Life As We Knew It

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The 1950's. A simple time and the beginning of rock and roll. The 1960's. The start of the free love revolution, flower power, drugs, and sex. Some say good times, some say bad. A time in history that has eluded the younger generation now, and I am sure gave grey hairs to the older generation of that time. The kids today have no idea of how things used to be. Today's kids are all about video games, cell phones and computers. 

I guess today's society is all about going green, saving mother earth and allowing us to live longer. Yeah, right! Like we didn't do that when I was a kid. Do any of you remember picking up coke bottles and milk jugs on the side of the road or saving them at home? We would take them back to the store and they would give us a nickel or a dime. Then, they would send them off to be sterilized and re-used. I guess that's not considered recycling. I think it is, we just didn't call it that. And, hey, it gave you pocket money to buy a coke and candy bar. We always thought it was pretty cool. 

I really don't think we used as much electricity then, either. We didn't have air conditioning. Just a fan. We played outside most of the day. If it was hot, we got to play in the sprinkler that was hooked up to the water hose. Man, those were the days. Not only did we cool down in the water, the lawn got a good soaking, too.


We also used our imaginations a lot when we played. I can remember taking an old shoe box, wrapping different sized rubber bands around it and playing it like a guitar! Now, that was pretty cool. I guess it was our equivalent of an air guitar.


I played with my Barbies a lot. Shoes made great cars or boats for her and GI Joe. (Joe was Barbies favorite "boyfriend" 'cause he looked like he could take care of her. Ken looked like a sissy boy!) An 8 inch pyrex dish made a good swimming pool for Barbie. And, the top of socks made good Barbie dresses. I think that is pretty good recycling by a young kid!


So, to all you "youngsters" out there: this was a small sample of the way our generation recycled. It was simple and it worked. We didn't use a lot of electricity to power our toys, games, etc. When we went somewhere close by, we rode our bikes or walked. We didn't make our parents drive us everywhere. We used what we had available to play with. So, count yourselves UNlucky that you will never have that kind of fun childhood!