[Sparkologist]

Crumbly, Coffin Dodger or Oxygen Thief?

According to today’s regulators & bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60s, 70s and early 80s probably shouldn’t have survived, because:

· Our cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint, which was promptly chewed and licked.

· We had no child-proof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets, and it was fine to play with pans.

· When we rode our bikes, we didn’t wear helmets, just flip-flops, and had those fluorescent ‘clackers’ on our wheels. I think you will find they were known as Spokey-Dokeys. (Some old git wrote this).

· As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or airbags. Riding in the front passenger seat was considered a real treat.

· We drank water from the garden hose, not from a bottle. Guess what? It tasted the same!

· We ate chips and bread & butter pudding, and drank fizzy pop with loads of sugar in it. But we 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-karts out of scrap, and then raced them at break neck speed downhill, only to find we had 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, providing we were back before it went dark. No-one could reach us, and no-one minded.

· We didn’t have Sony Playstations, X-Boxes or video games at all.

· No 99 channel widescreen TVs. No videotape movies. No surround sound. No mobile phones. No personal computers, or internet chat rooms. We had friends, we went outside and found them.

· We played elastics, and street rounders. Sometimes, that ball really hurt.

· We climbed trees, and fell out of them. We got cuts and broken bones, but there were no lawsuits.

· We had full blown fist fights, but there was no ensuing prosecution from the loser’s parents.

· We played ‘knock-down ginger’, and were afraid of the owners catching us.

· We walked to friends houses.

· Believe it or not, we WALKED TO SCHOOL. We didn’t rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which incidentally, was just around the corner.

· We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

· We rode bikes in packs of seven, and wore our fur trimmed parkers by the hoods.

· The idea of our parents bailing us out if we 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 last fifty years have been an explosion of creative innovation and new ideas.

· We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility. We learned how to deal with it all.

· And you’re one of them. Congratulations.

· Pass this on to others who had the luck to grow up as real kids, before regulators and government regulated our lives, for our own good or so the say.

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

· This my friends, is surprisingly frightening….and it may put a smile on your face: The majority of university students today were born in 1983….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 or Belinda Carlisle.

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

· AIDS has existed since they were born.

· CDs have been around as long as they have.

· Michael Jackson has always been white, but we know different.

· To them, John Travolta has always been rather rotund, (a fat bastard), and they can’t imagine how this fat guy could once have been 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 will never have pretended to be the A-Team, the Red Hand Gang or The Famous Five.

· They will never have applied to appear on Jim’ll Fix It or Why Don’t You?

· They cannot believe how we could ever leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now, let’s check if we are 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, or are already married.

4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.

5. You remember watching Dirty Den in Eastenders first time around.

6. You meet your friends from time to time, talk about the good old days, and repeat again all the funny stories you experienced together.

7. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

Yes, you are getting older, my friend.