Looking back, it’s hard to believe that we have lived as

      long as we have. As children, we would ride in cars with

      no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup 

      truck on a warm day was always a special treat. Our

      houses and baby cribs were covered with bright colored

      lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine 

      bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes,

      we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town

      as a young kid!) We slept without flame retardant pajamas,

      without air conditioning, with doors and windows open.

      Our dogs did not have rabies shots, distemper shots, parvo

      shots, and we didn’t pour chemicals on them or on us to

      repel fleas and ticks and mosquitoes. We followed along in

      the big white clouds sprayed out by the city trucks to kill

      mosquitoes breathing in the wonderful smell of DDT. We

      raced around town without adults on Halloween collecting

      treats and eating them as we went along without having

      them x-rayed first. We drank water from the garden hose

      and not from a bottle. We would spend hours building our

      go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only

      to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the

      bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem. 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.

      We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really

      hurt. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, fried fat back for

      breakfast along with biscuits made with pure lard, and drank

      sugar sodas, but we were never overweight… we were always

      outside playing. We played with cap pistols and toy rifles and

      rubber knives. We took snakes or frogs or lizards to school,

      but never guns.

      We waded barefoot through muddy water in ditches catching

      tadpoles and crawdads. We cut the grass with push mowers,

      climbed trees, and walked along the top of fences like they

      were tight ropes. We petted stray dogs and cats and took

      them home to see if we could keep them. We shot off fireworks

      without supervision or safety precautions and without getting

      arrested. We made match guns out of clothes pins and shot

      flaming matches at each other and at passing cars.

      We walked or rode our bicycles to and from school in the

      flaming heat, in the freezing cold, and in the pouring rain.

      We were not afraid to accept a ride home from a total stranger

      when it was raining. We knocked on strangers’ doors without

      fear when we were searching for our missing puppy or kitten.

      We left our bicycle lying in the middle of the front yard at night,

      and it would still be there in the morning.

      There were tryouts for cheerleader and Little League, and not

      everyone made the teams. Those who didn’t had to learn to

      deal with disappointment. Some students weren’t as smart as

      others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the

      same grade as many times as necessary. We didn’t wear

      designer clothes to school or drive shinny new cars to high

      school. If we had a car to drive, we were happy with anything

      that would run no matter what it looked like. We had never

      even heard of seatbelts or airbags, which probably not done

      any good anyway with ten people packed into a Volkswagen.

      That generation produced some of the best risk-takers and

      problem solvers. We had freedom, failure, success and

      responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And if

      you’re one of them. Congratulations!