Cyberspace Orbit Message Board - Orbit Investigations
Kent 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not In this age of apparent increased control, maybe the old-timers should recount how it was once, so the kids get an alternative take. Historical necessity, eh? When I was a kid we got to run through the fields, haunt the streams (you know after the chores, just be sure to show up for dinner...) Was hazardous then too, but durned fun. I remember the magic of Windy Forest, an old orchard, even had a resident spooky oldtimer living in a cabin, frightened us all. Why we had dirt clod wars, ouch, we also had kid stage plays, made puppets, hawked lemonade, marched in spontaneous parades. Halloween was a really wild ride, trick or treat with emphasis on trick. We could all run really fast like the wind... How about it? YOUR TALES O´ YORE?
Kent 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Yes, we all went to church too, most everybody did, didn´t mind at all usually. Great friends, great place for pranks too, thumbtacks on chairs. Teens would sneak off to the parking lot and smootch, really, just neck, dunno how they maintained control, but that was the way then, romance and church, maybe God now and then, didn´t want to overdo it. Neither did He.
nerak 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Kent you bring back some great memiories. Hunted and fished ,My dad wanted a boy I guess,was a rock hound Star gazer.The worst trouble we got into was buttering the neibiors car door handles, not saying we didn,t try.About 8 of us hung out and it was a group not a gang.You could walk anywhere Didn,t have to watch your back 24 7 If a person offerd you a ride you could at least consider taking it. You could give someone a ride.Man you could even sleep outside in the summer if you wanted.Sure bad things happen once in a while, now wouldn,t sleep outside unarmed much less let 8yr old kids.
nerak 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Just remembered my only gang activity, we stole gas caps off cars,we hit one guy so much he just used a rag after awhile.I think we got about 200 before we got bored and almost got caught a few times.Man can you imagine walking up to 200 car late at night and living to tell about it these days.
Kent 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Sometimes I think it´s the news-con that freaks us out most. Something bad happens in pohdunk Nebraska and the whole world ducks for cover. Was risky then too. Ever heard of rocksalting? We were in fear of that, step on the property of a well-known grouch, kahbammm. Wee pellets in the butt. Expected though. Solution, stay away from Grouch, unless of course you were double-dared, that´s different. Fights were okay, but seldom seen, any serious fights at school and the coach would haul you down, put on the boxing glove {pillows} and require you to finish it then and there. Nobody wanted that much at all, was usually embarrasing. Families worked together in the neighborhood and watched out for the roaming scamps--lots of love and common goodness. We would play together, pray together as a community, was wayyy cool. Sometimes the oldtimers would even give us great new prank-plans. Life in my hometown in the 50s was magical and wonderful. FREEEEDOM!
grey lensman 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not HAPPY DAYS, NO CAR, NO TV. OLD TRADE BIKE MAIN TRANSPORT. GRASS SLEDGING, BLACKBERRY PICKING, DAMMING STREAMS, SCULLING ROUND MAD POTTERS CARAVAN TO GET HER STEAMED UP. CLIMBING TREES, FISHING, CAMPING IN THE "GARDEN´ IN SUMMER, STRETCHING FURTHER AFIELD ON THE BIKE TO THE RIVER AND LAKES. WORKING ON THE FARM TO EARN CASH, POTATO PICKING, STACKED STRAW BALES 14 HIGH WITH A PITCHFORK, SOLD FRUITS IN SUMMER FOR CASH. HI-JINX WAS SCRUMMPING, STEALING APPLES HANGING OVER PEOPLES FENCES, OR EVEN GOING INTO THE GARDEN TO GET THEM. COLLECTING CONKERS AND HAVING CONKER FIGHTS. (HORSE CHESTNUTS), HELPING IN THE GARDEN. FOR FIVE YEARS WALKED A MILE TO THE RAILWAY STATION THROUGH THE WOODS. 6 MILE TRAIN JOURNEY, GOT A BUS, CHANGED BUSES AND GOT TOSCHOOL. ON RETURN WORKED IN COOP STORE AFTER AGE 13 TILL 1800 TO EARN CAH. HAPPY DAYS FREY LENSMAN
nerak 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not I rarely watched tv in the day til I was grown. Rode bikes skate boarded played tonnes of football in the front yard.You could and did stay out in the sun all day.Did yard work for spending money didn,t need much money to have a great time.
Kent 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not On a summer morning, the boys would all meet up for the hunt, BB guns, slingshots and off we´d go to Doc Andrus´ pasture where all the fun was, streams, cottonwoods and a pond. On the way though we´s pass the girls who were setting up their lemonade and knicknack booths on every corner. Usually we´d have to backtrack on command of these neighborhood merchants. They´d hex us and convince us to grab stuff out of closets to add to their enterprise. Thus we would make our offerings and later wonder why we sacrificed our best comic books to the deal. The girls were the bosses. Always! Down at Doc´s we would plink away, sometimes try to ride the cow. Dogs roamed freely, even the mean ones, except one doberman that Doc kept tied to a pole with a chain. We would dare each other to crawl up to that doberman. The plan was to get as close to the gnashing fangs as possible. Good thing for the sturdy chain, woulda been embarrassing to lose face. The pond was the main thrill, an old rickety raft left there since Jim Bridger´s days. We´d ride that raft and fall off. The whole gang all went to see Disney´s ´Leagues Under the Sea´, and was first there enchanted by Nemo. Made a diving bell out of a cardboard box, a piece of garden hose and a cellophane-taped porthole. Took it to the pond and jumped in. Didn´t work.
