Those Were The Days My Friends......

I reply to almost every comment that is left on my blog. The past two days, some of them have come back undelivered for some reason. So, if you haven't received a reply to a comment you left....that is why. Is anyone else having that problem???

My new book arrived yesterday and I started reading last night. It's called "Building Bone Vitality...A Revolutionary Diet Plan to Prevent Bone Loss and Reverse Osteoporosis." Now just as I don't always trust doctors....I also don't believe everything I read. I'm just hoping to learn more and maybe change my diet to help my poor old bones! So far, it's been very interesting.

In addition to my awesome book arriving....my Country Living magazine also came too. How lucky can one person be?

Now to the real post.....I was driving home Tuesday trying to decide what I wanted to write about and a thought popped into my head. Did your parents allow you to do things when you were a child that you would never ever have let your own kids do?

As I sat there in my car I started to laugh. My kids weren't even allowed to ride their bikes around the block alone and we lived in a very safe little neighborhood! That was in the 80's.

I grew up in a small town where no one locked their doors. Very little crime....everyone knew everyone else....you know....a little Mayberry so to speak. At a very young age, I was allowed to pretty much go wherever I wanted to go in the town. No one worried that I might get kidnapped, or run over by a car or be in danger of any kind. It was an awesome way to grow up.

As pre-teens....we walked the railroad tracks from our town to the next town OVER A RAILROAD TRESTLE that spanned the river! It was scary because you could see the water way down below in between the railroad ties. I don't remember if my parents knew we did that, but usually I just had to say that we were careful and for some reason they believed me! :)

This is my beach and the trestle we use to walk across! This photo is from Wikipedia.

As young kids we were allowed to ride our bikes down to the beach two blocks away...leaving in the morning.....and spend the entire day swimming...by ourselves....as long as we were home by dinner! Sometimes I would even go myself. There was a part of the shore down from the sandy beach area that was all gooey clay. I would sit there for hours just playing in the muck. In fact, once we learned to swim, we would swim across the river splashing and waving our hands in the air so oncoming boats would see us and not run over us, and hang out at the beach on the other side. (It wasn't a huge river, but big enough)

We had an amusement park in our town. It was a popular one on the river....called the Picnic Grove. Bus loads of people would come out from Chicago on the weekends. The place was mobbed all the time. Yep, we were able to go there any time we wanted to, without a parent and just hang out all day long, riding the rides and eating all kinds of crap from the concession stands. When we got a little older we would dance outside on the concrete slab to the jukebox. My girlfriend's brother worked there and he ran rides. He would take people's tickets when they were getting on....put them in his pocket....and give them to us to use again. Don't tell anybody we did that though....that was really dishonest....but boy did we have fun!

My parents and my older sister and I took a vacation out to California....get this...we had an awesome '57 Chevy station wagon...turquoise and white. My dad made a big fat cushion that fit in the back and that is where we rode for two weeks. No seat belts....just a lot of fun!

My uncle use to let us sit in his lap when he was driving and steer the car....not on the highway, but on the roads around our neighborhood.

Yes, times have changed. Do you think it was just more easy going back in the 50's and 60's. Were there less people, so there was less crime? Was there less to worry about? What were things like when you were a kid? Were you allowed to do things that you would never allow a child to do today?