it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have

[R&M]

Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long
as we have......

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the
same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we
didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to
eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't remember getting E-coli.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or
cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.

We played with toy guns, cowboys and Indians, army, cops and
robbers, and used our fingers to simulate guns when the toy
ones or my BB gun was not available.

Some students weren't as smart as others or didn't work hard
so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same
grade. That generation produced some of the greatest
risk-takers and problem solvers. We had the freedom,
failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to
deal with it all.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake
instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), the term cell
phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a
pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a
pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having
cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built
in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must
have happened because they tell us how much safer weare now.
Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I
guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson by
running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and
hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if
we only knew we could have sued the school system.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and the pledge and
stayed in detention after school and caught all sorts of
negative attention for the next two weeks. We must have had
horribly damaged psyches.

I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an
abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was
anyway) but they did give us a couple of aspirin and cough
syrup if we started getting the sniffles.

What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school
nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I
was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers,
PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital cable stations.I
must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through
the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked
off each day about a mile down the road to some guy's vacant
20, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made
trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger. What
was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot.
He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence
around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an
infrared intruder alarm.

Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit
when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant
construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48
cent bottle of mercurochrome and then we got our butt spanked.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day
dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the
attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious
pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we
did, we got our butt spanked (physical abuse) ... and then we
got our butt spanked again when we got home.

Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids
choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing
with Tonka trucks (remember why Tonka trucks were made
tough... it wasn't so that they could take the rough berber in
the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.

Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I
am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of
times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably
sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all
slept in campgrounds in the family tent.

Summers were spent behind the push lawnmower and I didn't even
know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got
one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive. How sick
were my parents?

Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. I recall Donny
Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on
the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom
know that she could have owned our house.Instead she picked
him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a
neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told
that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we
possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy
and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so
many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire
country wasn't taking Prozac!

How did we survive?

[Lawrence F]

In article <v5plu2rbe3o06c@corp.supernews.com>, R&M
<rcontest@cwnet.com> wrote:
>Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long
>as we have......

Yes, back when I went to school we had to walk 10 miles uphill
10,000 feet both ways and used 75 baud teletypes as computer
terminals for computers that had core memory (that parts
actually true). Sometimes I feel like 36 is getting old, then
I read messages like this one :)

>My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the
>same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we
>didn't seem to get food poisoning.
>
>My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I
>used to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't remember
>getting E-coli.

Germs these days have no respect! Back in the good they
wouldn't attack a man unless he was engaged in some immoral
act of some sort, and then they where only doing Gods will.

>We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or
>cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.

Back in the good olde days when sidewalks where softer, heads
harder and everything was non toxic, and you could get a good
accurate foot measurement X ray at any shoe store!

>We played with toy guns, cowboys and Indians, army, cops and
>robbers, and used our fingers to simulate guns when the toy
>ones or my BB gun was not available.

Live BB gun fire? :)

>Some students weren't as smart as others or didn't work hard
>so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same
>grade. That generation produced some of the greatest
>risk-takers and problem solvers. We had the freedom,
>failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to
>deal with it all.

McCarthy, Nixon, ...

>Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake
>instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), the term cell
>phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a
>pager was the school PA system.

And by the time our generation came yours had pumped the
lakes full of so much sewage and industrial waste they
where unusable.

>Speaking of school, we all said prayers and the pledge and
>stayed in detention after school and caught all sorts of
>negative attention for the next two weeks. We must have had
>horribly damaged psyches.

You really do listen to too much Dr. Laura don't you? Last I
checked you could skill get detention.

>I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an
>abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was
>anyway) but they did give us a couple of aspirin and cough
>syrup if we started getting the sniffles.

Schools offering abortion? You wouldn't have known what a
condom was, are you for real?

>I just can't recall how bored we were without computers,
>PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital cable stations.I
>must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize
>through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as
>we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some
>guy's vacant 20, built forts out of branches and pieces of
>plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone
>Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us
>play on that lot. He should have been locked up for not
>putting up a fence around the property, complete with a
>self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.

The vacant 20s where later all paved over by your generation.

>Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit
>when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

Bee sting allergies where a liberal invention to help oppress
the God fearing gun owning patriots?

>Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids
>choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing
>with Tonka trucks (remember why Tonka trucks were made
>tough... it wasn't so that they could take the rough berber
>in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.

Thats the problem with kids today, not enough lead!

