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 An updated version

   Under the age of 55?  You won't understand unless you were brought up in
our house!

   My mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread butter on bread on the
same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to
get food poisoning.

   Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag,
not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.  coli

   We all took PE .....  and risked permanent injury with a pair of
plimsolls instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion
soles and built in light reflectors that cost as much as a small car.  I
can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us
how much safer we are now.

   We got the cane for doing something wrong at school, they used to call
it discipline, yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour &
respect those older than us.

   We had 30+ kids in our class and we all learned to read and write, do
maths and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically
correct letter......., FUNNY THAT!!

   We all said prayers in school and sang the national anthem, and staying
in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

   I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was
allowed to be proud of myself.

   I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station,
Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.  We weren't!!

   Oh yeah ...  and where were the sterilisation kit and antibiotics when I
got that bee sting?  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 2/6d bottle of
iodine and then we got our backside spanked.  Now 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 did we ever survive?

   LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA.  AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, SORRY FOR
WHAT YOU MISSED.  I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!

   Pass this to someone and remember that life's most simple pleasures are
very often the best.

   AAAAh, those WERE the days!!!!

   ***********************************************************************

   For the readers who were thoughtful enough to comment, I thank you. . 
If you enjoyed this moment of humor or information plz drop me a line to
let me know someone is actually reading these posts. .  jackspratt1@gmx.com