Those were the days

[rabcnesbit]

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the '60s, '70s and early '80s probably shouldn't have survived, since:

Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint, which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no dvd movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, and no Internet chat rooms. We had friends; we went outside and found them.

We played chinese skipping and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no lawsuits.

We had full on fistfights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

We played knock-and-run and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friend's homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law unheard of. They actually sided with the law.

Our generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

Consider this:
The majority of students in universities today were born in 1983.

They have never heard of "We are the World, We are the children", and the"Uptown Girl" they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena or Belinda Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.

AIDS has existed since they were born.

CDs have existed since they were born.

To them, Michael Jackson has always been white and John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could have been a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films that came out last year.

They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, the Red Hand Gang or the Famous Five.

They can't believe a black-and-white television ever existed and don't even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.

And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now let's check whether you're getting old:
1. You understand what was written above and you smile.
2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.
3. Your friends are getting married/already married.
4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.
5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.
6. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.
7. Having read this, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too...

Yes, you're getting older!!!!