>How did we survive?

God only knows.
--
Be a counter terrorist perpetrate random senseless acts
of kindness Rave: Immanentization of the Eschaton in a
Temporary Autonomous Zone. Engineering, 1 part Moore's
Law, 2 parts Murphy's law, 4 parts Zeno's Paradox.
Everytime a cat escapes death a universe gets its wings

[Alf Christ]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 07:05:56 -0800, "R&M"
<rcontest@cwnet.com> wrote:

>
>My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the
>same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we
>didn't seem to get food poisoning.

She probably used a wooden cut board and not a plastic one.
Here people are now warned against believing plastic cut
boards are more hygienic than wooden ones. It turns out that
wood has chemicals that kills many bacteria, while plastic
ones rather promote bacterial growth, even if you use chlorine
bleach daily (the bacteria just get more and more resistant
against the bleaches)

[Ben Fuller]

R&M (rcontest@cwnet.com) wrote:

: Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as
: long as we have......

: My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the
: same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we
: didn't seem to get food poisoning.

: My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I
: used to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't remember
: getting E-coli.

That was before the days when salmonella and E-coli got out of
control due to the overcrowding of "egg factories" and beef
feedlots with overcrowded pens - plus assembly line cutting
and packaging factories.

Overcrowding seems to be a factor in all sorts of diseases of
plants, animals and people .... and yet we continue to
concentrate populations of all of these .... and place
unjustified trust in modern inventions to cope with the
inevitable disastrous results.

I was born in the early thirties and, sadly, feel that I have
lived in the best of all possible times - sadly when I think
of our children.

Ben Fullerton

[Red Herrin]

Ben Fullerton <ac608nospam@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message =
news:b3nr0u$9b9$1@News.Dal.Ca...
> R&M (rcontest@cwnet.com) wrote:
>=20
> : Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as
> : long as we have......
>=20
> : My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on
> : the same =
cutting
> : board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't
> : seem to get =
food
> : poisoning.
>=20
> : My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used
> : to eat it =
raw
> : sometimes too, but I can't remember getting E-coli.
>=20
> That was before the days when salmonella and E-coli got out
> of control =
due
> to the overcrowding of "egg factories" and beef
> feedlots with =
overcrowded
> pens - plus assembly line cutting and packaging factories.
>=20
> Overcrowding seems to be a factor in all sorts of diseases
> of plants, animals and people .... and yet we continue to
> concentrate populations =
of
> all of these .... and place unjustified trust in modern
> inventions to =
cope
> with the inevitable disastrous results.
>=20
> I was born in the early thirties and, sadly, feel that I
> have lived in =
the
> best of all possible times - sadly when I think of our
> children.
>=20
> Ben Fullerton

I agree. My views date from the early '20s. I think it is a
result of population explosion. Quality of life peaked around
the '50s and = started self destruct in the '70s.

Your thoughts?

Red

[Ben Fuller]

Red Herring (rherring@freewweb.invalid) wrote:

: Ben Fullerton <ac608nospam@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message
: = news:b3nr0u$9b9$1@News.Dal.Ca...
: > R&M (rcontest@cwnet.com) wrote:
: >=20
: > : Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as
: > : long as we have......
: >=20
: > : My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on
: > : the same =
: cutting
: > : board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't
: > : seem to get =
: food
: > : poisoning.
: >=20
: > : My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I
: > : used to eat it =
: raw
: > : sometimes too, but I can't remember getting E-coli.
: >
: >

: > That was before the days when salmonella and E-coli got
: > out of control due to the overcrowding of "egg factories"
: > and beef feedlots with overcrowded pens - plus assembly
: > line cutting and packaging factories.
: >
: > Overcrowding seems to be a factor in all sorts of diseases
: > of plants, animals and people .... and yet we continue to
: > concentrate populations = of all of these .... and place
: > unjustified trust in modern inventions to cope with the
: > inevitable disastrous results.
: >=
: > I was born in the early thirties and, sadly, feel that I
: > have lived in = the best of all possible times - sadly
: > when I think of our children.
: >
: > Ben Fullerton

: I agree. My views date from the early '20s. I think it is a
: result of population explosion. Quality of life peaked
: around the '50s and = started self destruct in the '70s.

: Your thoughts?

: Red

In some parts of the world it happened even long before
that ... but I will stick with the part of the world that
I live in.

The people of Canada and much of the U.S. are not so much over
populated as over concentrated in the big towns and cities.

