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 Remembering ChidhoodModerators: Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | |
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dex armstrong |
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COMSUBBBS Posts: 3202 Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: Remembering Chidhood There was a time in this country, that nobody gave a damn about little boys and violence. We went to the movies and watched our cowboy heroes shoot bad guys, train robbere, men stealing cattle, gangs knocking over banks and indians by the boxcar loads...war movies where soldiers, Marines, Coast Guard Personnel and sailors knock off Japs and Nazis. They shot, stabbed, grenaded, mortared, bazooka'ed, torpedoed, bombed, flamed-thower'ed and long range gunned the sonuvabitches in entire zip-code loads. Stores were filled with tin soldiers...toy guns...metal wind-up tanks...all sdorts of toys that kids could play war with. There were places called war surplus stores. You could go into one of them and for damn near nothing buy real, honest to God military stuff...a lot of it actually worn by guys who fought in places like Guatalcanal, Normandy, Saipan, Bastonge, Iwo Jima and places like that...or at least the active minds of little lads liked to think so....and fathers, friends and relatives, brought home helmets, web belts, holsters, war souveniers and stuff my big brother "took off a dead Jap." (Once in second grade some kid named Billy brought something for "show and tell". When grinning Billy took the thing out of his pocket and unfolded it, it turned out to be a silk Japanese battle flag signed by all his buddies that was literally covered in dried blood..."Pete, my big brother took this offa Jap after he stuck a bayonet through his neck." Miss Finny, our lovely, sweet teacher damn near shot her lunch. Nobody worried about little boys and violence...we played war and shot at each other in imaginary battles....and dear, sweet Nancy Knight-Harrison nursed us back to health in twenty minutes so we could get back into the war before we had to go home for supper. Nancy Knight had a blue pinafore her Aunt made for her and her Mother's Red Cross pin....and a real, genuine nurses cap...a real one, Dr. McCall got her from Erlanger Hospital. She reattched arms and legs shot off by German 88's....and could sew your head back on if the Enola Gay dropped something on you by mistake....We never figured out how to play submarines. TV in its' early stage carried a lot of raw combat footage where the War Department made sure that photos of dead and wounded couldn't be recognized by family members...If you watched VICTORY AT SEA some folks may have gotten the impression that everybody who died, died face down. Somewhere we became a far gentler nation...Go into Toy's R' Us and see if you can find a plastic Thompson sub-machinf gun, or a rubber trench knife, toy grenades or cap guns...gone, nada-mas you never see happy kids running around with stinking cap guns shooting their pals...wearing helmets designed for adult males, that make kids look like giant mushrooms with legs. You never hear," Ack,ack, ack...you're dead." "Watch out Ned's hiding that bush....itz-a machine gun nest." In all deferrence to the nice mothers who gentled and saddle broke all the little boys and introduced them to Nintendo, Harry Potter and Summer Bible School....It was great riding the open range, and shooting up indians, Japs and Germans like national security Orkin men. And, when you grow old, and find yourself living alone on dark, rainy nights....it's nice to pull out a long ago memory and Brasso the sonuvabitch up. DEX | ||
| steamboat |
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| Master and Commander Posts: 1814 Location: Boydton, Virginia | Subject: RE: Remembering Chidhood We grew up with all that "violent" play and didn't go out out and hack and slash our local store clerks. Somehow we could seperate play from reality. But the generation that followed us can not. Where is the line that seperates us? Is it because our make -believe "good guys" ie Roy Rogers, Lone Ranger, Gene Autry et al. always had the moral high ground, whereas the fictional heros of today do not ie. Clint Eastwood et. al.? I think it goes a lot deeper than that, it has to be related to us becoming a urban society with too much time on our hands and also the rapid growth and seperation of the middle class with a voratious appitite for more and more play toys. And then of course illegal drugs play a large part in this equation. Our generation sought cheap, affordable and simple escape from reality, whereas todays generation is absolutely glutenous in its persuit of pleasure. I personally could return to those simpler days as I can find pleasure in what the earth-based gifts God has given us (animals, gardens, wildlife). I think that the greatest fear with the Y2K hoax was that most people were entirely unsuited for a return to eaking out a living directly from the land. Who among the younger generation can scald a hog, bury a body, or milk a cow?? Our parents could do that, plus deal with a severe depression, World War and the trials and tribulations of raising large families. I yield the floor to anyone who can make sence out of what I just said, or better yet to anyone that will tell me I am full of crap!! Steamboat sends | ||
| Ralph Luther |
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| COMSUBBBS Posts: 6180 Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: Remembering Chidhood Boys and girls in comes down to two things......... respect and discipline... both of which are lacking in many homes today. Lack of it in the homes expands out the front door to the communities and the world. | ||
| dex armstrong |
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COMSUBBBS Posts: 3202 Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Remembering Chidhood We have become a jingoistic society (Hell that probably isn't even a word). We have hundreds of expressions that are meaningless expressions, supposed to convey some kind of lofty value. "Have a good day." "How're doing?" "Thank you for your service." We didn't go around after WWII thanking the folks who fought it...and brought us two clear undisputed victories....Those men knew how grateful the entire nation was...They knew without having to be told so. Our generation expressed their gratitude for service by teaching their young lads, courage, dedication, that service was an obligation any man calling himself a man, owed what,in my home were called "manly obligations". Before a few years ago no stranger ever walked up to me and thanked me for serving and paying dues to my nation. The first time that happened to me, I asked "You have any idea what I did and what kind of Discharge I got?" ..."No..." "Then how do you know that I did anything warranting your Thanks?" Folks, You say THANKS by raising lads who want to serve...Lads that don't