[SGH]

How Did We Survive? Rant-of-the-Week​

Image Credit: Pexels

Doctor on TV recently (Norman Swan on ABC) told us that we needed children to play in the dirt with their dogs and cats and be allowed to build up some immunity! Well, bugger me! Who would have thought Gosh, those were the days. Mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach. For some strange reason, we didn't seem to get food poisoning. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag and not in an ice pack cooler. For the life of me, I can't ever remember getting E.coli. Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the creek, the lake, or the beach. Pristine chlorinated pools were at the YMCA. We had no idea of beach closures in those days. Everyone took Physical Education. We risked permanent injury with a pair of regular running shoes. Cross-training athletic shoes had not been invented. I can't recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

We got the strap for doing something wrong at school. They used to call it discipline, yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour and respect those older than us. We had at least 40 kids in our class, and somehow, we all learned to read and write, do maths and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter. FUNNY EH! We all said prayers in school, irrespective of our religion, and sang the national anthem. No one got upset. Staying in detention after school netted us all sorts of negative attention we wish we hadn't got. And we all knew we had to accomplish something before we were allowed to be proud of ourselves.

Sometimes we played on losing teams. We learned about winning and losing. I just can't recall being bored. We were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box, or 270 digital TV cable stations. We used to swim naked in the creek and dive into the water by climbing trees. Oh yeah ... And where were the antibiotics and sterilisation kit when I got that bee sting? Gawd, I could have been killed! We played "King of the Castle" on piles of gravel left on vacant building sites, and when we got hurt, mum pulled out the trusty bottle of iodine, and then we got our backside spanked. Today it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

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 never needed to get into group therapy and/or 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 in Hell did we ever survive?

HERE IS TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, I’M SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULD NOT TRADE MY GROWING-UP YEARS FOR ANYTHING!

 

[piggyp]

Dont forget there were no USE BY DATES on food or refigerators an ice chest if you were lucky MILK from the cow before cardboard flavored pastyoureyes shit came in white or brown bread unsliced butter not sumpoil margerine dripping on bread or for cooking yum vegetables and tomatoes ugly shape and sizes but full of flavor not like now.Home grown veges or bought from locals or the green grocer when he came around.The Ralieghs man sold medication when he was in the area .Still remember peahes un a can that was new,

 

[Suzanne rose]

Life WAS easy then

 

[JackiW]

Dont forget there were no USE BY DATES on food or refigerators an ice chest if you were lucky MILK from the cow before cardboard flavored pastyoureyes shit came in white or brown bread unsliced butter not sumpoil margerine dripping on bread or for cooking yum vegetables and tomatoes ugly shape and sizes but full of flavor not like now.Home grown veges or bought from locals or the green grocer when he came around.The Ralieghs man sold medication when he was in the area .Still remember peahes un a can that was new,

Life WAS easy then

I remember it so well, growing up in a small village during and after WW2.
The bread was brought warm from Nana's oven, milk arrived on the pony cart in churns so you took your jug out to get it filled. Vegetables grew in your backyard and eggs were collected every morning from the hen run out the back.
Even small children had their own jobs to do and be completed before we were allowed to disappear for hours with our friends.
We had very little but we were happy and healthy and most of us went on to be law abiding, productive members of society.
Yes, I do believe that they were the good old days and I'm glad that I experienced them.

 

[Glendal]

How Did We Survive? Rant-of-the-Week​

View attachment 27150

Image Credit: Pexels

Doctor on TV recently (Norman Swan on ABC) told us that we needed children to play in the dirt with their dogs and cats and be allowed to build up some immunity! Well, bugger me! Who would have thought Gosh, those were the days. Mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach. For some strange reason, we didn't seem to get food poisoning. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag and not in an ice pack cooler. For the life of me, I can't ever remember getting E.coli. Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the creek, the lake, or the beach. Pristine chlorinated pools were at the YMCA. We had no idea of beach closures in those days. Everyone took Physical Education. We risked permanent injury with a pair of regular running shoes. Cross-training athletic shoes had not been invented. I can't recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

We got the strap for doing something wrong at school. They used to call it discipline, yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour and respect those older than us. We had at least 40 kids in our class, and somehow, we all learned to read and write, do maths and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter. FUNNY EH! We all said prayers in school, irrespective of our religion, and sang the national anthem. No one got upset. Staying in detention after school netted us all sorts of negative attention we wish we hadn't got. And we all knew we had to accomplish something before we were allowed to be proud of ourselves.