I see it as more of a super sell by the big manufacturing
companies who convinced us that we needed one of each of the
products that became available based on wartime research and
development discoveries - and each with as many bells and
whistles as we could find the money for.

Combine this with both parents often working full time in the
big factory and office areas and the family farm became an
endangered species. Factory farms and high volume monoculture
got producers addicted and _then_ they found out that plant
and animal diseases _loved_ the monoculture method.

Instead of going back to the smaller, rotating crop, home
grown fertilizer, type food production that was self
sustaining ..... they turned to the use of chemicals as the
quick fix (strongly promoted by the big manufacturers of those
new and unproven products).

In Canada at least, government supports big business and big
business calls the shots on deciding what is safe and proper
in food production.

Of course this became another addiction and commercial
pressures (from companies like Monsanto) left
organically grown food as the only thing available that
was / is fit to eat.

I eat certified organic whole foods for the major part of my
diet and wish that I had seen the "writing on the wall" fifty
years ago - instead of fifteen ..... which was when I became
one of the exploding number of people with "environmental
illness" / "multiple chemical sensitivity" or whatever label
of choice you prefer.

Eat factory food with it's load of chemicals, get sick.

Eat organic food, recover lost ground (but with no guarantee
of full recovery).

Sorry to be so long winded about this but my frustration level
with the food industry boils (and regulators) over some times.

BTW, I havn't required _any_ prescription medication since I
went organic!

Bottom line, taking supplements to try to offset the toxic
components and nutrient deficiencies in food is like taking
aspirin for a hat that is too tight.

I took off the hat.

Ben F.

[Katra]

That was a keeper, thanks!
K.

R&M wrote:
>
> Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as
> long as we have......
>
> My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the
> same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we
> didn't seem to get food poisoning.
>
> My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I
> used to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can't remember
> getting E-coli.
>
> We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or
> cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.
>
> We played with toy guns, cowboys and Indians, army, cops and
> robbers, and used our fingers to simulate guns when the toy
> ones or my BB gun was not available.
>
> Some students weren't as smart as others or didn't work hard
> so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same
> grade. That generation produced some of the greatest
> risk-takers and problem solvers. We had the freedom,
> failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to
> deal with it all.
>
> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake
> instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), the term
> cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell,
> and a pager was the school PA system.
>
> We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with
> a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of
> having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles
> and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries
> but they must have happened because they tell us how much
> safer weare now. Flunking gym was not an option... even for
> stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.
>
> Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson by
> running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and
> hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today
> if we only knew we could have sued the school system.
>
> Speaking of school, we all said prayers and the pledge and
> stayed in detention after school and caught all sorts of
> negative attention for the next two weeks. We must have had
> horribly damaged psyches.
>
> I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an
> abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was
> anyway) but they did give us a couple of aspirin and cough
> syrup if we started getting the sniffles.
>
> What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school
> nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.
>
> I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before
> I was allowed to be proud of myself.
>
> I just can't recall how bored we were without computers,
> PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital cable stations.I
> must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize
> through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as
> we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some
> guy's vacant 20, built forts out of branches and pieces of
> plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone
> Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us
> play on that lot. He should have been locked up for not
> putting up a fence around the property, complete with a
> self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.
>
> Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit
> when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
>
> We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant
> construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the
> 48 cent bottle of mercurochrome and then we got our butt
> spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by
> a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom
> calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a
> horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
>
> We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if
> we did, we got our butt spanked (physical abuse) ... and
> then we got our butt spanked again when we got home.
>
> Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee,
> kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while
> playing with Tonka trucks (remember why Tonka trucks were
> made tough... it wasn't so that they could take the rough
> berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with
> leaded gas.
>
> Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and
> I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of
> times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably
> sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all
> slept in campgrounds in the family tent.
>
> Summers were spent behind the push lawnmower and I didn't
> even know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we
> got one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive.
> How sick were my parents?
>
> Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. I recall
> Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his
> tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little
> did his Mom know that she could have owned our house.Instead
> she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It
> was a neighborhood run amuck.
>
> To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told
> that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we
> possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy
> and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by
> so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the
> entire country wasn't taking Prozac!
>
> How did we survive?

--
>^,,^< Cats-haven Hobby Farm >^,,^< Katra@centurytel.net
>>^,,^<

"There are many intelligent species in the Universe, and they
are all owned by cats!" --Asimov

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