This was sent to me by a good friend of mine who's in my gun club. It's a long read but the author really nailed it. I took the liberty of editing it slightly for spacing and paragraphs. Enjoy.


Can't Believe You Made It !

If you lived as a child in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's. My childhood began in the mid-30's, so I'm particularly bereft. The 30's were regarded as bad times - so bad that my folks must have (subliminally?) given me the means of dealing with shit.

They probably really didn't mean to - it just happened - That doesn't happen any more. Your folks needed shit - to pass it along.

Nowadays, folks don't get real shit - what they get is just crap. And that's what kids today get. Real shit will stick, stink and stain your clothes.

You learn to avoid it. Crap will just brush off; and then you get it again.

Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have... As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We'd lock 4 kids in the trunk and sneak them into the Drive-In movie!

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!) Hell, we used to walk the tracks down to the trestle, whereunder, the bums and transients would overnight. If we got there early enough, with some eggs, maybe a couple of extra boiled potatoes, and bread and stuff, copped form mom's kitchen, they'd cook us their form of breakfast, and tell stories and shit. Somehow, worries about our safety never were on our minds.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable. We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth, and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight......... we were always outside playing. We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this. 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 friends. We went outside and found them. 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?

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment....Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade..... Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that!

We didn't even have the 'pregnant mother's drop-off' at the fire station. Most pregnant mothers were working on someone's brother, sister or first child. Now, these moms get a 'mulligan'? Like kids are just the side effects of a piece of ass gone wrong?

I guess it is better than 'dumpster-babies'.

We not only played Cops and Robbers with toy cap pistols, that went 'snap', some of us actually had real guns. Our dads came from an even earlier age (closer to the founders). Now everyone seems to come from the future - all weird and PC. When there was a war to go to, we went. We didn't piss our panties and march around with wilted flowers and signs. All my uncles and 2nd cousins, etc. were in WWII. 1 Marine, 2 Navy, 1 AF.

Never heard any bitching.

Grown men could simultaneously drink and smoke in their favorite bar or restaraunt and no one objected. If you didn't like it, you didn't go there - though I can't recall it as an issue.

We even had actual fireworks on the 4th of July! Stuff that really went bang and into the air.

I don't recall any one badly injured or anything burning down - though such may have happened - I think I burned my finger on a sparkler, once. It healed. Hey! It was the 4th of July!!

When shit stops happening, you don't learn to deal with it. Then, you have to call someone you don't know. Chances are they never learned to deal with shit, either. They'll probably read some shit from their book of bull shit rules, and send you or someone to jail.

These earlier generations have produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. We went to the friggin' MOON, for christ's sake!!  Politics be damned! We went!

Now, we are being told that we didn't go or shouldn't have gone! And we shouldn't go again. We got dumpster-babies to feed!

The past 60 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one of them. Congratulations! Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, "for our own good."

Bravo.

I'm 30 and I keep thinking that I am the last of us that can deal with shit.  Even those in my own generation seem hopelessly lost...

Then I'll meet some 17 year old kid who really knows what shit is, and I realize that all hope is not lost - you just have to look harder to find it these days.