Are our grandkids getting too sissified?

[cat fever]

Nothing worse than someone else imposing their will upon you like the Pediatrician mentioned above.

My son married a young lady with 2 little girls. Trust me, they had never been anywhere but a fenced in daycare and an apartment playground. They lived with us for a few months and I think the girls absolutely loved it here. They loved feeding the cows and playing in the field. I often let them eat some of the corn in the grain I fed the calves. They loved it. I made the hay stack like stairs so they could climb up to the top of the barn. They steered the tractor and rode in the back of the truck. (around my place)

However, mommy would freak out about everything. Maybe she should have been raised in a better place.

I wish kids today could see how it was years back. I don't even remember seeing an overweight kid. We played and rode our bikes everywhere. I fear those days are over never to return.

 

[dmccarty]

When I was in school, eons ago, we had Stranger Danger talks but it was not called that back then. A police officer would show up a couple of times during the school year and show a film, remember films, showing lots of blood on a floor and telling us to stay away from strangers, don't get in their cars, etc.

I rode a bike to/from school, sometimes in the dark, and had to cross a four lane divided highway! :shocked: Tis a wonder I am alive! :laughing::laughing::laughing: I used to disappear for hours and hours riding bikes, walking in farm fields, or down in the woods. Funny thing is that our kids, with all of the land we have, show no interest. They have walked PARTS of our place, but they pretty much stay close to home. If I had our place as a kid, I would never be inside.

Many a times we would be in the woods with our pellet rifles. Now, I have been "pulled over" by the Law a couple of times to check us out due to the pellet rifles but it was not an issue.

My grandfather was in the USMC before WWII, fought in the WWII and was a frozen Chosin in Korea. Not someone to mess with. When one of his daughters was a teenager, she got a job at a fast food place. The manager was getting a bit too suggestive and hands on with his daughter and she told my grandfather. He was not having any of that s...t. He drove down to the restaurant with a trusty 1911, walked into the store, asked for the manager, and jacked his fanny up to the wall. :shocked: Grandpa told the manager if he ever put his hands on his daughter again he would come back and kill him. :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing: Manager never bothered my aunt again.

Never a peep out of the Sheriff about the incident even though there were plenty of witnesses. Can you imagine what would happen today? :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[k0ua]

Also on that note, one of my sisters used to skip high school and ride the train over to Chicago to go to the museums without telling my parents. She was 15 or 16. Had a few issues. She carried a knife. Come to think of it, all 4 of my sisters carried knives. My mom kept two rolls of quarters in her purse to hit people with. And we had a dog that was trained to scare the crap out of you if we pointed at you and snapped our fingers. Had another sister that got beat up and robbed working as a lifeguard at a city pool. And I was held at gunpoint in a Dairy Queen parking lot when I was 16 (1977). We had an incident of attempted road piracy when I was maybe 8. My dad had his .45, and that ended that. And he once chased a prowler out of the neigborhood during looting after a tornado.

And we lived on the good side of town!!!

God, I love my hometown!

Hmmm. You lived in LOT rougher neighborhood than where I grew up. Dad was always armed (even though it was against the law to carry concealed in those days), but I don't remember him having to ever use it. I think things were a little rougher back in the 20's and 30's when he grew up, but I think most of the "indians" had been defeated by the time I was a kid. Oh there were criminals around and you heard about some bad things that happened occasionally, but I bet your Gary/Chicago locality was a lot rougher than Aurora/Verona Missouri back in the 60"s. Apparently I am somewhat older than you also.

 

[goeduck]

I'll pee off the back porch if I have a mind to and those "Ballroom jeans" are very comfortable and well made. Your point?

My ballroom trousers have a lot of space for the boys down there.

 

[Doofy]

My ballroom trousers have a lot of space for the boys down there.

If you think the ball room jeans are comfy, try their flannel shirts! I had real heartburn paying $50 for a shirt but it was well worth it.

 

[RSKY]

I didn't realize until I was grown how many hoodlums that lived near us. A bank robber (prison time), a rapist (prison time), bootleggers, moonshiners, and other assorted ner-do-wells. My two friends and I or a cousin or two might be two or three miles away from the house on bicycles and see some of those people and wave as we passed or stop and talk. I guess being the youngest of a huge extended family was the best safety net one could have.

We did have an old man with an ax chase a couple of us one time.

When older we would go frog hunting and take our catch to the "bad black" part of town and trade them for beer. My mother grilled me for hours one weekend after some ladies called me 'one of the frog boys' at a grocery store.

Now I don't know about y'all but I am about out of true stories. If this thread continues much longer I'm gonna have to think up some good lies.....I mean stories.

RSKY

 

[Sigarms]

I had to walk 3 miles to school each day, be it in 100 degree weather in the summer or with snow 5' deep.

For money, I'd mow 10 acres on the weekend with my grandmothers push reel mower because my dad taught me never to rely on gas and it helps cut down on my overhead expenses.

For fun, we'd go cow tipping, and when the cow was down, slaughter and cook em right up in the field for a hardy lunch. Then afterwards, go play war with our .22's to run off the cow we just ate (bb gun wars were a joke to us).

Kids are ******* nowadays.

 

[mark02tj]

WOW, Sigarms!! You are TOUGH!! And those cows must have been tough too for them to be chased off after you slaughtered them! :laughing:

When you walked three miles to school, was it uphill - BOTH ways - barefoot, and having to carry your brother on your back? :laughing:

 

[mark02tj]

Dad was USAF and we lived in Germany for 4 years ('68-72). We lived "on the economy" (translation for you non-military brats -> off base, in a privately owned home) in a house that had a big orchard right next to it. My brother and I would play soldiers and crawl through the grass in the orchard. We'd often find belt buckles and stuff like that where it had been lost during the war. One day we found a bunch of old ammo cartridges and gathered them up. There was an old German lady that lived in another part of our building and she'd lost an arm during the war. We came out of that orchard carrying all that ammo and she went nuts - talking a mile-a-minute in German and pointing to her missing arm! We had to put the ammo down and my dad took it to the MP's who disposed of it.

Nowadays they call in the bomb squad and rope off the neighborhood! And, my brother and I would have been sent to see "counselors" to help get us over the trauma of coming across the implements of death and war!

Hmmm, no wonder I'm like I am today! :laughing:

 

[Dadnatron]

I grew up on a farm/ranch. When I turned 10, my Grandpa bought me a Willy's Jeep, so I could be more useful. In the summer when we were farming, I'd go to one field and he would go to another. These fields were leased, and anywhere between 1 -5 miles apart and from the house. He'd come meet me at lunch and we would drive in to Grandma's house. After which, he would drive me back to my field and he'd take off. At 5 o'clock each evening, we quit. I'd drive home and we would feed and change the irrigation.

I also kept a .22 with me in the jeep, in case I saw any Prairie Dogs or coyotes. I used to take a single shot .22 out and 'plink' at magpies and prairie dogs when I was 8yo.

I don't think most 8yo's can even find their own socks any more. It was a different world... and only 40 years ago, so not 'ancient' times.