Something from my inbox

I'm posting this because I remember a recent dinner discussion with my kids about this very subject. Summer comes. Summer goes. Where I used to be outside, my children are inside playing SIMS. They are always bored. Back in the old neighborhood, I taught the children how to play Ghost in the Graveyard. Can you believe not ONE child had ever played it or even heard of it???? What happened to Mother May I? Kick the Can? Tag? StatueMaker? Simon Says? Gone the way of the Dodo...How things have changed. And we as a society blame McDonald's for childhood obesity. Watching my own kids, I can tell you, it's not McDonalds. IT's SIMS. IT's Star Wars Battlefront, Instant messenger, email, internet games, and 007 James Bond. IT's a lack of imagination. I remember being outside playing with my friends from around noon to dinner time and then went out again. My friends and I chased Lightning bugs. We played tag. We rode bikes. explored a corn field that was down the block (which is now an apartment complex and sofball field), caught tadpoles, built Motocross trails in open fields for our bikes, climbed trees, played barbies in the garage, played in the sandbox, ran through the sprinkler because only one person in the whole neighborhood even had a pool, played on the swingset and rode bikes to the 7-11 for a Coca Cola Slurpee. My mom usually kicked me out after lunch and I can honestly say, I rarely watched TV indoors in the Summer. Of course I WANTED to but my first neighborhood was loaded with kids and my best friend and I across the street rarely spent time inside. It didn't take long before I would forget about cartoons on Channel 32. So Kris, Cass Joe and I talked over dinner about what it was like to be a kid in the 70's and 80's. And below, in nicer words of course, is what was said. Enjoy!

Subject: Over 30 reality....
IF you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious
diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what
with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill -
BOTH ways.

yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew
up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like
that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!
But now that...
I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and
notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared
to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but
you kids today... you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when
I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know
something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves,
in the card catalog!! There was no email! We had to actually write
somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way
across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a
week to get there!
There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had
to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or
you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd
usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! And talk of about
hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from
your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of
"Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options! We didn't have fancy
crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else
called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy
Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it
was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your
bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!!
You
had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with
high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like
"Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy
was a little square!

You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple
levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could
never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster
and faster until you
died! ... Just like LIFE!
When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium
seating!
All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad
with a
hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15
channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You
had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off
your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was
no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday
Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for
cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards! And we didn't have
microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove
or go build a frigging fire ...Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we
had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove
forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about! You
kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Regards,

-The over 30 Something crowd!