GREY LENSMAN 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not OUR AREA WAS RICH IN POND AND SPRINGS. HUNTING NEWTS, GETTING FROG SPAWN FOR SCHOOL, ALL PART OF DAILY FUN. MY FATHER TAUGHT ME HOW TO TICKLE TROUT, CATCH THEM IN YOUR BARE HANDS, A REAL TREAT WHEN YOU WERE USED TO DRIPPING OR KETCHUP SANDWICHES. LONG SUMMERS DAYS SPENT OUTSIDE FROM DAWN TO DUSK, A COMMON THESE HERE, BUT OH SO TASTY. ONE POND HAD A FLOATING RAFT OF DEAD BULL RUSHES COVERING MOST OF IT. HOLES IN THE SQUISHY RAFT WERE A GREAT PLACE TO GET GREAT CRESTED NEWTS, THE LARGEST U.K SPECIES. ONE DAY I WENT THROUGH THE RAFT UP TO MY ARM PITS, DRIED OUT AND GOT HOME LONG AFTERSUNSET. MUM HAD A FIT AND SPENT DAYS WITH THE BOILER GETTING CLOTHES BACK INTO SOME SORT OF SHAPE. GREY LENSMAN
50.calibar 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not I remember once when I was knee high to a tumblebug, we all loaded up in the car and went to town. We spent the whole day looking,shopping and just visiting kinfolk. When we got home that evening, we found that someone had entered our house(we never locked our doors then);had cooked themselves a meal; cleaned up the kitchen; and had cut firewood to pay for the meal. Top that for "the good ol´ days".
Barbar 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	good ole´ days These are the good ole´ days. Nostalgia serves to keep us lockstep in line with the linear flow time. Anybody remember the future? wink
Anonymous 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not We not only never locked doors, we left the keys in the cars. I remember my mom spending $20 at the grocery and feeding four of us for a week. Played in the creek all day, even did some trapping. Got a BB gun at eight years old. If a kid got caught at school with a knife, it was the scandal of the year. I got in one fistfight with a guy over a girl. Ended up marrying the girl and the guy became a best friend. The only other fight I had, not really a fight. I had had all I could take from the lead guitar player in my band, Vernon, I hit him-up-side-the-head, broke my hand. He thought it was funy. We used to camp out behind the police station. We´d hit Mr. Brown´s Charles Potato Chips truck, he never locked it, and we´d never take more than we could eat. Whenever the gas station gave away cases of Pepsi with fill-ups, they´d have cases all around the station, easy to nab and aid in washing down those chips. When I was 14 I was at a party at a buddie´s house, his parents out of town. It was the dead of winter and we all got drunk on wine we stole from the liquor store while the counter guy was in the walk-in getting us sodas. The guy that threw the party turned up missing. We found him passed out in the snow covered yard, laying in the middle of the last of about ten snow angels that he had made, dressed only in a pair of briefs. He was red as a beet and we were scared to death. We carried him inside and rubbed him all over to warm him up. He was OK! My dad had small cabin cruisers and we spent evey weekend on the Ohio River. Every May my dad took me to the Indy 500. We played sand-lot baseball, no adults and no fighting. I built gas powered control line planes and flew them on the vacant lot next to the high school. I went on canoe trips in the summer, into northern Ontario, into areas that hadn´t seen men in forty years, on raging rivers that would scare the shit out of the Boyscouts. Ah geez, I could go on and on.... I got tears in my eyes reading your posts. Not so much for our lost youth, but for the lost youth kids don´t get anymore. Freedom
Dennis 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Ok Kent, I´m in. I grew up in Amityville (yes, that Amityville) and it was beautiful beyond belief then. I remember things like cutting out from church on Sunday, after a quick side trip to spend the ´church money´ on candy, I´d head to the lake with a two hour mini-vacation. I learned a lot about nature hanging around and munching on Sugar Babies. I did it year-round and always had to be careful not to muddy my Sunday shoes. Nearby was a forest where we camped, hunted box turtles and garter snakes. Once I turned over the giant log in the woods with 2 friends and we found about 500 snakes at one time. We caught all we could and watched the others just slip away. We would spend an hour trying to get a specific apple from the hundreds on the giant apple tree. That was lunch on many a late summer day. Snapper fishing and blueclaw crabs were other favorite pastimes, then there was opening day for trout and fishing contests for kids. There was always a kind parent or adult nearby, and people genuinely cared for each other.
Joanne Meehan 5/24/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Kent, all those things you mentioned ya did way back when...at the opening of this topic...where identical to many of my experiences! Where you that cute, "freckle-faced" lil boy down the road from me? :) .....I can remember playing in the woods and drinking fresh, ice-cold water out of a spring fed creek! It was great...wouldn´t "chance it today"! Picking wild flowers and selling bunches along with the lemonade at our stand. Roller-skating and pretending to be that famous ice-skating "star" from back then. Walking for miles alone, in the country, in the snow..catching snowflakes on my tongue, (wouldn´t chance that anymore either)...chemtrails, etc. The best was going to the local park in the summer evenings and watching the free movies there..and walking home at night and being safe. Back then, Hamburger Dens sold really HUGE burgers that tasted real...peaches and tomatoes were "juicy" and sweet, not "dried up" cadavers of themselves, all "engineered out". The air smelled delicious after a soaking spring rain...now, it smells of chemicals and "whatever". Looking for "faces" in the coulds...not "grids" and x´s in the sky! Swimming in the ocean, without "waste" and garbage banging into my feet. Yep, I remember them well, those days. Not good to live in the past, but no sense in denying it either. Time keeps on slippin into the future anyway!!
