Ah those were the days

Born before 1986??According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us whowere kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't havesurvived because first, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, didn't get testedfor diabetes, our baby cots were covered with brightly colouredlead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doorsor cabinets and it was fine to play with pans. When we rode our bikes,we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat beltsor airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.We drank water from the garden hose, not from a bottle and it tastedthe same.
We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice withsugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were alwaysoutside playing.
We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottleor can and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only tofind out we forgot the brakes.
After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned tosolve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one wasable to reach us and no one minded.We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all.
No99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms.
We had friends - we went outside and found them.We played elastic band ball rounders, and sometimes that ball reallyhurt!
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no lawsuits.
We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.We played chap-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the ownerscatching us. We walked to friends' homes. We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school,which was just round the corner.We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.
We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheardof... They actually sided with the law. This generation has producedsome of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors,ever.
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and newideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and welearned how to deal with it all.And you're one of them. Congratulations! Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids,before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our owngood.

For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about this, my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and itmight put a smile on your face: T
he majority of students in universitiestoday were born in 1986........They are called youth.
They have never heard of 'We are the World, We are the children' and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They havenever heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda Carlisle.(possibly not a bad thing of course....)
For them, there has always been only one Germanyand one Vietnam.
AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since theywere born.
MichaelJackson has always been white.
To them JohnTravolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance. They believe that Charlie'sAngels and Mission Impossible are films from last year. They cannever imagine life before computers.
They'll never have pretended to be the 'A' Team, Red Hand Gang or the Famous Five. They'll never have applied to be on 'Jim'll Fix It' or'Why Don't You'. They can't believe a black and white television everexisted.And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now let's check if we're getting old...1. You understand what was written above and you smiled.2.You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after anight out.3.Your friends are getting married/already married.4.You are always surprised to see small children playingcomfortably with computers.5.When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.6.You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.7.You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the goodold days, repeating again all the funny things you have experiencedtogether.8.Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too... Yes, you'regetting OLD!