First, you survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, your baby cots were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

You had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when you rode your bikes, you had no helmets, not to mention, the risks you took hitchhiking ..

As children, you would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a van – loose – was always great fun. You drank water from the garden hosepipe and NOT from a bottle.

You shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

You ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but you weren’t overweight because……

YOU WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

You would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach you all day. And you were OK. You would spend hours building your go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out you forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, you learned to solve the problem .

You did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no text messaging, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms………

.YOU HAD FRIENDS and you went outside and found them!

You fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents

you played with worms(well most boys did) and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although you were told it would happen, you did not poke out any eyes.

You rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Local teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team.

Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing you out if you broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. You had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and you learned