Kent 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Here´s a passage from the prose of the the Lion, Chuck Moulton (sadly Chuck, a wild warrior all his life, passed away three years ago. After all said and done he tumbled off a ladder while fixing his roof. I really miss Chuck, a friend, hope he ain´t mad at me, won´t go into details, except we had similar tastes in old cars and women, harumph) Pantheon by Charles Warrington Moulton In the late 40´s and early 50´s me and Buddy Murdock swamped fruit loading semi´s bound for N.Y., Seattle, San Francisco and waterskied the Turlock Reservoir waiting for the football season to start. Young, tough lords, our families owned by vineyard, orchard and berrypatch a good part of Northeast Modesto. We posed and yearned for girls, and when one looked at me I´d suffer the shock and heat of Rimsky Korsakov´s SHEHERAZADE or if it was a girl I´d spoken to and she to me, the POLONAISE or CLAIR DE LUNE and if she was fat, a Straussian waltz occurred in my hands. moulton2.html
Balliwyck 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not There is a song by Richard Harris called "the Yard Went on Forever".It use to be so true.Is anyone else having these dreams about childhood? How everything was much more innocent.Im remembering things when I was 5 and 6 years old,things long forgotten about a more gentler day when the yard went on forever.
Kent 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Cross-posting message: VirgoOne 5/25/2002 7:13 AM Childhood Memories Yup, it was wonderful back then. My brother and I would lie in a nearby field looking up at the clouds. They were generally white back then, not green or orange like today. The sky was that blue blue just like the bluebonnets that covered everything. Summer was summer then, May, June, July, August. Not February, March, and April like now. We always had a veggie garden and ate wild grapes, mustangs, and built hide-outs through the vines. (Practicing for our adult hideouts?) A dime or a Buck Brand bottle cap would get you into the movies on Saturday and you´d stay all day through the serials, cartoons, and double feature. There were no kid-prisons then, just small movie theatres where every kid in town spent the day.
Factinuum 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Jeez Kent, you really got me thinking, We used to play hockey as soon as the swamp froze. Grab a patch of ice, bordered here and there with dead cattails. A ten dollar pair of skates and a three dollar hockey stick, curved or flat. That´s if we paid for them, there were a lot of hand-me-downs and lending back and forth. For awhile I used my dad´s skates from when he was a kid. Thirty year old skates! The net was two logs five feet apart. Checking was allowed, bumping a guy off into the cattails and watching him disappear in a puff of cattail fuzz was funny as hell. Then in the spring we´d fly kites. In our neighborhood on any spring day there were at least five kites in the air at any given time. We´d tie spools of string together til the kite was so far up it couldn´t be seen anymore. "Must be at least a mile up, must be!" Chilly days, lunch was always Campbells soup and a sandwich, dinner started cooking a couple hours later. Never even heard of a restaurant til I was ten. When it warmed up some and the wind died down some we´d buy balsa wood airplanes for ten cents and spend hours outgliding each other (the more expensive model with the wind-up propeller didn´t work as good). They got patched up a lot with tape of one sort or another, even bandaids, because allowance was only twenty-five cents a week, extra money for pulling dandelions, a penny apiece if we got the roots. A special bonus if we lost a tooth, twenty-five cents from the Tooth Fairy, waiting forever for them to fall out, wiggling the loose ones in the mirror with anticipation. Then when the apples started growing, when they were small and green, we had apple wars. We would stick them on the end of a stick and catapult them at each other, sort of like lacrosse or jai-alai. Those apples flew! If a group of strange kids came within range we´d turn our apples on them and it became a serious, territorial affair, indeed. Strange kids were always the enemy -- until we got to know them. One day I got caught shoplifting a pack of gum and was damn near ostracized by the whole neighborhood, once word got around. The parents back then sure weren´t very accepting of such things and dishonest deeds were met with very little compassion. I was grounded for who knows how long, my friends came by my bedroom window at night to see how bad I got it, a big hoot for them it was! For summer vacation we´d drive to our grandparents farm in Minnesota. It was our favorite thing. We would swing from a rope in the hayloft and drop in pile of hay. Climb the haybale mountains. Dare each other to sit on the electric fence -- what a jolt! To this day fresh cut hay is one of my favorite smells. -Factinuum
resident spooky oldtimer grouch 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Is that young steadman hoolygin stealing from muh orchard agin? kahbammm want some salt to go with those watermelons? kahbammm
Mancini 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Yeah, besides all the wonders of a TV free childhood, there was the incredible adventure and freedom of being able to hitchike downtown or across the whole country at a drop of a thumb. People could take risks because things were generally safer. Things FELT so different--sounds coming out of the radio were kind, fun. The world could be a warm place.
