Today’s older adults are truly awesome

    No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us, we are awesome. Our life is living proof. This article is dedicated to all the “kids” who survived the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
    First, we survived birth to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.  They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored led-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets on our heads.
    As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no breaks. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from it. We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon.
    We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar, and we were not overweight. Do you wonder why? Because we were always outside playing; that’s why. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day, and we were OK.
    We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps of wood and then rode them down the hill only to find out we forgot the breaks.  After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Sony Play Stations, Nintendos and Xbox gaming systems. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms.
    We had friends and went outside to find them. We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from those accidents. We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just bare hands, and no one would called child services to report abuse. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
    We were given BB guns for our 10th birthday, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and just had fun. Little League had tryouts, and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.
    The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Our generation has produced some of the best risk takers, and problem solvers ever. We had freedom, failures, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. Congratulations. You deserve to walk tall. Send a copy of this to your children so they will know how brave and lucky their parents are.  
    Until next time, be prepared and be informed. I wish you all happy holidays.
    
    
Frank Murga is president of the Retired Senior Volunteer Pro-gram board and serves as its emergency preparedness coordinator. Contact him at  fmurga@cranstonri.org.