That's the way it was...and we liked it!
That's the way it was...and we liked it!
KyAllroad wrote: I can nail down the when of the wussification pretty well. Almost immediately after me things went soft in a hurry
You realize that every generation of humans since the beginning of time have been saying that same thing, right?
mndsm wrote:ProDarwin wrote:This is the truth- including MISSION SKIP! Oh.... too hard? Let's skip it! you still get to see the ending and pretend you did a good job!bentwrench wrote: Yep, if you get fragged in a fight you just hit the reset button, and ask your mom to bring you another soda and order a pizza.I would just like to point out that video games have been wussified as well :(
Or, it's ok, you can just restart at the last checkpoint. No lives to run out.
Or in the realm of FPS games... health? No longer a thing. Just take cover for 10 seconds and wait for the screen to return to normal and you to 'recover'.
pres589 wrote: What are you anti-wussies risking to let kids today get away with the stuff you got away with?
Prison time. No, seriously. Prison.
Most of these already being mentioned, but were what I feel a VERY important part of my childhood
fighting back and not getting in trouble (bully specific. Twice. I wasn't a "clear winner" either time, but guess what: I never got bullied again either)
.22's being a "youth rifle". Lots of rounds fired, no humans harmed.
Losing. I learned more from losing games, fights, etc. than I ever did from winning.
The "Andy Griffith" life I had as a kid in Eastern Washington (I'm 33 for crying out loud. What the hell happened?)
I keep expecting common sense to make a come back. I keep finding myself disappointed.
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:pres589 wrote: What are you anti-wussies risking to let kids today get away with the stuff you got away with?Prison time. No, seriously. Prison.
Losing custody of our children
I brought a Bowie knife into fourth grade for show and tell.
It's not just America that's on the path to bob costasville... It's more a global trend, or at the very least a western world trend.
The fun police have well and truly berkeleyed the party, and people wonder why I'm not to partial to the idea of having kids...
We sit and wonder why kids are fat, can't cope with stress and hardship, don't have common sense or respect, but its pretty clear that by limiting kids exposure to all the evils of the world that we're making the problem worse.
I used to be involved in army cadets (similar to ROTC). The amount of precious little flowers that couldn't walk more than the equivalent of few city blocks before being exhausted, blistered or bored was amazing. Kids who had being so under exposed to dirt and germs that any camp we went on saw plenty of kids come down sick because they had zero immune system.
I was a Sargent towards the end of my time and one of my female recruits reported one of the male recruits for inappropriate sexual conduct (he'd asked her for a sexual favor and said that he'd get it one way or another). There were witnesses and so I took little Jonny around behind one of the buildings and tore strips off him, pointing out why it was wrong and inappropriate, asked how he'd like it if someone treated his mother or sister in that manor and just generally made sure he understood there'd better be no next time cause this would seem like a friendly chat compared to what he'd receive in future. Well little Jonny turned on the water works. Complained to mummy that id been mean to him, who in turn whinged to our CO. I was the one who ended up in trouble..... I'd been appropriate in what I said, and to his credit, after that the lad picked up his act. But to get in to trouble for giving a kid a good ear bashing for essentially threatening sexual assault was about the last straw for me.
Life's becoming far to censored and political correctness can berkeley of and die as far as I'm concerned.
We've spent so long trying to rid the world of outrage that now outrage has become sport because the genuine need for it seems to be dying.
we, all and kids were all used as a general context and of course there are exceptions. (Because no doubt someone will pipe up and say " not all")
^This
When we were kids, you were in deep E36 M3 if the school called your parents.
Now it's the other way around, the school is in deep E36 M3 if you call your parents.
It boggles my mind that around 200 years ago whole families would pack their crap into a wooden wagon, with wooden wheels and travel 3000 miles across deadly terrain just to get to the west coast. These days many people won't go to the grocery store without A/C, GPS, AAA, AWD, and all the rest of it.
Woody wrote: I brought a Bowie knife into fourth grade for show and tell.
I brought 2 shotguns!
Duke wrote: When I was about 10 or 11 - 5th or 6th grade - I had a Honda XR75. No lights, not even remotely street legal. Yet I could get just about anywhere in Chester County, PA (a radius of maybe 30 miles from home?) without doing more than crossing a road with a yellow stripe. I used to pack a lunch and a jug of water and be gone all day.
This was me, only with a Honda Minitrail, then an SL70, then an SL100.