Sometimes we played on losing teams. We learned about winning and losing. I just can't recall being bored. We were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box, or 270 digital TV cable stations. We used to swim naked in the creek and dive into the water by climbing trees. Oh yeah ... And where were the antibiotics and sterilisation kit when I got that bee sting? Gawd, I could have been killed! We played "King of the Castle" on piles of gravel left on vacant building sites, and when we got hurt, mum pulled out the trusty bottle of iodine, and then we got our backside spanked. Today it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

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 never needed to get into group therapy and/or 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 in Hell did we ever survive?

HERE IS TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, I’M SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULD NOT TRADE MY GROWING-UP YEARS FOR ANYTHING!

 

[Glendal]

Me either

 

[maryfern33]

How Did We Survive? Rant-of-the-Week​

View attachment 27150

Image Credit: Pexels

Doctor on TV recently (Norman Swan on ABC) told us that we needed children to play in the dirt with their dogs and cats and be allowed to build up some immunity! Well, bugger me! Who would have thought Gosh, those were the days. Mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach. For some strange reason, we didn't seem to get food poisoning. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag and not in an ice pack cooler. For the life of me, I can't ever remember getting E.coli. Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the creek, the lake, or the beach. Pristine chlorinated pools were at the YMCA. We had no idea of beach closures in those days. Everyone took Physical Education. We risked permanent injury with a pair of regular running shoes. Cross-training athletic shoes had not been invented. I can't recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

We got the strap for doing something wrong at school. They used to call it discipline, yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour and respect those older than us. We had at least 40 kids in our class, and somehow, we all learned to read and write, do maths and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter. FUNNY EH! We all said prayers in school, irrespective of our religion, and sang the national anthem. No one got upset. Staying in detention after school netted us all sorts of negative attention we wish we hadn't got. And we all knew we had to accomplish something before we were allowed to be proud of ourselves.

Sometimes we played on losing teams. We learned about winning and losing. I just can't recall being bored. We were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box, or 270 digital TV cable stations. We used to swim naked in the creek and dive into the water by climbing trees. Oh yeah ... And where were the antibiotics and sterilisation kit when I got that bee sting? Gawd, I could have been killed! We played "King of the Castle" on piles of gravel left on vacant building sites, and when we got hurt, mum pulled out the trusty bottle of iodine, and then we got our backside spanked. Today it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

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 never needed to get into group therapy and/or 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 in Hell did we ever survive?

HERE IS TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, I’M SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULD NOT TRADE MY GROWING-UP YEARS FOR ANYTHING!

I totally agreee with everything said. Those were the good old days, we did all the same things and when hurt the iodine bottle ame out. How we yelled when it burned! But that was our cure. No trips to the docors or antibiotics or rest. We were up and running soon after. We had no fridges , meat and veggies were bought daily and cooked fresh. Prayers were said every day at assembly before classes started , no one objected . Simple games like cops and robbers, and the like made our day. Ice cream was a rare treat. Minus all the luxuries we have today we had nothing to regret about. Life was simple, life was fun and life was oh, so good.

 

[Lorraine Rea]

How Did We Survive? Rant-of-the-Week​

View attachment 27150

Image Credit: Pexels

Doctor on TV recently (Norman Swan on ABC) told us that we needed children to play in the dirt with their dogs and cats and be allowed to build up some immunity! Well, bugger me! Who would have thought Gosh, those were the days. Mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach. For some strange reason, we didn't seem to get food poisoning. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag and not in an ice pack cooler. For the life of me, I can't ever remember getting E.coli. Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the creek, the lake, or the beach. Pristine chlorinated pools were at the YMCA. We had no idea of beach closures in those days. Everyone took Physical Education. We risked permanent injury with a pair of regular running shoes. Cross-training athletic shoes had not been invented. I can't recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

We got the strap for doing something wrong at school. They used to call it discipline, yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour and respect those older than us. We had at least 40 kids in our class, and somehow, we all learned to read and write, do maths and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter. FUNNY EH! We all said prayers in school, irrespective of our religion, and sang the national anthem. No one got upset. Staying in detention after school netted us all sorts of negative attention we wish we hadn't got. And we all knew we had to accomplish something before we were allowed to be proud of ourselves.

Sometimes we played on losing teams. We learned about winning and losing. I just can't recall being bored. We were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box, or 270 digital TV cable stations. We used to swim naked in the creek and dive into the water by climbing trees. Oh yeah ... And where were the antibiotics and sterilisation kit when I got that bee sting? Gawd, I could have been killed! We played "King of the Castle" on piles of gravel left on vacant building sites, and when we got hurt, mum pulled out the trusty bottle of iodine, and then we got our backside spanked. Today it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

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 never needed to get into group therapy and/or 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 in Hell did we ever survive?

HERE IS TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, I’M SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULD NOT TRADE MY GROWING-UP YEARS FOR ANYTHING!

