Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s was actually the best years of my life looking back. As a kid growing up you didn’t understand many things and when you asked a parent a question of why, you got told “Because, I said so that’s why.”
Used to drive me crazy. Then when you would ask your parents for a specific brand of say sneakers, which was converse, you would get, “I’m not spending my hard-earned money like that.” Oh, heaven forbid if you responded with, “Well everyone else has them,” (laughing) you were hit with, “Well you aren’t everybody else.” You knew then the argument was over.
My Mom used to buy our sneakers at the grocery store for 50 cents. I hated those things. Then I learned a neat little trick, since I had a minibike, I would ride up and down the road letting my feet skim the surface. It would effectively in time burn a hole in the bottom of them. Did it work, you may ask? Not a chance. I still ended up with 50 cent bobos to wear while my friends had converse.
Did you know back in the 70’s you could buy a pair of chucks (converse) for $9.95? My Mom was horrified at that cost. She would say, “Do you know what I can buy for almost ten dollars?”
I grew up doing chores, like washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the house, doing barn work feeding cows, horses, chickens and goats. My worst chore was forking manure from the barn stalls. It smelled, it was hot and sticky, plus the bugs were horrible. But you know what I survived.
Discipline as a boomer was different than today. If you didn’t do what you were told, sassed back, got in trouble at school etc., you had to go find yourself a nice green branch that got notched with a pocketknife if you were really bad. That doodoo hurt.
You learned what respect was or you had your hinny handed to you on a silver platter. Kids today don’t have a clue. Hard work back then taught us about responsibility. I ended up keeping my kid sister about 5 1/2 years younger than me when I was 10 or 11.
Allowance? What was that? I collected old glass pop bottles to take back to the store for a refund on the glass bottles. My Mom would always yell at me, “Don’t you touch my bottles.” (laughing)
By the time I was 13 to 14, I started mowing grass for people to earn spending case. Moved up to babysitting 3 boys from 3pm to midnight. The lady would get home and then drive me home. I didn’t make that much but it was definitely more than I had before.
At 16, I got what I called a real job and started working at a hotel/motel cleaning rooms five days a week. Made a whopping $1 an hour. Can you see kids doing that today?
Once I graduated high school, I started working at Elby’s Big Boy Restaurant, first as a waitress then as a busboy clearing tables and running what we called the Pit to wash and restock the clean dishes. Occasionally I had to help the crew who did the food prep, and I was always given the job to bread oysters. Gross, you popped the lid off and all this slimy stuff oozed out. On top of that the stuff was so cold.
From there, I went on to become a nurse’s aide in a nursing home, now called geriatric facilities. Being young and naive, I didn’t understand that grown adults could soil themselves, need help with so much including eating. I got over that shock quickly and the work grew on me.
One time I worked almost 30 days in a row, which included double shifts. It didn’t hurt being young as I had the energy, back then. Oh, where oh, where has my energy gone?
I will tell you, I would go back to my younger self only if we went back to the same decades where people had manners, respect for others and authority. Schools weren’t bogged down with Common Core Math and all the other things the School Board Members deem necessary. I feel sorry for the teachers not being allowed to teach what they know works.
Then take in the fact that these teachers are bombarded with idiotic parent demands, parents taking up for the brats disrupting class and the list goes on.
Ah, we had it good in the 60’s and 70’s and were too dumb to know it. Anyone else feel that way?
Leave a Reply