mothers, one by one, would call us home in the dark.

We called them lightnin' bugs in the south.

We would catch them and put them in Coke bottles by the dozens.
Watch the coke bottle light up, then turn them all loose.

Where did the fireflies go?

Wat

[progressoid]

33. We still get fireflies. My kids collected them in a jar just a few years ago!

But not by the dozens. Maybe we are too far north.

[RebelOne]

29. You make the '70s seem like the dark ages.

There were plenty of women doing a lot of jobs. I have been in the work force since the 1950s and never had any problems. Yes, there was sexual harassment. I experienced plenty of that. But where do you get the idea that there weren't as many appliances? There were washing machines, dryers, dish washers, vacuum cleaners and just about as many appliances as today. The only thing missing that I can think of was the microwave oven.

[shadowknows69]

32. Ah the 80's

When our only worries were the USSR, Reagan and nuclear destruction. Oh but we still had a constitution, which was nice.

[ArmchairMeme]

34. 43 and on here

When I was a baby my father was in the Army Air Force in the Azores. He was then eligible for the GI Bill and so when he returned he began college.

He was unemployed so we Mom, Dad and two kids lived in the third floor apartment of my grandmother's triple decker, very roomy.Extended family around was really good for us as children. Easy Washer no dryer, no t.v.

My mom was a church organist so our home life was rich in music. She would play for us and sing to us. Our social circle was the Congregational Church. My mom made our clothes and her own. She gave us children a lot time teaching me how to cook and sew. One winter we tried to live at my grandparent's summer camp in the country but it was very difficult, no indoor plumbing, I remember the privy over the hill.

Christmas was a family celebraton. Gifts were mostly clothes. My great grandmoter always knitted a pair of mittens for all her 17 grandchildren. As a child I had one doll. My grandfather built me a dollhouse which I cherished. I got my first bicycle, a balloon tire heavy weight when I was 10, I was too lightweight to make the brakes work right. As children we made a lot of our toys ourselves. When I was 8 my mom was seriously burned when the coal furnace exploded because she put a bag of trash into it with a coffee can of bacon grease. We were told not to talk about it so we would hurt her feelings. As an adult I asked her about it and she had no memory of the day. She was in hospital for three months.

My dad graduated from college when I was eight years old and he got a job as a editor at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. They bought a little three bedroom ranch and by then there were six kids. It was not necessary to lock doors and neighbors would stop by and drop off cake by leaving it on the kitchen table. Neighbors were all known and supportive. That was the time of the "cold war" so we got training in atom bomb self defense, go to the basement of the school and cover your head and neck with your arms! Ridiculous even for a fourth grader I understood that the atom bomb would vaporize people so we were doing something futile. My dad said the Pratt & Whitney was on the list of places to be bombed.

I walked to school all years and school began at first grade - no kindergarten. No after school programs, very little organized sports. In the 50's my folks got one of those big console small screen t.v.s it ran for a couple years and when it broke they never got it fixed.

There was a serious flood in town and roads were out for several weeks. Large trucks of water were flown in by helicopter. We lined up for shots to protect us from typhoid. My mom cooked over sterno for a family of six. Our house was not immediately involved. Several people in town died.

My little brother once rode his purple fuzzy donkey down the hill to the center of town and the police brought him home because they knew where he belonged. No neglect charges were brought. By the same reasoning the people next door regularly injured their children but the parents were not charged. The girl next door my age had the rings of an electric stove burned on the palms of her hands. This was her punishment for having been found playing with matches!

My dad's next job took him north to be a teacher of math at a highschool, lower pay and now there were seven children. Still no t.v., no clothes dryer. For the first time I had a bedroom all my own, big. I was allowed to paint and paper it.

Now I am comfortable in my two bedroom, two bath Cape style home with wood stove and computer. T.v. but now there is less to watch of interest. I more often spend time on the internet or DVDs for entertainment. I thoroughly enjoy my grandchildren.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. Absolutely, undeniably better now.

Which is why it's a shame we're sliding backwards.

[blues90]

37. Born in 1949 , here .

I know life was far from perfect in many respects , there was an illusion hovering over us .

I can remember the 50's well and walt disney and all the fantisy of many prime time tv shows . We also did not know anything much about wars other than what we learned in history books or heard from parents .

The 60's we soon found duck and cover and a fear of being nuked , soon after we had vietnam and began to know war up and close and personal .


We saw our president murdered and more great men to follow . This was not a great time but there was a distraction , there was a common ground in music and a common ground in society where we were not devided and religion was not in the fore front .

Yes women had a difficult time but in a way it was now shared in a different way by young men being drafted and killed so we each had our own personal worry what the future would bring .

We still could walk out in the street and see familiar surroundings , not much had changed there . We still knew the neighborhood shop keepers and the familiar rap of a typewriter and the distant train whistles and the glowing fire flys . One had still the network of friends and town relations and a phone wired in to converse and used ones imagination to fill the day and a school where learning was top priority .

Now days everything and anything can vanish in an instant , the landscape and cities change so fast that you at times cannot recall what once stood where the new mall now hovers or the open field where the box store sprawls out as a cement steril structure where nothing had the credit of being made in the USA . We have the internet and technology to suck up the human interface and extensive over population to crowd us all into isolation where there is no longer community or time out . We are a 24/7 rat race of confusion and conflict , devided and doomed to the I mean everything expression . The but now , through away mad mass always looking for the next thing to funnel down the pike and are never satisfied with true human interaction or imagination but instead with full fledged illusion and the machine , we are the consumer of the highest order , what a great loss to reach the end in one big hurry .