The "Way Back" Machine

I read this today and thought I'd keep it, but I will also edit it for my own childhood:

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL BORN IN 1930's, 1940's, 50's, 60's, 70's and Early 80's !!!

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 HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
So here are MY edits:

My mother neither smoked nor drank during her pregnancies with any of her children. Others may well have done both but Momma was allergic to cigarette smoke in any amount and due to her adherence to the Word of Wisdom, booze was not part of the equation.

We also rode in an open bed pickup all over creation and were smart enough to sit down and not fall out. If we did fall out, we were chastised for not sitting down like we'd been told to.

We played in creeks with frogs and garter snakes and crawdads and fish. No one worried about salmonella from these encounters because we weren't allowed inside until we "washed up" from playing in the creek.

Every neighbor in our area knew us and we knew them. We knew the people who were okay with us in their yards and those who didn't want us to touch their grass.  We knew who had fruit trees that would bear a few snitched apples or peaches and who's produce was best left untouched.

We made our own slingshots and fishing poles and would use anything and everything we could find to make a new toy.

Everyone was welcome to play and we didn't know that people were "different" from us.

I miss those days. I miss the carefree abandon of just enjoying a warm day and the company of friends. I miss the smell of the grass that Daddy had just mowed and the feel of the dirt in the flower beds as we'd help Momma plant the pansies and the tiny seeds that would make various small flowers to beautify our yard.

I miss the easy friendship of the neighbors who didn't have an agenda and weren't too busy to wave at you from their front porch. I miss the barbecue smell floating on the breeze that impelled others to fire up their own grill in harmonious aroma of food that no one was worried about eating.

I miss playing Annie Over and Red Rover and Simon Says and Crack the Whip and clotheslining people who got on your nerves one time too many.

I miss the lemonade that had real lemon slices floating on top and the fireworks that erupted on many a summer night that were everything to do with freedom and fun and nothing to do with specific political statements.

I miss the traveling fair that would come to our town with the people who mingled beneath the colored lights of the midway without regard for any other considerations than to just win a prize or ride the roller coaster or the Ferris Wheel one more time.

I miss the beautiful quilts, the jams and jellies, the cows, the pigs and the chickens of the judging barn that made up the year long work of the 4-H crowd and the women who wanted their skills recognized and ribboned.




I miss knowing that everyone went to church somewhere on Sunday even if they weren't particularly devout the other six days of the week. Somehow knowing they were trying made us more forgiving than we seem to have become these days.

Sadly, we are moving too fast and the movement isn't always in the right direction.

We need to stop trying to move at the speed of light and take time to catch some lightning bugs in a mayonnaise jar.

We need to slow down enough to taste the tart real lemon pulp atop the ice in our glass instead of rushing off to the next big thing only to discover it wasn't big and it wasn't real.

I'm not truly old enough to be nostalgic, but today I feel like we are missing a lot of what makes life better.

Maybe it was the fact I attended a funeral today that has made me appreciate the life we have been granted. Maybe it was knowing that none of us is guaranteed tomorrow.

I'm not sure.

But I do know the sun on my face felt good today. And I'd like to feel more of it in days to come.

Laughing Through the Tears

As per my usual, I went over to see Daddy after Jared got off on the bus to school and Rick was off to take a final exam.

Daddy was confused about circumstances but knew what he did and didn't want. And he wanted a sump pump.

In his mind there was an acid spill that needed cleaning. I'm sure at one point in his business career at the plant there must have been such an occurrence that had to be dealt with and handled with dispatch and caution.

But today, the "acid spill" was apparently in his room and had something to do with urine flow in his Foley tube. He was certain that we needed to adjust the tubes, attach a sump pump, create a system of reservoirs to catch and contain all the acid to be diluted then washed away.

Chris, the tech who works with him, patiently explained that he was going to "handle it all when he got him up into a chair". Daddy seemed to be placated by that much more than by anything I had tried to do for him for the hour previously.

Yesterday, the nurse came in while Daddy was having PT and was asking me about food Daddy likes so they could help him increase his nutritional intake. At this point, Daddy's eating habits are pretty much catch as catch can with it being mostly catching only a little bit.

So as he was in progress of having PT, the nurse comes up to me and was asking what kinds of things Daddy liked to eat. I told her "Bacon and ice cream." She laughed and said, "No, really." And I said, "Yes, really."

So when a break in the PT came, she leaned in close and asked Daddy what he liked to eat.

He smiled with his eyes closed and said "Bacon... and ice cream!"

She looked dumbfounded and I about slid out of my chair laughing.

These little forays into the mix and match moments of past reality, current circumstance and dementia make me feel both sad for what is no longer possible and sometimes filled with laughter over the little oddities that happen in the interactions that just don't seem to make sense to Daddy anymore.

While some things are funny, other times tears are too close to the surface to stem their tide. Late in the afternoon yesterday, one of my friends shared a video that covers it all very neatly. It is a truly emotional little movie that made everything come full circle for me. A Letter From Mom and Dad 

I hope that it will put things into perspective for any who view it.

God bless. Laugh when you can, cry when you should and remember that those frail hands need your strong ones to lift and support them now.