Viewing Thread:
"Have you lived?"

Got this from my sis
-----

Close your eyes and go back in time...

Before the Internet...
Before semi-automatics,
joyriders and crack....
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...
Way back........
I'm talking about Hide and Seek in thepark.
The cornershop.
Hopscotch.
Butterscotch.
Skipping.
Handstands.
Football with an old can.
Fingerbob.
Beano, Dandy, Buster, Twinkle and Dennis the menace.
Roly Poly.Hula Hoops, jumping the stream, building dams.

The smell of the sun andfresh cut grass.
Bazooka /Jaw breakers bubble gum.
An ice cream cone on a warm summer night from the van that plays a tune
Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe Neapolitan or perhaps a screwball.

Wait...... Watching Saturday morning cartoons, short commercials or the flicks. Children's Film Foundation, The Double Deckers, Red Hand Gang, The Tomorrow People, Tiswas or Swapshop?, and 'Why Don't You'? - or staying up for Doctor Who and Minder. When around the corner seemed far away and going into town seemed like

going somewhere.

Earwigs, wasps, stinging
nettles and bee stings.
White dog poo.
Sticky fingers.
Playing Marbles. Ball bearings. Big 'uns and Little
'uns.
Cops and
Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, and Zorro.
Climbing trees.
Building igloos out of snow banks.
Walking to school, no matter what the
weather.
Running till
you were out of breath, laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. Jumping on the bed. Pillow fights. Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles. Being tired from playing....remember that? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon. Football cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle. Choppers and Grifters. Eating raw jelly. Orange squash ice pops. Remember when... There were two types of trainers - girls and boys, and Dunlop Green Flash
-
and the only time you wore them at school was for
P.E.
You knew everyone
in your street - and so did your parents.
It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.

You didn't sleep a wink on
Christmas eve.
When
nobody owned a pure-bred dog.
When 25p was decent pocket money
Curly Whirlys. Space Dust. Toffo's. Top
Trumps.
When you'd
reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.
When nearly everyone's mum was at home when the kids got
there.
When any parent
could discipline any kid, or feed him or use him to
carry groceries and nobody, not even
the kid, thought a thing of it.
When being sent to the head's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs etc. Parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! and some of us are still afraid of them. Didn't that feel good? Just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that! Remember when.... Decisions were made by going " Ip Dip Dog Sh## " "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.

Money issues were handled by
whoever was the banker in "Monopoly".
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was germs. And the worst thing in your day was having to sit next to one. It was unbelievable that 'British Bulldog 123' wasn't an Olympic event. Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a catapult. Nobody was prettier than Mum. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.

Taking drugs meant
orange-flavoured chewable aspirin.
Ice cream was considered a basic food group.

Getting a foot of snow was a
dream come true.
Older
siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors. If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED.

I'd like time to have stopped moving forward six years ago, when I was 25. That was a very nice time in my life.

Being young rocks, only the young don't realise it, talk about your paradoxes (!?)

more complicated? thats an understatement. After school I felt the weight of the world was being gradually lowered onto my shoulders. Over the past year or two I feel the cranes mechanism has failed and the whole lot has been dropped squarely onto my neck.

As homer simpson said : "I used to believe in stuff when I was a kid, until the weight of the world crushed my tender spirit"

Goatboy wrote:
> "We do not stop playing because we get old. We get old because we
> stop playing"

Well, I ain't old yet, then! :-)

I can remember and/or relate to *everything* in that post, except the farms (none around in Hackney) and siblings (I have no brothers or sisters).

I wouldn't want to be young forever, but it's a shame things get so much more complicated as you get older.

i aint reading all that stuff, but to summarise :

My life : School, College, Work, Uni, oh yeah and a lot of computer games, toxins, staying up late, films and more toxins.

boy have i lived

Chappy and Curby

Ahhhhh

Growing up, all we had was my Amstrad 464 and my mate's PC with Monkey Island 1+2

Other than that, everything we did involved playing outside, riding bikes, making catapults and bows and arrows and stuff.

I feel sorry for today's youth, it's all Playstation 2s and the internet. Heck, I'm old enough to remember the time when PCs didn't even come with a CD ROM drive as standard and 8mb of RAM was a rediculously high amount - and kids today are used to modems and 1 gig processors

Heh, to be honest, being a kid today ain't that much different.

Those were the days... :^)

Nice.

I remember watching Saved by the Bell and Earthworm Jim on Saurday/Sunday mornings. Also actually went swimming a lot.