iammo 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not right there with you guys.. the Pruitt boys let me go to the creek with them, threw rocks at cars from ditches, had a box of toads, dug up a dead cat just to see it, made traps for snakes out of boxes and sticks with a string on them.. I am a girl, by the way. Never got on well with other girls. They all wanted to dance and listen to Elvis records and play with Barbies.. Boys did cool stuff and none of them ever tried anything funny with me.. I would sneak out of the house and ride bikes to nowhere in particular in the middle of the night, go behind the levee of the Mississippi with the boys who still didn´t try anything.. I was cute, too. Never understood that. They probably thought I was too smart for that. HAA. Little did they know what I had been reading at home. CONSTANT reading at home. Everything I could get my hands on. Still that way. KILL YOUR TELEVISION and TURN UP THE RADIO> mo
Dan Walker 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Back in the 60s, a typical Saturday would start about 8:00 when I would wake to the distant sound of a Southern Pacific freight train. I would jump out of bed and ride my bike about a mile to the tracks to watch it go by. After returning home, I might mow the lawn and do other chores my dad had lined up for me, or I might help him change the oil in the 57 chevy or work on another home project. After lunch, a group of us kids might go down to Winchell´s for a 7 cent donut, or take our BB guns out in one of the fields to hunt for rattlesnakes. Sometimes we would go down to the school to play baseball or football, or to run gas powered model cars and planes. Saturday afternoon we gathered at one of the neighborhood houses to watch ´Science Fiction Theatre,´ and if it was a really good show, we might get out our halloween masks and act out the scenes afterwards. I remember making flying saucers out of foil baking tins stapled together after watching ´Earth vs the Flying Saucers.´ Later in the day, I might work on my homework, or more than likely I would work on a model kit or play with my Chemistry set or Erector set. For dinner, the family might go to the local drive in, or maybe the italian place. In the evening, we would have Ed Sullivan or Jackie Gleason on the TV, but we would all be doing something else while we watched. My dad would read, Mom would kint sweaters, my brother would study his football plays for his high school team or work on his stamp collection. I would have slot car tracks set up on the living room floor, or Tinkertoys scattered all over the place. All too soon it would be time for bed. I don´t remember big traffic jams or hearing people yell at each other. Things moved slower, there was time to think. We didn´t have schedules. The only appointments we made were for doctors or dentists. My parents had difficult jobs and worked hard, but they didn´t use bad language in front of us. They didn´t drive like maniacs. They were courtious, pleasant to be around, and taught us to be the same. They didn´t buy every gadget that was advertised or trade their car in every year. Yes, things have certainly changed.
sadie 5/25/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not ahhhh! those were our days. guess what kids?! i have given this same sweet life to my children. they were not given to school. i kept them at home to myself...meaning themselves. they go every sunday to fish together. they work landscaping for people. mowing and planting, mulching and weeding. they bought themselves a big chevy truck. law won´t allow them to drive our roads...so they drive our fields and woods. my youngins help feed their family. they still think girls are too precious too touch (17 and 14 and 8)...least till they got some land and build a nice house. my sons shall be fully prepared to give a girl all she could ever hope for...a sovereign life upon sweet earth, under sovereign skies. i just hope this granny (mydaughter is a mama now) is still living to teach my sons´ wives how to make soap, how to dress deer and other fixins, how to tell if water is pure, how to make cloth...dye it and make clothes and blankets from it. how to keep a lovely home on only the earth´s provisions. yes, i am a dreamer. so sue me! i gots my rights on my sweet sovereign earth. we shall prevail. our sweet earth shall prevail. long live life darlin people.
Kent 5/27/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Notes from Pure Land Mountain Thursday, May 23, 2002 by Robert Brady http://bluejewel.com/ "I love the wild not less than the good," said Henry, in the ´Higher Laws´ chapter of Walden, and "In wilderness lies the preservation of the world." Henry was wild about wilderness, just couldn´t stop talking about it one way or another, and who can blame him. But that was a long time ago, a hundred and fifty years now. The interesting thing is that even back then, when to our now-eyes the wild must have been everywhere, Henry was already lamenting its loss, already bemoaning the insidious spread of the artifactual. His were admirable sentiments, and fell on mostly deaf ears in those times of civilized righteous conviction regarding clearcutting of the greater soul, he sold about 2 copies of Walden. Henry was speaking of what he knew as wild, and apparently it was still there. So now, some 150 years later, where is it? Where is the wild, either out there or in there? Who saw it last? Where has it gone? Is it out on the lawn? Is it in the Winnebago, the tv, the hot air balloon, the haircut, the high or low fashion, the pierced navel, the inner child, the urban shaman, the rabid zealot? Is it on the Net? In commuters´ eyes? In the times we live in now, the further we get from whatever wild there once was-- the wild that Henry was already yearning for-- the more we are clothed in and walled by the garments, jobs, incomes, possessions, habits, sciences, arts, names, rebellions, religions, and ways we think we are, the less we are in our minds the creatures of creation, the less we are the thrust of the universe, and the more we are the static but remarkably life-like exhibits in that big fancy museum of our own construction we call modern life, and the less relevant we are to what is ever going on in the undercurrents and overcurrents of the universe, in the sun that is shining, the tides that are flowing, the moon that is rising, the blooms that are opening, the seeds that are falling, scattering on the wind and swelling with the rain; we are no longer integral with what in us is ferally fertile, until now the rare looker looks around the ambience and sees nothing but clothing and vehicles and communication media, arts and business and photographs of flowers, cumentaries of mountains, a narcissistic repository that for a great many people has become reality, and so they do not bestir themselves to germinate, to grow to what they were engendered for, which is far beyond dimension, in the mmeasurable realms of the awesomely simple.
Dennis 5/27/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Wow, really getting some nice feedback from this thread. Good go, Kent! BTW those sticks used to propel those little grren apples, we called them ´flingers´ and they worked better if you peeled the bark off the stick. We once strung bicycle inner tubes (from large bike tires, which were the style then) between two small trees which made a Howitzer-class slingshot that took 2 kids to pull back and fire. We shot these big rocks into the lake until the cops came and made us dismantle it. That was fun. Anybody remember flattening pennies out on the RR tracks? How about riding your bike through the smoke when those mosquito-control trucks came through the neighborhood? Boy, what were thinking back then? it´s truly a marvel we´re not poisioned from those adventures. Thanks for the sharing everyone!
