Balderdash - The over 60 crowd

“Verity - the quality or state of being true or real; Balderdash – nonsense.”

Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary

The over 60 crowd

Verities & Balderdash

By Bob Robinson

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking 25 miles to school every morning.... Uphill... In six feet of snow… Barefoot... BOTH ways. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that I'm at the ripe old age of 66, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

They've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, they live in a darn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but to the kids today, "you don't know how good you've got it!"

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the blasted library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!! Yecch!

2) There was no email!!  We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen even! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. In fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to walk to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! If we were lucky we had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless.

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a darn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends." OH MY GOSH!!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!!  And then there's TEXTING.  Yeah, right.  Please! You kids have no idea how annoying that is.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, IRS, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics!  We didn’t even have Atari 2600… although my kids did!  They actually had to use their imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And they could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channels!!!  All three of them. NO REMOTES!!!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning.  Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons.

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long.  Oh no, no electronics to soothe and comfort.  If you came back inside... you were doing chores.

14) And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on.  If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1960 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 60 Crowd

Editor’s Note: What we did have, however, were parents who cared. We pray you do, too.

Remember, verities should be thought provoking; balderdash is nonsense.

See you next time.

Bob Robinson is the retired editor of The Daily Advocate, Greenville, Ohio. If you wish to receive a daily notification of his comments, opinions and reports, send your email address to: opinionsbybob@gmail.com. Feel free to express your views.