We used to have wheelie contests with different classes for motorcycles, the 'banana seat' bikes and my favorite, the old 'ram's horn' handlebar ten speeds. I held my own quite well in all 3 categories.
We not only jumped our bicycles, on our street we kids were expected to rake the yard (something else you no longer see) and we'd push all the leaves/pinestraw into a big pile which we would set on fire (again something you don't see any more) and jump through the fire. Once it burned down some, it was wheelie through the embers time.
We had fireworks of all types. There's not enough bandwidth to describe the stupidity we got into.
The rare snowstorm in Columbia was a signal that we kids would not have to go to school the next day, so we would hang out in the n'hood all night long, having snowball fights etc. Once several of us were standing under a transformer discussing what to do next when the damn thing exploded. 
It sprayed hot oil straight up and it showered back down all over us.
There were several kids of my acquaintance who bought old rattletrap cars before they had drivers licenses, using lawn mowing etc money. We'd congregate and help each other 'fix' them, despite our best efforts to the contrary we'd get one running occasionally and then go cruising around the n'hood. All the parents knew we were doing this without licenses etc but didn't say anything as long as we didn't act like idiots. Like several of my friends, I'd been riding motorcycles and driving tractors etc practically since birth, so we'd just hone our car skills this way and be ready for the drivers' test.
During the summer, we'd go 'camping'. This was shorthand for 'roaming the neighborhood all night' pulling harmless pranks; we knew there were some lines you just didn't cross like busting windows or other vandalism (well, there were a couple who didn't get that memo) but the best part was we'd pool our cash and get someone 18 or older to buy us some beer.
Good times, mang. I wouldn't trade those days for anything.
Toyman01 wrote:aussiesmg wrote: We carried the teachers car, a Suzuki Mighty Boy, and placed it between two portable classrooms, sideways, less than an inch of space, I think they would frown on that these days.I got three days off for that in middle school. Today, it would be jail time for vandalism, expulsion and fines.
We did something similar twice; first was an MG Midget put sideways between two buildings in high school. Then I was party to the insertion of a Triumph Spitfire into the second floor lobby of a building on the University of SC campus. 
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/search-missing-florida-teens-perry-cohen-austin-stephanos-called-off/
These boys were not wusses.
Fueled by Caffeine wrote: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/search-missing-florida-teens-perry-cohen-austin-stephanos-called-off/ These boys were not wusses.
I'll go along with that. I'm really sorry the kids are missing and now presumed dead. I just hope the PC police don't jump all over the parents for daring to let the kids take chances.
A few years back, a dirt bike club in New York? bought about 900 acres so they'd always have a place to ride. (That's another real sore subject with me.) They built a 'Pee Wee' MX course so the youngest kids could ride and their parents could keep a close eye on them. The local sheriff saw this and she threatened them thus: if a child got injured on that course she'd charge them with child abuse. True story.
We had a large cow bell mounted at the garage door. The only rule was being within hearing range of that bell because if it rang and you didnt appear, not being able to hear the bell was no excuse. Any punishment I received at school was double at home(the only exception I remember was getting a lick at school for pitching a tobaggan hat to someone in violation of the teacher's dont throw any object rule) Having Dad come home by surprise in the middle of the day during the summer because he knew that I could start the old Fairlane 500 and disconnect the odometer; I was 14. Yeah, life was good
Hungary Bill wrote:Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:Losing custody of our children linkeypres589 wrote: What are you anti-wussies risking to let kids today get away with the stuff you got away with?Prison time. No, seriously. Prison.
This is the second time I've seen them in the news. The fact that this happens makes me furious. I grew up outside of D.C. also. Until I was 10, I lived in a dense-ish suburban area with lots of paths/parks/bike trails. I rode my bike all over the place to all of my friends houses, the pond, our 'fort' in the woods, etc, starting at around age 5.
I currently have a son that is 2 months old. It scares me that he will never have these opportunities. It also scares me that I'll have to be attached to him at the hip until he's 18. I want to have a life too :(
In reply to classicJackets:
I also graduated in 2013, and I have my parents to thank for how I turned out. When I was little we spent all our time outside and shoes were optional. The kid down the street, on the other hand, was grounded for going outside in his socks. He was wearing the socks because he was afraid of being barefoot. Everyone who participated in the 2012 senior prank wasn't allowed to walk at graduation, and so our class just wasn't able to have one. My dad put a VW Bug together on the roof of his high school and he and his friends did donuts and left it there. Or so he always said.