Kent 5/27/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not We had the "He-man Daredevil Bicycle club." The jumping ramp over Cottonwood Creek failed miserably. However we did think of rockets. Cap-gun-rolls stuffed in lead pipes and soaked in gasoline failed too, well, almost. We did set the riverbank on fire as well as Butch William´s pants-leg. Not totally uneventful.
Kent 5/27/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Black capes and masks were great fun-- and sneaking out into the neighborhood after midnight to put notes under doors: "YOU WILL DIE A HORIBEL DETH!" The usual composition, no biggy, everybody got these forth and back, especially the Bishop´s house. Miss Jones the witchy English teacher beheld young Ted hanging by a rope on her porch urpin up ketchup. Ted´s dad kicked butts for using his welding supplies for the harness, worth it though.
Full Tilt 5/27/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not ah, memory lane. Good Topic. For me it´s like a different life in a different dimension.(maybe it is)! It was about football, girlfriends, and a ´66 Fury. This is the truth: I had no worries at all. Went to Daytona Beach every summer and did anything I wanted. Never once thought that I needed to hurt anyone or that someone might want to hurt me. People were more relaxed and the world seemed to have a slow rythm to it. Skinnydipping was a great pastime. I made sure I passed in school, played split end as best i could. tried to find a faithful girl and keep her. Life was good.
Walden 5/27/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not The thing that stands out from my picture of the world as a child in the 60´s was the woderful inter-related economic/social life of the small town. Even then it was on its last Leg, had been for 30 years despite having a brief respite during WWII when the small towns boomed. This was before Madison Avenue and the corporate giants gobbled up and homoginized everthing. You had local ownership of local business, with local production for local consumption. Small town bank, not part of a corporate empire. Locally owned stores, local independent newspaper that did its own printing. You could go to almost any small town and get a hair cut, buy a new suit, look at new cars, etc, and never deal with out of town corporations. These were the same people that went to church with you, knew your folks; you knew their kids; there was mutual respect for any honest working person that could be trusted. The guy that has a lowly job in the hardware store might be a deacon at church, and go about his duties on sunday dressed to the nines! People seemed to allow each other a dignity that is missing today.
Factinuum 5/28/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Dennis, we called them flingers, too, and we played in the mosquito fog....wonder if we grew up in the same neighborhood. Another game we played was called ´flipping´ where we took turns tossing our baseball cards against a wall frisbee style, like pitching pennies, and if it landed on someone elses card we won it. Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Mickey Mantle and some old ones like Whitey Ford and Ty Cobb. Cards were ten cents a pack, five cards (or maybe seven) and a slab a gum. Collected them by the shoebox. What a fortune we farted around with! iammo, you remind me of a girl that hung around with us. Stole apples, caught salamanders. She brought me back a lizard from Arizona. She was one of the guys, loads of fun. We were 16, 17 before we even THOUGHT about girls in a different way. Btw, I sold my idiot box twelve years ago and don´t miss it a bit. The crap they were broadcasting was so damn silly I couldn´t stand it. I catch an episode of this or that at my friends and see that it´s even worse nowadays. My friends say that I live in the dark ages in a cave, yet I´m more informed than any of them. Whenever I talk to them about current events they look at me strange. For them, if Brokaw didn´t report it then it didn´t happen..........."If THAT happened I´d a HEARD about it.", is such a sad refrain. Kent, Great anecdotes. Urpin up ketchup...haha! -Factinuum
rodney elder 5/29/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not in 1958, when i was 12 years old i had a 1954 cushman eagle. it had been bored out, ported and polished. it also had a split manifold with duel exhaust, a engine to gear box chain drive. my dad owned a bike shop and there was always somthing to ride back then. 4 years later i was breaking into 1/2 miles and short track. i road a 650 triumph or bsa on the 1/2 miles sometimes i would try a 750 matchless, which was a little top heavy and did´nt handle as well. rode tiger cubs on short track in the begining. the world of motorcycles in the 50´s and 60´s made an everlasting impression on me. everything i have ever experience since then has been measured by those years. kent, have enjoyed your site for many years. my native american ancestral memory runs deep and strong in me and those iron ponys started bringing it out at an early age. always have a large HO! when you mention our elders! regards rodney e.
hippy grandma 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Dear Kent, New to website and forum, and loving it! In the 60s I was what the media would have called a "flower child". I joined a commune when I was 14, back then there was only 25 people and except for one other kid my age, most were around 18-30 years old. In the beginning our only "rule" was NO MONEY. Everything was either handmade, scavenged or bartered for. Our commune grew to be a large family around 150 people in our prime. We did great for a while, but then we got into the money/property/ego complications. We were still committed to our vision though, and we kept it going for many years until greed, politics,and power trips finally brought it all down. In the early days the local people thought we were trying to be like the Amish or Quaker folks and they were very supportive. That changed after awhile mostly because of negative media about "hippies", communes, Charlie Manson, bogeymen, etc. It´s hard to convey what it was like before money became the big thing. We wanted to create a community where people could live the dream (like the John Lennon song "Imagine")and for a little while it worked. For a little while, we only had each other and Love. No money, no religion, no hierarchy, no clocks, only faith in the positive flow of Creative Energy. (All the money in the world cannot buy that experience, governments cannot legislate it, police cannot enforce it and "security measures" cannot "protect" it.) Love like we shared cannot be controlled by human institutions, or packaged and sold in a store. I cry when I think of what we lost to the money/power trip, but I feel incredibly fortunate to have actually lived the dream, even for a little while. It is the dream, the imagination, ability to perceive a completely new and different way of life, that we must nurture in each other and our children. Today, it seems like the fear mongers, warmongers and religious fanatics, are doing everything they can to crush anything and anyone who cannot be controlled. It is a struggle everyday to remember and stay in touch with my heartsong. Thanks Kent, for giving us another place to share these memories and keep our hope alive.