take bribes to enlist...Lads who don't sign up to get the required training needed to become a contract mercenary and get great big contract bucks for doing the same damn thing lads subject to the UCMJ do, are paid small salaries to risk their lives on our behalf. That's how you truly express appreciation. We give a lot of jawboning about FAMILY VALUES...When I was a lad, nobody talked about family values....we simply lived them. Family values were placed in a youngsters soul at American dinner tables and were diseminated by Mothers and Fathers in serious discussions involving "right" and "wrong"...ethics, protection of the weak, the needy and the elderly, and a concept this nation has lost... HONOR. You learned spiritual values on your knees in houses of worship....Lads who grew up paying respect to their Creator and basing their lives on "His" Commandments....and having the seeds of religious, racial and nationality tolerance take root and watered by the tennants of their religious belief....became good citizens who understood military obligation and met those obligations. You don't learn a damn thing sitting in the Burger King stuffing your face with grease dripping fries and wrapping yourself around a Triple Cheese Whopper....while Mom and Dad have their butts planted in front of their flat-screen, eating Col. Sanders greasy chicken parts, off a pair of TV trays. Families are forged at family dinners and churches or synegogs. Family love and reciprocal respect germinates during the intimate discussions between good people. Steamboat, we were a good people and we knew it. Nobody felt they had to thank a young man for meeting his obligation as a man...all that fellow needed was the approval of his Mother and Dad and their pride in him as a manly credit to his Mom and Dad. People walking up to people and thanking them for doing their duty was an alien concept. It's the latest patriotic fad, like flag lapel pins (now a barometer used to determine whether you're a good American or bad American) car flags whose fad popularity has run its' course...Lapel pins became some kind of patriotic test like the way they pinned the tail on candidates donkey's in the last national election.) We need to get away from the shallow, inconsequential false values and get back to silent, personally internally expressed patriotic love of country and patterning our lives on those values...and acting in accordance with those values and expecting nothing in return. DEX | ||
| Curt |
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Old Salt Posts: 330 | Subject: RE: Remembering Chidhood Every generation: - Disparages the next (wonders why the young ones are so screwed up) - Longs for the good old days (but, you can't go home, again...) Some things never change... | ||
| dex armstrong |
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COMSUBBBS Posts: 3202 Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Remembering Chidhood Curt, Yes...Served at a time we had never been beaten by a foriegn power....when we only used American warriors to fight for our country... no MERC's , no hirlings, adventurouse headhunters or thug legions...everyone in our combat forces had no problems serving the US flag and saluting it. Nobody got monetary incentives to follow the US flag against our enemies....Never had recruiting problems in wartime....Never had to abuse and torture people to gather intelligence....We were considered to be the guys in the "white hats"in the worldwide community. There were NO COUNTRIES that barred their men and women from serving under US field command because they followed the Geneva Convention, to the full meaning of the original intent, like we used to because we were a party to the original drafting of the Convention...Yeah, we think we were better men, simply because we were. DEX | ||
| Bear |
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Great Sage of the Sea Posts: 781 Location: Port Orchard WA | Subject: RE: Remembering Chidhood just a quick question How do you define Generation? Cause if you all lump birth in the 50's as being the same as the 60's all being Baby Boomer and blame us that would be very wrong because 50's are definitely a different generation, and I kind of resent being lumped with like 1964 or 65 on. Speaking in generalities that is. | ||
| dex armstrong |
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COMSUBBBS Posts: 3202 Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Remembering Chidhood There was a term when I was a kid..."He's a clean cut youngster." A clean cut youngster got shiny knees in his suit from squirming around on church kneelers....He took up for little kids being bullied on the playground and got bloody noses for doing it....He never tattle taled or turned in a friend when he was the one caught out of the six involved. He respected adults and females of any age. He knew the Scout Oath and Laws and followed them both....He was extremely proud of being called a straight shooter and wanted to grow up to be a Straight Shooter who only needed a handshake to seal any deal. He and his little running mates carried jacknives to school, to prove they were old enough to accept the first level of responsibility that led to the acceptance of the adult responsibilities that would come in time. Barlow knives (the popular favorite in East Tennessee) were tools not weapons...Repeat, we were taught that folding knives were tools to help you or to pass time whittling on pieces of wood while waiting on a bus or for your Mom to come out of the Piggy-Wiggly or Kroger store. Any kid who would threaten anyone with a knife, would be considered by his contemporaries as gutless and sooner or later would have been challenged and gotten his face punched in....It was something known as the "law of the playground" a Constitutionally unrecognized kind of law, where proper behavior among kids was enforced by doling out black eyes and bloody noses, by straight shooters....Red Ryder fashion. Worst sin that a lad could commit was to "hit a girl".....Bill Nichols did it in third grade...Patsy Pennington called him a "yellow bellied sapsucker' because his mother bought him a seersucker shirt and he clocked her and bloddied her nose. We quit sitting with him at lunch and fifty years later at a reunion of the kids I went to school with...He turned up...someone said "Who's that guy?" "Oh he's that no 'count coward sumbitch that hit Patsy Pennington." There was no statute of limitations on hitting women or girls....When you reached a hundred and five, nobody came to your birthday party or sat beside you in the movies. Girls wore pinafores and Mary Janes and weren't supposed to let you see their panties on the swings or hanging upside down on the monkey bars. Sometimes it was tough as hell being a Clean-Cut Straight Shooter....and if you slipped God always sneaked you a GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card. DEX | ||
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