Nostalgic chain-mail

I got this from a cousin in Minnesota....chain mail
that I actually took the time to read :

I got this from Canada, it is long but cute.
Print a copy and read it at lunchtime. Not all of this was
in my time, but I can relate, can you? A little bit of nostalgia....
you might want to pass on to everyone who is eligible and
also those who are not!

To the wonderful kids who were born in India and
survived the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's.......

First, we survived being born to mothers, some, whose
husbands smoked and /or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate whatever food was put on the table,
and didn't get tested for diabetes. They were mothers who
did not check their blood pressure every few minutes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs and bassinets were
covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We were put
in prams and sent out with ayahs (maids) to meet other children
with ayahs, whilst our parents were busy. We cried, were
picked up and cuddled by the ayahs" ( maids) and were quiet
again. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or
cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets,
not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking or going out on
our own. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts
or airbags. We sat on each other's laps for God's sake.
Riding in the back of a truck or jeep on a warm day was always
a special treat.

We drank water from outdoor taps and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle,
and NO ONE actually died from this.
We would share a dosa, dip a chapatti into someone else's plate
of curry without batting an eyelid. We ate jam sandwiches or
pickle on bread and butter, raw mangoes with salt that set our
teeth on edge, and drank orange squash with sugar and water
in it. We ate at roadside stalls, drank water from tender coconuts,
ate everything that was bad for us from mumfalees to Bhel Puri
to bhajias, puckhas and samosas, but we weren't overweight
because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! There was
never a child - not one single child -who was obese!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day during the
holidays, we were never ever bored, and we were allowed freedom
all day as long as we were back when the streetlights came on, or
when our parents told us to do so. No one was able to reach us all
day by mobile phone or phone. And we were O.K. We would spend
hours making paper kites, building things out of scraps with old
pram wheels or cycle rims, inventing our own games, playing
traditional games called hide and seek, kick the can and rounders,
ride old cycles and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot
the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to
solve the problem. We swam with an inflated tube which we got from
somebody who was replacing their car tyres, in creeks and rivers.
We ran barefoot without thinking about it, if we got cut we used iodine
which made us jump. We did not wash our hands ten times a day.
And we were OK. Our parents trusted us to go on picnics with
everyone and anyone, a friend of a friend would be OK and we survived.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at
all, no tv, no videos, no surround sound, no mobile phones,
no personal computers, no I-Pods, no internet or internet chat rooms,
BUT WE ALWAYS HAD MUSIC!!

We did not have parents who said things like "what would you like for
breakfast, lunch or dinner". We ate what was put in front of us and best
of all , there were never any leftovers. We polished the lot.
WE HAD FRIENDS, great friends, whose parents we called Uncle and Aunty,
and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth
and there were no compensation claims from these accidents.
We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down from the tree
above. And we never washed fruit.

We had a bath using a bucket and mug and used Lifebuoy soap.
We did not know what conditioners meant. We made up games with
sticks and tennis balls. We rode bicycles everywhere and someone sat on
the carrier or across the bar to school or the pictures not cinema, or you
walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell,
or just walked in and talked to them!

Not everyone made it into the teams we wanted to. 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! This generation of ours has produced some of the best risk-takers,
problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been 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 want to, pass this on to others who have had the luck and good
fortune to grow up as kids in India, before the lawyers and the government
regulated our lives ostensibly for our own good, who changed what was
good into bad and what was bad into worse.

Those were the days, my friend !!