KR Bushka 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Wow..memories.. Small town where if I got into trouble, someone had called Mom and she knew before we got there. Everyone on the party line knew it also. Ladyfingers in apples. Chasing down the neighbor dog when he went on a cork-boot collection. Getting 12 oz. pepsi bottles out of the vending machine at the gas station for 25 cents. Frog hopping contests. Playing in the hay dust devils that swirled through the feilds. Summer parade through town. Clicking typewriters, clocks that ticked, AM radio, Tv stopped for the night at 12am and Christmas always seemed so far away. No handouts but lots of hand-ups. Kids ran wild because everyone kept a loose eye on them. The biggest crime was that the town drunk was directing traffic. So lets dump the dollar for M&M´s; At least they make people smile.
Russ AnomalyDude 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Aaaahhhh yes...I, too, was once a barefoot boy with cheek of tan... Just had to throw that in hehehe I remember seeing Mr Burns say that on the Simpsons LOL =) Yeats or something, isn´t it? Unfortunately, I am a product of the 70s and 80s (33 now---twilight zone music), although I feel sometimes a very strong affinity toward things that were significantly "before my time." Things like music, I love be-bop and good old jazz, The Count is among my all-time favorites, right up there with Pantera and Dream Theater! I long for simpler times, and often dream of what it would be like just to pack up and move to Montana, and live self-sufficiently. I hear there are a few who actually do this, and it sounds very very good to me. Maybe someday, who knows heheh... </Russ> Go to www.mp3.com/Russ and check out "Things Ain´t What They Used To Be" =) I did it from memory ! =)
fredder 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not AH yes....... what great memories!! I, too, remember drive-in movies where you could neck with your princess of the week in the shadows of your car or lay on the roof and enjoy the smell of popcorn and the warm, balmy breezes along with the film of course (God help you when you got home and couldn´t even remember the name of the movie!!) Then, there was "THE CREEK" that ran all the way to "SKUNK HOLLOW" where we´d take a bag lunch and hike to whenever we had the urge to be "explorers". All those frogs, turtles, small fish, crawdaddies and other ´exotic´ wildlife. Yeah, and the annual small carnival would limp into town and set up in the grocery store parking lot...rides to excite you, (Tilt-a-Whirl, Ferris Wheel and Octupus were the classic favorites) cotton candy and soda pop and all those games to allow you to win a teddy bear for your special lass who was always smiling and laughing and enjoying the fun. (you´d get the teddy bear only after a few dozen plastic "made in Japan" gizmos were won to trade in to the man in the oil-laden t-shirt) One last image was our sandlot 16" softball games, coed of course, where we shared hours and hours of great times all under the sun and even the rain which we all enjoyed. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips and pop were the lunch favorites. Ahhhhh such sweet memories..... Thanks all!!
WIRKIN 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Funny this subject came up here too. Just yesterday I was talking with my 13 year old daughter and 14 year old grand-daughter about the difference between rock (hippie music) and rap. I first reported that rap is not music and the difference between the two is the difference betweeen promoting peace and love versus the promotion of hate and killing by rap. Times have changed - heck - I´m one of those old people now (50ish), the establishment you know. Times have changed, unfortunately, it really appears to be for the worse and not the better. We´re not just losing safety but now we´re losing liberties and freedom. The current state of affairs/our country is truly sad commentary.
Kent 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not "Arrgh Acres", we called it, my place, an old run-down Steinbeck-style farm east of Fresno. Here they came in old vans and teepees. Giant organic buggy gardens, music all day and night, visitors from the Indian nations or The Gaskin-Farm in Tennessee, a flower-child highway and oasis, old-timers too, Bloody Mary the Farmer, Otis the Oakie, Kenny Hall and the Long Hall String Band. Residents: Atilla the Mum, Beatnik Ben, Toshca the Aztec, Thezan the Alien, Macaroni Mark, Hoover and Bruce, Gay Bob the Scientologist, hippies, bikers, poets, artists, musicians, even the Sheriff stopped by for a secret beer on his noon-route. The commune Lasted 20 years, only rule, "Many Campfires." How was it managed? Well, by yours-truly paying the rent and everybody else as Guru in final judgement which nobody heeded.. You ain't-a going to believe this, but at one All Hallow's event both Archangel Gabriel and the dark Samael showed up to duke it out in a cosmic boxing match. We watched and wowed. The match was a draw, figures... The Farm fizzled-out in the mid-Eighties, people went their own ways into the cruel world. A few of us stragglers considered opening a hippy wildlife park, you know, roadside billboards, caged tour buses, shocked 80s yuppy-folk gawking at hippy-mechanic-feet sticking out from under old trucks, boiling cauldrons of veggie stew, spiral-eyed longbeards and hairy-legged earth-mamas....
