Born Before 1986?

[WebHost Admin]

One of those e-mails going around...


Born Before 1986?

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because 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 seat belts 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 juice 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 noone minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms.

We had friends - we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and 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 fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

We played chap-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friends' 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 was unheard of...They
actually sided with the law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have 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!

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.

For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us.

This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on your face: The majority of students in universities today were born in 1986........They are called youth.

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 Cherry or Belinda Carlisle.

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

AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born Michael Jackson has always been white.

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

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

They can never imagine life before computers.

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

They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You.

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed. And they
will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now let's check if we'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 remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.

7. You meet your friends from time to time, talkingabout the good old days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.

Yes, you're getting old!!

[monaghan]

I guess being old means that you remember that email 1st time round, long before most people had email or even knew what it was

[daria564]

i had an atari, man. so much for no video games.

[monaghan]

We had one of those black & white tennis video games long before the Atari

[palefrost]

*laugh laugh cry cry* Yeah i can relate to the above. Youth is wasted on the young is all i gotta say.

[ninikins]

Hah! I'm from '82 so I guess I count. Some are really true

[ozzie]

I enjoyed that post a lot. All of my kids were born before 1986! You should see the one I like best. It's for all those who were born before 1960. I'm in that group.

[ItsComeToThis]

LOL Yes, I was born in Feb 1980 and never wore a helmet as a child, had a high chair with a metal tray and sharp metal hinges, played dodge ball (and yet, Im not a violent person)...did all kinds of things frowned upon these days and Im still alive and kicking!

:-)

[paperclip]

I was born in 78 and had the above mentined items. I have also been stung by bees, bitten by dogs, etc. Oh and skated without protection, ridden my bike in traffic, played tackle football on the street, etc.

Still alive !

[rox]

UPTOWN GIRL!

this is an amazing post i love it.
although im right at the border (being born in '83)
i relate to everything here.

[techluck]

I too was born before 1960 surviving just fine on lead paint and no car seat or bike helmet.

[dwalliz]

I can't believe that I am consider to be old and I am only 26. My my my.

[aquariancore]

I had the first atari and the game was Pong. Does anyone remember Commodore?

[MasterMind]

Originally Posted by monaghan

We had one of those black & white tennis video games long before the Atari

Mine was a dual colour tennis/soccer video game, very popular in the 70s, then the turn of the decade brought me an Atari 2600 and other innovations before my first rebirth in 1987...

The second occurred in 1991 (literally), and my actual "reincarnation" in 1999 via the Internet.

[OpticEmpire]

ouch - 82 here, maybe im lucky and missed out over here in Australia

[bob]

This post brought me back to my kid days! Till now the pastures are young and beautiful where I have lost my childhood.

[monaghan]

Originally Posted by aquariancore

Does anyone remember Commodore?

Which Commodore ?

The 1st one I used was a Commodore Pet which Dad's company had bought for the managers to take home to learn on, this was back in the late 70's.

My first experience of the C language was on a Commodore Amiga in the mid 80's, however most of my Amiga coding was in 68000 assembler

[aquariancore]

Originally Posted by monaghan

Which Commodore ?

The 1st one I used was a Commodore Pet which Dad's company had bought for the managers to take home to learn on, this was back in the late 70's.

My first experience of the C language was on a Commodore Amiga in the mid 80's, however most of my Amiga coding was in 68000 assembler

Yes, my then girlfriends brother took a lot of grief over his living with his Amiga and investing in a little company called microsoft. Now, he runs his own company when he is not riding his horse.

[monaghan]

It was the other way round with me, I was working for Amstrad at the time in the technical support for these new range of computers just starting to take hold of the market (the PC clone). All of the Customer Services Technical Support dept were Amiga programmers supporting the IBM clones in the day time

[MasterMind]

Originally Posted by monaghan

however most of my Amiga coding was in 68000 assembler

This was the same processor used by Atari ST, my first real computer in the late 80s, in which I learned Basic programming