Life has changed.

How life has changed.


Sometimes it scares me when I look around . They tell us that our generation was different, and I total agree. We are old fashion they tell us. Well let me tell you how our generation  from the  40..50..60...grew up. 

First of all we survived a natural birth, with mothers who smoked and drank during their pregnancy.
They took an aspirin, they ate vinaigrette sauces, mayonnaise and ate deserts. We were not tested for diabetes or cholesterol.After the trauma of coming in this world we were put to rest on our stomachs in our colorful painted lead paint baby cribs.

There were no child safety locks on doors and when we were riding our bikes we wore base ball caps and no helmets.

When we were a baby or child we were sitting on mothers lap in the car, we did not have seatbelts and baby seats or blowup pillows.

To sit in the back of a lorry or on a horse from the farmer on a sunny day was for us an adventure. It was something very special.

We drank water from a well or from the tap. We had no plastic bottles filled with special water.

We ate cakes with whipping cream, white bread, real butter, bacon and eggs. We ate beechnuts and walnuts which were already laying on the ground.We drank warm chocolate milk with real sugar and did not suffer from obesity. Why???

Because we played outside all the time.

That's why!!

We left the house early in the morning to bike to school. (There were no mothers who drove cars to take us there).
After school we played outside in the fresh air. There was one condition, we had to be home before dark or be home the street lights came on. Our parents did not know where we were and had never heard of Mark Dutroux ( the serial child molester, this was 1996)

We wore dirty clothes when we played and clean clothes when we went visiting or going to church. We kept ourselves busy for hours and made our own play-toys.
We had no play stations, Nintendo, X-box or I-Pod, etc. There were no video games or video movies or DVD's and Hifi systems with digital tuning.

For 18 hours you could only see the test screen.

There were no computers or internet.. We had friends,and played outside with them.
We fell out of trees, cut ourselves, and sometimes broke a toe or an arm, leg or a tooth. We went to pick apples and pears. There were no Federal Jurisdiction Police approaches to blame anybody for this 'crime'.
If we were caught anyway, we received a beating on our behinds.

Coming home you did not tell your parents, otherwise you got punished by them and the punishment was usual that you could not go and play with your friends after school for a couple of days. You would have house arrest.

Our mothers did not go to work, they were always home.Fathers went to work and mothers stayed home to take care of the kids.

For our twelfth birthday we got plastic water guns, played with sticks as if they were swords, a lid from the garbage bin was our shield, we made sling shots from branches of the tree with elastic, a bow and arrow from cane with a nail at the end.

sling-shot

From the garbage lid we made our shield.

 
From old knives we made throwing knives and practiced on a tree stump or an old dart board from the local pub.Of course our parents forbid us and told us that we could lose an eye or could hurt somebody. But never the less we survived all this.

We were walking or riding our bikes to our friends houses. The bikes most of the time we had put together ourselves from old parts,found at the garbage dump.

We would get into our friends houses through the back doors, which were always open. We would walk in as if we lived there. We were always welcome and were always invited to have a bite to eat if they were having their meal.

The idea that our parents had to get us out of jail was absurd, that was unheard off. Our parents agreed with the law, and the teachers. If we were punished by the law, or were punished at school, we would get an extra punishment from our parents.

Our generation were the ones who were the entrepreneurs, the thinkers and the inventors. These were the years of an explosion of new idea's.

We had the freedom to try, to be scared to fail, and the success and responsibility which came with it.
Are you one of them?

PROFICIAT!

Maybe you were one of them who were lucky enough to grow up before the lawyers and politicians started to rule us.
Life was so beautiful, simple and serene. Sometimes a little rough but very clear and simple, but there were rules, and we were happy!