Athena 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Just thinking about my first car I got in the 60´s. It was a 57 Olds convertable, gold metallic with beige top. That sucker was the best car I ever owned...and could that baby "move"!! I remember "drag racing" and havin a blast. They don´t make cars like that nowadays. You could lean on it, walk on it, play "slap and tickle" on it, and it wouldn´t dent...now, ya burp next to one of these new jobbies and ya got damage to it already! I remember "poodle skirts" and pretending I was Natalie Wood and my boyfriend was "James Dean"! Fanf***ingtastic! I had the longest, thickest hair in a perpetual pony tail...used to go to the local dance clubs all the time and win prizes for dancing. Alan Freed came to town...Chuck Berry, all the really cool groups and muscicians...was almost in a rock n, roll movie as an extra dancing in the backround...they decided to film in New York, instead. Us Jersey kids had enuf fun though. I can remember the vanilla custard ice cream cones...going to New York and gettin those foot long famous hot dogs...Coney Island funin. I can even remember my first kiss...it was g-r-e-a-t!!! Felt all "fuzzy" and tingley inside! Can remember swimming in a neat swimming hole, not too far from Wanaque Resevoir...Watching for ufos from "lovers cliff"...and actually seeing a few...ufos, that is. I remember meeting the mister on my 21st Birthday and falling madly and passionately in love...got married a few weeks later...still married to the same great guy after all this time!! :) I remember calling hubby at Ft. Meade where he was stationed and telling him President Kennedy had just been shot. I actually got the word to the Army Base before most of the guys there had heard about it...crying my eyes out! Lil John-John saluting his Dad "good-bye". Looking for the first time into my baby girls sweet lil pink crinkled face! Some really beautiful memories of those days. The future is just for making new ones!! :) ^j^
Karl Kolchak 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not I remember enjoying the 4th of July. I would set off firecrackers and bottle rockets in my early years; later I would take whole packs of firecrackers, open them up for the powder, then pour it all in a single container with a fuse. My first attempts produced a lot of light and a little noise. Then I discovered that if you tried to contain the explosion, it produced a dramatic blast and shock wave!! Got into trouble once when I used two packs of firecrackers poured into a thick, hollow tube sealed at one end with a fuse at the other. Seems I used to put M-80´s on the end of bottle rockets, never gave thought to the trajectory of my missiles. I also used to try and put insects into orbit by the same method. Kind of makes me wonder why I did´nt burn the house down or blow my head off!!
Grateful Deb 6/17/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not I was a child in the late 60´s, but I remember how cool life was then. Grew up at a small fishing lake in northern Indiana; folks from the big cities (Chicago, Indianapolis) had cottages there and came in the summer to get away from city life. Did a lot of boating and swimming, a little bit o´fishin, and didn´t need to worry about sunblock back then! My Grandpa was the best fisherman of the lake area, and he had a little store there. He sold bait, rented boats, and gave pretzel rods to all the kiddies (he didn´t like any of us to have candy!) He had a charge system at the store; allowed customers to "put it on their tab" and pay him when they could. And everyone always paid up, it was unthinkable to do otherwise! I met my best fried there when I was 4 years old (he & I were married recently!) I also remember when I was 7 years old, I had a shirt that said DDT BUGS ME. Guess I´ve always been the way I am now! Thanks all, for sharing your experiences! [This message has been edited]
Dream Warrior 6/18/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Hi. I´ve been reading this forum for awhile now, and finally decided to join. I was born in 64, and I´ve always felt that my generation was probably the last to experience an innocent childhood. I remember going squirrel hunting with my dad. (That was before the animal rights activists put a stop to that sort of thing.) One time my dad actually sent my cousins and I on a snipe hunt. We never found any. LOL I remember all of my cousins and I would spend the weekend at my grandmothers, and going to church with her on Sunday. Often, we would walk down the end of the road to the locally owned convenient store for penny candy. We would tag along with grandma while she ran her errands, hanging out the car window, (Her car didn´t have seatbelts) giving everyone the peace sign. We were fascinated by hippies and would count how many we saw. Every Sunday the whole family would get together for Sunday dinner. We always tried to stay up late on Saturday nights to watch old scary movies in black and white. We never saw any blood and gore, sex, violence or foul language in those movies. We used to stop at a neighbor´s house that had an outside faucet which always ran, and a tin cup sitting on top, so that anyone could stop and have a cold cup of water. We used to call it the coldest water in the world. In school, we´d say the Pledge of Allegiance everyday, and before lunch time we always said a prayer.."God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for this food." I had no idea that school prayers were against the law back then, but no one ever objected to it, so I guess it wasn´t a problem. I regret that my children will never have the opportunity to have such an innocent childhood. They are home schooled, but you can´t hide them from the world.