My mum and dad met during the war in England and had 5 girls in 6 years. We lived in a one living / one bedroom "backhouse" where the councils had split large houses into two to house families. The toilet and washhouse were down the yard and was shared by the fronthouse family of 6. My parents survived over 10 years of these living conditions and both worked full time. We were out all day so mum could clean the room and "scullery" above the cellar. Amazing and I can still remember a lot of that time.

 

[LynneM]

My mum and dad met during the war in England and had 5 girls in 6 years. We lived in a one living / one bedroom "backhouse" where the councils had split large houses into two to house families. The toilet and washhouse were down the yard and was shared by the fronthouse family of 6. My parents survived over 10 years of these living conditions and both worked full time. We were out all day so mum could clean the room and "scullery" above the cellar. Amazing and I can still remember a lot of that time.

Sounds lovely. Yet everyone did not need therapy lol

 

[thomas]

How Did We Survive? Rant-of-the-Week​

View attachment 27150

Image Credit: Pexels

Doctor on TV recently (Norman Swan on ABC) told us that we needed children to play in the dirt with their dogs and cats and be allowed to build up some immunity! Well, bugger me! Who would have thought Gosh, those were the days. Mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach. For some strange reason, we didn't seem to get food poisoning. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag and not in an ice pack cooler. For the life of me, I can't ever remember getting E.coli. Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the creek, the lake, or the beach. Pristine chlorinated pools were at the YMCA. We had no idea of beach closures in those days. Everyone took Physical Education. We risked permanent injury with a pair of regular running shoes. Cross-training athletic shoes had not been invented. I can't recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

We got the strap for doing something wrong at school. They used to call it discipline, yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour and respect those older than us. We had at least 40 kids in our class, and somehow, we all learned to read and write, do maths and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter. FUNNY EH! We all said prayers in school, irrespective of our religion, and sang the national anthem. No one got upset. Staying in detention after school netted us all sorts of negative attention we wish we hadn't got. And we all knew we had to accomplish something before we were allowed to be proud of ourselves.

Sometimes we played on losing teams. We learned about winning and losing. I just can't recall being bored. We were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box, or 270 digital TV cable stations. We used to swim naked in the creek and dive into the water by climbing trees. Oh yeah ... And where were the antibiotics and sterilisation kit when I got that bee sting? Gawd, I could have been killed! We played "King of the Castle" on piles of gravel left on vacant building sites, and when we got hurt, mum pulled out the trusty bottle of iodine, and then we got our backside spanked. Today it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

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 never needed to get into group therapy and/or 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 in Hell did we ever survive?

HERE IS TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, I’M SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULD NOT TRADE MY GROWING-UP YEARS FOR ANYTHING!

kids have been TOO pampered over the past generation or so, that's why they are always so sick, no immunity in their bodies to fight off any ailments, rely TOO much on pils etc, pills are there to help the body fight illness not to live on them

 

[MIZMAC]

We walked or rode bikes to school. Only time we went by car was if it was snowing
We were two MILES from school. At least seven children , all neighbours, would pile into one car.

 

[Gsr]

Yes I remember, riding bikes with up to 5 kids on a boys bike, up to 4 kids on a girls bike, riding to and from school on gravel roads, no helmets, frequent busters, wrap a hanky around any spots bleeding too much, get back on the bike and go again. 4 or 5 kids bareback riding a horse, same deal if you fell off, patch yourself up and get back on. Mums would patch us up once home, iodine or mercurochrome and bandaid or bandages, never got anything stitched, nearest Dr was too far away. We all have scars to show for our adventures. No seatbelts in cars, we sometimes had 8 people in the car, kids squashed in back seat, little kids on mum or big kids laps. Frequent encounters with black and brown snakes, no one ever got bitten, we all learnt how to kill a snake at a young age. Playing outside at home and school no matter how hot or cold the weather was, when it rained we played on the verandah. No fans in summer, air con wasn’t the thing back then. Big open fires in our classroom and kitchen at home for winter, no fire guards or anything, no one ever got burnt, our house or school never burnt down. No screens on our windows or doors, we slept with them all open in summer but there must have been less mozzies around then as we never got eaten alive like we do now. Climbing trees and falling out, climbing onto the roof, up over the high pitch and down to the lowest side and jumping off (when the parents weren’t home), no one ever broke a bone, we must have had really strong bones. Playing in the dirt, making mud pies, pulling vegies out of the ground, wiping the dirt off and eating them, eating vegies as we picked them, fruit straight off the trees. Squirting milk from the house cows teats straight into each other’s mouths, that was so much fun, we ended up with more milk over us than in the bucket. Such a fun, carefree childhood, full of adventures, and we all survived with our mental and physical health intact.