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If you lived as a child in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s or 70’s:

Looking back, it’s hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have…

As children, we had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or
cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. And we’d ride
in cars with no seatbelts or airbags. Occasionally a kid would drink a bottle
of pills or fly through a window, but hey, they aren’t around to wax philosophical about their childhood, now are they?

Those classic cars got about six miles to the gallon, by the way, damaging the environment and making the air unbreathable…

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never fat. We sure are now. 56% of us are overweight, and another 13% are grossly obese…

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms…we had really cool stuff like goldfish eating, sock hops, pet rocks, and practicing “duck and cover”.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it?

As parents ourselves, we maintain absolute control over our own children,
monitoring and filtering their consumption of said video games, movies, phones, computers, and chat rooms, denying them even a semblance of freedom or independence.

When we were kids, good ole “Jim Crow” laws barred Negros from access
to employment and to public places such as restaurants, hotels, and other facilities…

A woman’s place was in the home. If she was working, she was expected to be a secretary, a stewardess, or a nurse. Of course, she was paid almost nothing compared to a man…

Polio was rampant, killing thousands of fellow Americans and and disabling tens of thousands of others every year…

Remember polio?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. Like that one boy down the block who liked other boys…we kicked his ass good.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t, like girls, who can’t throw or catch, had to learn to deal with disappointment…. Some students, such as the colored children, weren’t as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade…horrors!

Racially-biased tests were not adjusted for any reason.

This generation has produced some of the most self-congratulatory, responsibility-avoiding, hypocritical bunch of crybabies ever. In 50 years we had an explosion of “me-ism,” greed, myopia, and self-indulgence. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we squandered most of it in pursuit of our own self-interests.

And you’re one of them.

Congratulations!

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A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.