It was a good childhood from an independence building, learning to explore standpoint. People my age around me are 1) very independent 2) confident 3) clever. It was also a hell of a lot of fun.
But dangerous. Like some guardrails could have been in place without really affecting anything. I also didn’t feel this way - I had good parents. But a lot of kids were pretty much just straight up abandoned on a daily basis. Lots of resentment towards their parents, it’s tough having a parent that literally didn’t give a shit about you. I unfortunately think a lot of kids fell into that category.
RI in the states.
Funny how things so far away can be so similar.
Man, what was it with pipe bombs? It was totally a thing to do. Everybody has a story about them. For anyone younger reading - no parent thought that was safe. But so many kids tried to make them…
A kid on my street blew his hand off doing that. For real, I don’t know the details. Me and a couple of other kids strolled up to his crew (they were older and generally got into more trouble than I did). They were out in the woods and he was cutting a galvanized pipe with a hacksaw. When I figured out what he was doing, I took off. I literally got picked on for that - for about a week. I could not have been a bigger pussy. Then he was in the hospital with no hand. Then I was ok to hang out with again - someone with brains - nobody screwed around with pipe bombs any more after that.
We didn’t have a lot of water near us - just some ponds. We did stupid shit, but 1) not considered safe and 2) generally not that bad in the big scheme of things. Kids drowned a lot in pools and ponds. The items above around water were changing. My mom wasn’t a fan, but my dad was all “you’re just moming him to death”. So I suppose those are half truths - mom didn’t think they were safe - but I was still allowed.
51 Born in 74. Dead smack in the middle of GenX. Parents had me when they were real young. To be fair, they are good parents. We were pretty poor, they got divorced and should have never married in the first place, and they do all the boomer things that drives everyone crazy. But, they cared about me and my sister, gave us more than they could afford and we deserved, and I think I had more love from them than most kids got.
But boy-when it came to making decisions about safety. Man, what was considered normal and ok just blows my mind. ;)
Gen x with boomer parents who barely parented, so…. Everything?
How’s this for a list? I swear every one of these is honest to god true and I did them all.
- jarts
- Being kicked out of the house for the entire day with zero supervision
- ice fishing / pond hockey. We decided if the ice was safe or not. Like 10 year old kids…
- being allowed to ride our bikes on literally any road except for highways
- riding bikes on the roads with no helmets
- being allowed to go literally anywhere we could get to on our bikes
- being given firecrackers
- carrying and using real guns on the farm at about 10+ years old unsupervised (22s and 410s - the 12 gauge unsupervised wasn’t until I was older - like 16ish)
- riding with no seat belts
- riding in the back of a pickup truck
- riding in the way back of a station wagon
- riding on the edge of a tailgate with our legs dangling over (we used to drag our sneakers on the road and make white lines by burning off the rubber soles)
- riding on the side edges of the bed of a pickup
- holding ladders and whatnot onto the roof & tailgate of a pickup (like not tied down - the kids held it down)
- working / playing all day in the summer sun with no suntan lotion
- making jumps and going off them with bicycles
- jumping over our friends with said bicycles and jumps
- riding three wheelers (they stopped making them because they were so dangerous)
- mean green machines
- candy cigarettes
- buying real cigarettes for our fathers from a vending machine
- drinking from the hose
- we we had “real” ninja stars and we hucked those things at everything
- we had real knives at very young ages - like maybe 5?
- I had a real slingshot early. Like 5ish. That thing could kill. Dangerous af.
- I always had a bow and could use it as soon as I could draw it. My friend was lucky enough to have a compound bow. Totally cool to walk around with bows and shoot shit.
- I learned to use a chainsaw around 10yr old
- drove tractors unsupervised at about 8 yr old
- drove tractors on the road
- learned to drive a real car (Datsun pickup truck - stick shift) at about 10. Unsupervised on the farm. Not allowed on the road. We used to drive it fast and do donuts and shit. Parents and grandparents didn’t care - we were just having some fun. “Be careful and don’t crash into trees” was all I ever got warned about.
- siphoned gas with a hose
- sprayed herbicides pesticides and fungicides as a teenager with no mask
- being allowed to camp outside in the woods for the night with friends
- being allowed to make campfires at said campouts (we cooked hotdogs and ate them)
- going to concerts with older brothers (anyone’s older brother) at young ages (basically once you started getting into music - 10ish?)
- carrying a house key with you since day 1 of kindergarten
- being a latchkey kid - I came home alone and took care of myself and my younger sister by about 3rd grade. Before that we got dropped off at grandmas house after school. If we had a problem we just called grandma on the phone.
- allowed to cook anything anytime since about 5
- it was a responsibility to light the wood stove and keep the fire going in the winter.
- mowed lawns unsupervised since a young age. 8ish maybe?
