CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN A DIFFERENT TIME AND AGE!

First, we survived being born to mothers who drank alcohol while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos based walls. They took aspirin, ate raw eggs, loads of bacon, fatty meat, even pure fat and only processed meat like spam and practically anything from a tin.

Then after that ordeal, our baby cots were covered with lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking and talking to strangers.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. We drank water from the garden hose with green bits in the water and NOT from a bottle....

Take away food was limited to just fish and chips for the British, half a metre sausages for my German friends and 5 to 6 souvlakia or gyros and a litre of coke, not diet.

Even though all the shops closed around 5ish and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death! Did we?

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy sweets, gobstoppers, bubble gum, crisps and twisters.

We ate thick slices of bread thickly covered with real butter and topped with a cup of sugar, mum let us lick the icing bowl, ate only white bread and real butter and drank loads of soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

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. No mobile phones you see and we were all O.K.!!!

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars. We played with matches, threw stones at wasps and bee nests, collected beetles, spiders and lizards.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , Xbox 360's, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY or xrated films or xx magazines, no video or dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms......

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them and enjoyed life with them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents. Only girls had pierced ears! And I mean only ears. Now every hole has an ear-ring, even ass-holes.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs (real eggs) and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time...We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, threw stones at their window, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT otherwise you found something else you were good at, chasing girls or boys and then wondering what to with them.

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and bully's always ruled the playground at school. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL !

And YOU are one of them! A survivor!!
CONGRATULATIONS! If you are not then rethink how you go by with your life!