By Tom Morrow

Subject: TO THOSE BORN 1925 – 1970: WE ARE AWESOME

This column was recycled from one of my North County Times column of 10 years ago, yet it is one that bears repeating. For those of us born between 1930 through 1970, you have to ask yourself: “How did we survive!
We survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank alcoholic beverages while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
As babies, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes, we wore baseball caps, not helmets.
When we were small, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, often with bald tires and sometimes no brakes. As toddlers, we stood up on the back seat so we could see out the window. Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from some store-bought, purified water bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, drinking from one bottle, and no one actually died.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And somehow we didn’t become overweight. Why? Because we were always outside running and playing!
We 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 us all day — and, we were O.K.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps, then ride them down a hill, only to discover we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem..
There were no video games, no cable TV with 150 channels, no DVD movies, or CDs. There certainly weren’t any cell phones, no personal computers, and no Internet. All of that was from a world far in the future – much of it unimaginable – unless you were Buck Rogers or Dick Tracy.
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and got teeth knocked out, yet there were no lawsuits from those accidents.
Child Protective Services was never called when we received spankings with wooden spoons, tree switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand. And, if we got a spanking at school, we’d get another when we got home. When it came to discipline, the teacher and principal were always right.
Imagine that!