I brought a live .50 BMG round to high school. We through it in the tumbler the day before, so I wanted to show off the shiny. Didn't occur to anyone that it was a live round.
I also hung a training pinapple grenade from my schoolbag. Try that today and you wouldn't be suspended, you'd be staring at the end of an M4 carbine wheeled by an ATF agent.
ProDarwin wrote:Hungary Bill wrote:This is the second time I've seen them in the news. The fact that this happens makes me furious. I grew up outside of D.C. also. Until I was 10, I lived in a dense-ish suburban area with lots of paths/parks/bike trails. I rode my bike all over the place to all of my friends houses, the pond, our 'fort' in the woods, etc, starting at around age 5. I currently have a son that is 2 months old. It scares me that he will never have these opportunities. It also scares me that I'll have to be attached to him at the hip until he's 18. I want to have a life too :(Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:Losing custody of our children linkeypres589 wrote: What are you anti-wussies risking to let kids today get away with the stuff you got away with?Prison time. No, seriously. Prison.
Hell, he will probably have to be in a booster seat until he's 16 and can drive
Fueled by Caffeine wrote: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/search-missing-florida-teens-perry-cohen-austin-stephanos-called-off/ These boys were not wusses.
I agree. When I saw the photo of the kid with the fish, I felt like he was one of us. You could see great potential in the confident look on his face. Very sad.
My sister is a college dean, and she has seen a huge shift in her 30 plus years. It used to be that when a kid got bad grades or got in trouble, the parent would want to know what the kid had to do to get things back on track. Now, the parent show up threating teachers about why perfect Johnny or Jane hasn't passed when they paid their money. It seems every year she has to hire armed guards for one of their teachers when they are aggressively threatened.
Also, many kids today cannot face adversity. When one does get a bad grade or gets in trouble, they fall apart and have to have counseling. Years ago they would chalk it up to experience and move on.
Trans_Maro wrote: Lawn darts Trampolines without a safety cage around them. Rock fights Sick jumps for your bicycle. "Go play outside!"
I echo this list!! Rock fights were the best. We also did "one pump" BB Gun fights that were pretty intense.
Mike wrote: "Professional driver on closed course. Do not attempt." There is an Audi commercial right now that involves an Audi driving through the frame on a neighborhood street at what appears to be a fast walking pace. Thank goodness they hired a professional driver and closed the road. Compare that to the sports car commercials on even the early 80's. There is a first gen RX-7 commercial on YouTube with the car sliding and squirming up a narrow mountain road while the announcer tries to talk the viewer into running to their Mazda dealer. No warnings or disclaimers anywhere.
You don't even have to go back that far, remember the original WRX commercial with it snoring and popping its way up a mountain pass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7xFJ8yefRA
Once I was old enough to reasonably safely use the mower, it was a non-negotiable given that I was going to be mowing the lawn whenever it needed it- this continued until I moved out to go to college (and to some extent applied when I spent extended time at my parents' place over summers during school). It didn't matter if I had tons of homework or projects, I was expected to manage my time such that it all got done and the yard didn't look like crap. I still managed to graduate at the top of my class and not get in trouble for neglecting my chores.
We currently live one house away from the end of our street- so there are 5 houses around us (either side on our side of the street, across the street, diagonal on either side across the street). Going clockwise starting on our left the residents are: 1 (L). Single woman in her 40's, HS age son, son in (local) college 2 (Diagonal L). Older woman- At least in her 60's, probably older 3 (Across). Woman in her late 30's/early 40's, son starting college, son starting HS 4 (Diagonal R). Older couple, probably retirement age 5 (R). Two guys in their late 20's/early 30's
Care to guess which houses have lawns that are mowed at least weekly and always look good? 2 & 4- the older couple & older woman (whose son- probably a bit older than I am- I believe mows hers). The two guys to our right aren't bad, but tend to let it go for about 2 weeks between mowings. The woman to our left has in the past mentioned that her younger son has severe allergies and can't mow the grass, so it sits until she has the time (works long hours) or pays someone to do it.
The house across the street takes the cake IMO- last summer (our first in the house) they went the better part of the summer without touching the lawn- eventually the husband of the couple that lives next door to them took it on himself to mow it so the house didn't look abandoned. This summer they've been better, but I still don't think I've ever seen either of the two sons out mowing the lawn- I've only ever seen their mom doing it (and she's a nurse and works long hours).
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