- used weed whackers about the same time
- had a dirt bike at 13ish. Allowed to go anywhere unsupervised
- totally cool to swim unsupervised or even alone once I learned how to swim
- totally cool to eat things that had fallen on the ground - the 5 second rule definitely applied
- it was ok to drink at home a little bit with friends as a teenager. Like a sleepover or out in the woods. Better than drinking and driving. Getting shitfaced wasn’t cool, but drinking some of dad’s beer / liquor was - as long as we didn’t drive. Party at a friends house? Gonna be booze? Ok if parents are around and nobody drives.
- when tromping around the neighborhood-I didn’t have to tell my parents where I was. They didn’t care. There were no cell phones either. If our parents wanted us they’d yell. If that didn’t work, they’d call neighbors and once they found out where we were last seen - that neighbor would yell.
- people had chicken pox parties (I never went to one but they happened - I think I got it from my sister)
- monkey bars - big ass ones at least 15 feet high. Hard packed dirt underneath. Totally could bust your head open or break your back if you fell off one. Wicked dangerous. Was actually scary to climb to the top but you bet your ass we all did it, otherwise you were a pussy and got picked on forever.
- huge Fn seesaws - like would go up in the air maybe 6 or seven feet
- those spin-y things in the playground-dunno what they were called. You know all the kids piled on, others grabbed the bars and spun the shit out of it. We all got dizzy and tried not to whack our heads falling off.
I dunno, that’s all just off the top of my head.
Corned beef and cabbage. Corned beef, one onion, 2 cups of water, can of guiness. Pressure cook on high for 90 minutes. Slow release.
Remove beef, cover with a mix of brown sugar and honey. Broil/grill/torch to carmelize/burn the sugar a bit.
While you’re doing that, you throw the cabbage, potatoes, and carrots into the broth and pressure cook on high for 5 minutes-quick release.
Veggies will be done same time as beef is seared.
Enjoy.
Do it, you know you want to. >:)
Just a tank and some lights, add some flow and boom! You’re there. Just get some salt and testing kits to keep things in balance. Those Hanna checkers are nice if you want to splurge - but that’s it, you’re done! I mean…. You have to get the fish and corals too - but you can make friends and get frags for free! Then you’re really done. Everything beyond that is automation, you don’t have to do any of it (although you can really dial in your nutrient balance if you use protein skimmer, algae scrubber, refugium, media reactors). But you don’t want to do that because then you’ll need a sump (but aren’t sumps handy? Who doesn’t want a sump?). Just make sure your stand accommodates everything-you don’t want to rebuild a stand. Leave room for controllers and uv meters and all that other stuff just in case you add it in the future - which you’re not going to becasue it’s expensive and overkill…
I went back to the office on my own. A long time ago. It should be noted that I like my bosses, peers, and my job in general (I mean it’s called work, not fun - but it isn’t miserable)
- ability to build better relationships with everyone - it’s too easy to sling shit over email. Whole different experience actually talking to somebody - especially when one of you needs something difficult.
- separation between work and home - I don’t like home feeling like the workplace.
- remote work people are heading towards a future of being Bangalore’d. If your job is currently being split up into the part that needs to be local and a remote part - you’re only a few years away from watching someone overseas do it for 1/10th the cost. Be needed in person people!
I thought I’d love remote work, but I hated it.
Ok I’ll play, I got a good one with a dose of revenge for fun.
Me, my young daughter(4) at the time, and my pregnant wife were standing in a very long line line to buy movie tickets to the latest Disney flick (I think it was Nemo). There was only one teenage girl working, there were clearly some staffing issues going on, she was mega flustered, and the wait was truly long and unbearable. But whatever-stuff happens, not the poor girls fault. So we wait as patiently as we can.
We are next in line. There’s like 50 people behind us. Some cow of a Karen just strolls up and cuts the entire line right in front of us. She looks back over her shoulder, smiling, and says that she cannot wait in this long line because she needs good seats. I’m kind of a jerk, and I would have enjoyed giving her a piece of my mind, but… small daughter, pregnant wife, etc. I behaved. People behind start flipping out.
I’m thinking this entitled bitch needs a slap, and just as she turns around with her successfully purchased tickets from cutting an entire line, she whirls around flinging her excessively large designer bag over her shoulder. The strap breaks, and stuff goes EVERYWHERE. Tampons rolling around, lipstick cases under arcade machines, stuff all under people’s feet under the ropes, etc. Truly glorious.
So now she’s horrified and has to pick everything up, and here’s the best part - nobody lifted a finger. All these people in line just ignored her, and her pathetic “excuse me”, “could you”, etc. she went from entitled Karen, queen of importance, to a cockroach scuttling around on a dirty movie theater floor, and everyone just silently looked down upon her.
Petty? yes. I’m sure she’s still a mega bitch still. But karma was served that day.
I failed a class in college. It was impossible to make the credits up due to scheduling conflicts/the tight nature of my curriculum’s scheduling. I had to miss my graduation in the spring, and go back to school in the fall for one semester for one class.
I am now a C-suite executive at a mid sized engineering firm.
Don’t worry about it at all. Take the extra time to breathe, get other things in your life in order, and hell-maybe just have a little fun too. You’ll be fine.