‘Good Ol’ Days’ Not As Good As You Remember

As often when I stroll down memory lane my Hometown View from yesterday resulted in some interesting feedback.

For those that did not hear or read it, the subject was about the simplicity of being a kid back in the day and how many of the things some of us grew up with are pretty much gone forever.

Several parents of young children and pre-teens admitted that today’s younger generation will miss out by not being exposed to things like hopscotch, red light-green light, climbing trees, playing outside with friends until it was dark, drinking from your garden hose, etc.

Growing up in the 50s, 60s and even part of the 70s was much easier than it is today for kids and parents as well.  Sure there was peer pressure and stress but nothing like children face today.  We really didn’t know anything and for the most part were pretty innocent.

I mean young boys used to glance at their parents issues of National Geographic for often what was their first view of a naked woman and if as a 13 or 14 year old you got a hold of “Playboy” magazine you would be a hero in your neighborhood.  That was a time when the worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was “cooties.”

We didn’t call drugs "drugs," rather they were prescriptions from your doctor, some of whom made house calls.  If you did something wrong you often told your parents first because sooner or later they would find out about it and that would be much worse.

In full disclosure when I was about 12 or 13 my friend Ray Andreola (who died way too young from cancer) and I won a carton of cigarettes on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights.  I think it was Salem’s but it might have been Kool’s because we thought we were cool.

We proceeded to go down by the bay and began smoking them one after the other.  I don’t remember how many we got through but we both started turning green, threw the carton away and went home. I walked into the door, started crying and confessed to my mother begging her not to tell my father.  I don’t think she ever did and I never smoked another cigarette again.

Listen every older generation waxes poetic about the “good old days” and in truth they weren’t probably as good as you thought they were.  Or maybe they were.