hippy grandma 6/18/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Kent, My memories of early childhood were very similar to others here. But I couldn´t claim that we, as a nation, were more civilized. Even at a young age I knew there were terrible things going on in the world. My parents wanted us to know that people all over the world (in this country as well) were suffering. My Dad talked about "The Bomb" (remember Air Raid Drills?). I remember "Whites Only" signs in our town. I remember seeing cops on TV using fire hoses, knocking demonstrators off their feet and slamming them into trees and buildings. I remember handing out underground newsletters from the Students for a Democratic Society (even though I was too young to understand a lot of what they said). I just wanted to do SOMETHING to change the way things were. A lot of us joined communes or civil rights groups or just "dropped out" because we knew that the system had to change. The lies, the bigotry, the oppressive conformity, the rampant materialism. The corruption in government.The Vietnam War. We just couldn´t buy into that sweet American Dream that our parents tried so hard to provide for us, because we knew that someday there would be hell to pay for it! Our parents believed that it was their responsibilty to give us a better way of life then they had. But somehow we got the idea that it was our responsibility to extend that "better way of life" to include all peoples. To stop injustice, to promote tolerance, to end war. For some of us the innocence of childhood didn´t last very long. I am almost 50 now, and these memories are more than nostalgic indulgence, they are an urgent reminder that we as Human Beings must find a way to live in peace on this little world. Our survival as a species depends upon it. I want my grandchildren to know that we didn´t just accept the way things were back then,(or now).We didn´t just do as we were told. We questioned everything. We challenged our parents, our teachers, our government and we never gave up. When my own daughter was in 7th grade she got kicked out of class for arguing with a teacher about Columbus "discovering" America. I told the principle that I was proud of my daughter for speaking up. My daughter will share these teachings and memories with her children, and so the knowledge is passed on. The government may shut down websites, ban books and send out surveilance teams but they can´t delete our memories or our dreams. We´re still out here chanting and drumming and rollin´ the bones..."there´s a man with a gun over there, tellin´ me I got to beware..." Remember?
Brave Wolf 6/18/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Yeah ,i remember how it was back in the ol´ days.. Killing the buffalo,robbing the land and slaughtering the Native Americans!!! Or maybe that was too far back ??!!
hippy grandma 6/18/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Responding to Brave Wolf, What you speak of is not too far back. While some were having carefree childhoods, many more were suffering. Sometimes people talk about going back to "the way things were", but it seems like they are really envisioning an idealized version of what they want to remember. I just feel that it´s important to share both the positive and negative truths of how things were back then. Civilized? I guess that would depend on who you asked. (Lately, I keep reading about Israeli "Settlers" taking over Palestinian land...hmmm, sounds familiar.) People often choose to forget what they don´t want to know about. I have spent nights alone under the stars, listening to crickets, and days running through the fields and laughing at the birds. I cherish these memories, but my grandchildren may never know that kind of freedom. I will make sure they know about the way things really were, good and bad. I don´t accept the idea that world peace is an impossible dream. There is enough of everything in this world to provide for all peoples everywhere. What I want for my grandchildren, I want for all children everywhere. Freedom and Peace on Earth.
Grateful Deb 6/18/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Hippy Grandma, you´re so right-on! We tend to remember the good & displace the bad memories. I have tried to teach my daughter all about life...the good, the bad, the ugly, and (most important) to think for herself. I have caught a load of crap from some of my family members about this, but I don´t care. I want her see the ´big picture´. Our children ARE the future, and I believe in instilling in them a non-complacent attitude.
Kent 6/18/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not The challenge here is to tell it how it was, we remember bad, tell bad. Our experiences.
Dream Warrior 6/18/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not I agree with hippy grandma that there has always been good and bad. We don´t live in a perfect world. However, I do feel that things are worse now. When I was in school, we never worried about a classmate bringing a gun to school and blowing us all away. Today, the kids who attend the same high school as I did are not even allowed to walk around the outside of the building. Heaven forbid if they sneak a few drags off a cigarette like we did. We had a lot more freedom when we were in school than they do now. When I was a kid, most of the families that I knew had time to sit down to a home cooked dinner together everyday. We all knew our neighbors and we watched out for each other. I live in a small city in Indiana. When I was growing up, there was not one incident of a teenager killing someone. In the past decade, we have 3. One boy was 13, and he killed a 7 year old girl. Another boy was 14, and he killed an elderly woman, and raped her after she was dead. The last murder committed by a teenager was a 16 year old boy. He was on in-home detention, and he was able to break into his neighbor´s house and rape and beat a 12 year old girl to death without his ankle bracelet going off. Part of the reason I have home schooled my children is so that they could enjoy a carefree childhood for as long as possible. That doesn´t mean they are naive or gullible. They know what´s happening in the world. They know that our government lies to us, and when they watch the news, they have learned to question what they´re being told.
Brave Wolf 6/19/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Wanna rule the world ??? Make the slave belive he is free.... Easy ....ain´t it ??
Living Deadhead 6/19/2002 6:00 PM	Re: Telling it how it was back when we were more civilized--or not Hey - Teacher - Leave those kids alone! I never voted, and only paid taxes for the first 6 years of my working life - i was born in 52 (1900 not 1800 thankyou). I decided to refuse to pay for projects which i didnt want - Nukes, NATO, WAR etc, so i moved to another country and played a legal scam. I´ve never trusted anything i read in newspapers or saw on t.v. and gave up giving money and attention to them years ago. In the sixties there were more than one generation that was disillusioned with ´the system´ and many had been forced to fight and die in foreign lands for bankers and politicians years before Vietnam even happened. Many people would PROTEST on the streets for things they felt strongly about, laugh at AUTHORITY and be happily arrested for what they BELIEVED in. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and John Lennon are just a few who would NOT STOP in the everlasting battle for justice and human dignity. Tim Leary said: Tune in (discover the real VIBE), Turn on (forget the BUCK and your sick society and devote your efforts to REAL LIFE) , and Drop Out!(stop supporting the sick system and live ALTERNATE LIFE STYLE). Frank Zappa said: ´Plastic People - Oh your such a Drag" and: "Call any Vegetable, Call it by name, And the chances are good that the vegetable will repond to you". So whats changed? Nothing. GET A LIFE! Buy some land, get some water and seeds, love your kids and neighbours, forget the BUCK and Government and.... BE HAPPY. Love.