A friend, who is not a conservative, told me that he had been placed by an acquaintance on the distribution list for conservative chain emails. After he described a few of the emails, I said that I was curious and asked him to forward them to me. Many are overtly political, frequently with factual mistakes that a reasonably educated ninth grader would notice. Some are humorous, but even with these the urge to politicize often can’t be resisted, and a conservative slant is appended.

The friend recently forwarded this chain email:

Subject:  BORN between 1925-1955

 

The best years to be born in the history of Earth & we got to experience it all.  Thank God for all the times, the adventures, wars won, technology developed.  Generations after future generations will never experience what we did.  What generations we turned out to be.

 

 NO MATTER WHAT OUR KIDS AND THE NEW GENERATION THINK ABOUT US 
WE ARE AWESOME !!!

 

Our Lives are LIVING PROOF !!!    


To Those of Us Born 
1925 – 1955:     
 
At the end of this email is a quote of the month by Jay Leno.

If you don’t read anything else, Please read what he said.       
~~~~~~~~~   
TO ALL THE 
KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE   
1930s, 40s, and50s !!   
   
First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank
 While they were pregnant.   

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.  
   

Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered  with bright colored lead-based paints.   
    
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets, on our heads.  

   
As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.. 

    
Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
  
    
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. 

   
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.  

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. 
And we weren’t overweight.  
WHY?  
Because we were always outside playing…that’s why!  
    
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
 ...   
And, we were OKAY.
 

    
We would spend hours building   
Our go-carts out of scraps and 
then ride them down the hill,

Only to find out that we forgot about brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to Solve the problem. 

    
We did not 
Have Play Stations, Nintendo   
and X-boxes. There were   
No video games, 
No 150 channels on cable,    
No video movies 
Or DVDs,    
No surround-sound or CDs,     
No cell phones,
   
No personal computers,   
No Internet and 
No chat rooms.       
WE HAD FRIENDS   
And we went 
Outside and found them!   
    
We fell out of 
trees, got cut,    
Broke bones and 
Lost teeth,    
And there were 
No lawsuits    
From those accidents. 

     We would get 
Spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand,
And no one would call child services to report abuse.
  

     We ate worms, 
And mud pies    
Made from dirt, 
And    
The worms did 
Not live in us forever.   
     
We were given
 
BB guns for our 10th birthdays, 
 
22 rifles for our 12th, rode horses,
 
made up games with sticks and
 
tennis balls, and
 
    -although we were 
Told it would happen- we did not put out very many eyes.
  
    
We rode bikes 
Or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell,  
or just Walked in and talked to them.

 

Little League had 
tryouts    
And not everyone 
Made the team.    
Those who didn’t 
Had to learn    
To deal with 
Disappointment.   
    
Imagine that!! 

    
The idea of a parent  
Bailing us out
If we broke the law
was unheard of ..
They actually sided with the law! 


These generations have 
Produced some of the best risk-takers,    
Problem solvers, and 
Inventors ever.   
    
The past 60 to 85 years  
Have seen an explosion
of innovation and new ideas.
   
   
We had freedom,
 
Failure, success and responsibility, 
 
and we learned

How to deal with it all.   

   If YOU are One of those born    
Between 1925-1955,CONGRATULATIONS!  

  You might want 

to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids

before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.  
    
While you are at it, 
forward it to your kids, 
so they will know 
how brave and lucky 
their parents were.  
    
Kind of makes 
you want to run through the house
with scissors, doesn’t it ?
    
~~~~~~~   
The quote of the month  
by  Jay Leno:  

     “With hurricanes,  tornadoes,

fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms

tearing up the country

from one end to another, and with

the threat of bird flu and terrorist

attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?”

 

 

For those who 
prefer to think that God is not 
 
watching over us…
 
go ahead and delete this.
   
For the rest
 of us…..  
please pass this
 on.

———————————

I read a lot of this with a smile, for I was born in that lauded time. I rode my bike without a helmet and didn’t have to show up at home until the evening meal. But I also knew that a lot was left out of the halcyon description. I read the email again and noticed it said: “To all the kids who survived the 1930s, 40s, and 50s!!” Of course, it could not address those who were dead, but that salutation got me thinking about the childhood deaths and diseases of those born between 1925 and 1955.

(continued June 19)

One thought on “Born Between 1925 and 1955. Hooray?

  1. I got this email from a friend and didn’t think much about it. I had no idea it was considered a conservative email. As you said, I could identify with parts of it, but it seemed endless. Besides that, experience has taught me that these emails always end with a request/command to send them along. If I don’t, implies the email, I must be, in some way, morally deficient. So, I push delete and move on. Regarding this email, I, unlike you, didn’t consider the thousands of people whose life was not so idyllic. Amelia’s Dad often reminds me to look beyond myself. Thanks for the reminder!

    Like

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