This sums it all up

[N9LYA]

How life should have remained...

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE.. and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym)
instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are no w.

Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

73 Jerry n9lya



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[WA9SVD]

No offense, but I bet it gets moved to "Rag Chew..."

If you will notice the instructions at the top of the page, topics are supposed to be DIRECTLY related to Amateur Radio.

[KL7AJ]

Have you read "The Dangerous Book for Boys"? It's a great read...should be required.

[KY5U]

Great stuff jerry.

[KC7YPJ]

lookup bucky covington, a differant world, if you want the musical version

one of these days I'll find that book, not overly sure it would have made boyhood any more entertaining though,
half the fun was in thinking up new (to me) dangerous things to do

[N5PVL]

You hit the nail right on the head, Jerry.

[KR9D]

On the other hand, the average lifespan is considerably longer, and people in their 60's no longer think of themselves as "old". For example, people now have major heart attacks, get a stent, and go home in two days, instead of being laid up in a hospital for six weeks if they survived at all. They get help fast because of cell phones, and that's part of why they survive. In another example, people with cancer often survive now, when 50 years ago cancer was thought to be a death sentence. Other examples abound.

A lot of the unsafe things we used to do did not hurt most of us, but they did kill off a few. Lots of folks died from diseases that now they would survive. "That which does not kill me makes me stronger."

There are a lot of things I miss about the old days. But when I think back, I realize there are a lot of things I DON'T miss. I suspect our nostalgia goes through a filtering process that weeds out some stuff. If we went back, though, that stuff might surprise us.

Rick "barely in the first generation of man who grew up not worrying about contracting, in another example, polio" Denney

[KB2QU]

That sure takes me back.

[WA9SVD]

Quote[/b] (kr9d @ Sep. 20 2007,10:36)]On the other hand, the average lifespan is considerably longer, and people in their 60's no longer think of themselves as "old". For example, people now have major heart attacks, get a stent, and go home in two days, instead of being laid up in a hospital for six weeks if they survived at all. They get help fast because of cell phones, and that's part of why they survive. In another example, people with cancer often survive now, when 50 years ago cancer was thought to be a death sentence. Other examples abound.

A lot of the unsafe things we used to do did not hurt most of us, but they did kill off a few. Lots of folks died from diseases that now they would survive. "That which does not kill me makes me stronger."

There are a lot of things I miss about the old days. But when I think back, I realize there are a lot of things I DON'T miss. I suspect our nostalgia goes through a filtering process that weeds out some stuff. If we went back, though, that stuff might surprise us.

Rick "barely in the first generation of man who grew up not worrying about contracting, in another example, polio" Denney
GREAT example, Rick. But add a lot of the other "Childhood" diseases (Measles, Mumps, Whooping Cough, Diptheria, and Rubella) that had serious and sometimes fatal outcomes. Or seatbelts in autos, (now combined with shoulder belts) that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and reduced or even prevented countless more injuries over the years.
Even more "mundane" medical advances: Cataract surgery (now almost a given for seniors at some point) is a relatively minor 1-2 hour office procedure; in the past it required general anaesthesia (a definite risk) and several days of hospitalization, and a LONG recovery period.
I really wouldn't want to go back to the "old days," even if some of it IS quite appealing.

[AI4EP]

...we stand about as much chance of bringing back those great " good old days " as we do of the FCC re-instating the cw requirement.

sad, so sad. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[KG4RUL]

How life should have remained...

People didn't have the Internet for their interminable b&tch&ng sessions about "How life should have remained..."

[KA4DPO]

The changes made by the FCC that enabled any CB doofus to get a ham license happened under the directorship of Michael Powell. This is the same guy who brought us Broad Band over Power Line with such unbridaled enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, Mr. Powell's rationale for implemeting these changes (as well as BPL) appear to be very tainted. If you think about it, what was his purpose? Amateur radio wasn't broken and there was no need to fix it. The whiners from NCI were lobbying but that happens every day.

Also, the argument that all of the other countries did away with the CW requirement is flawed, quite a few countries still have a CW requirement. The testing dragged down to the Dick and Jane level.

What your hearing now is just the beginning of changes to come. Eventually the smart people who are the core of the hobby will give it up leaving nothing more than expanded CB behind them. The thing I like best is all the no coders who bragg about how proud they are to be a ham.

All I can say is, Proud of What?

[N9LYA]

Quote[/b] (wa9svd @ Sep. 20 2007,04:48)]No offense, but I bet it gets moved #to "Rag Chew..."

# #If you will notice the instructions at the top of the page, topics are supposed to be DIRECTLY related to Amateur Radio.
It is directly related to HAM RADIo and the Dumbing down OF..

Jerry

[N9LYA]

Quote[/b] (kr9d @ Sep. 20 2007,05:36)]On the other hand, the average lifespan is considerably longer, and people in their 60's no longer think of themselves as "old". For example, people now have major heart attacks, get a stent, and go home in two days, instead of being laid up in a hospital for six weeks if they survived at all. They get help fast because of cell phones, and that's part of why they survive. In another example, people with cancer often survive now, when 50 years ago cancer was thought to be a death sentence. Other examples abound.

A lot of the unsafe things we used to do did not hurt most of us, but they did kill off a few. Lots of folks died from diseases that now they would survive. "That which does not kill me makes me stronger."

There are a lot of things I miss about the old days. But when I think back, I realize there are a lot of things I DON'T miss. I suspect our nostalgia goes through a filtering process that weeds out some stuff. If we went back, though, that stuff might surprise us.

Rick "barely in the first generation of man who grew up not worrying about contracting, in another example, polio" Denney
I am 45 I feel old and get senior citizens discounts without showing proof...


Jerry

[N9LYA]

Quote[/b] (W3MIV @ Sep. 20 2007,05:50)]It's a given that we all agree with you, Jerry. The catch is, how do we return to those days of yesteryear?
Hi Albert... I wish I knew... I know of no one that has invented the WAYBACK Machine...

Thanks Jerry

[N9LYA]

Quote[/b] (KG4RUL @ Sep. 20 2007,06:22)]How life should have remained...

People #didn't have the Internet for their interminable b&tch&ng sessions about "How life should have remained..."
Exactly... And there was no need...

[KR9D]

Quote[/b] (KA4DPO @ Sep. 20 2007,11:53)]...
What your hearing now is just the beginning of changes to come. Eventually the smart people who are the core of the hobby will give it up leaving nothing more than expanded CB behind them. The thing I like best is all the no coders who bragg about how proud they are to be a ham.

All I can say is, Proud of What?
If that's the way you really feel, then maybe you should leave as a service to the remaining "smart people", so as not to infect them with your doomsday prognosis.

I'm kidding, of course, but not completely.

Rick "who would rather learn from the OT's than watch them kick the dirt" Denney

[N8UZE]

I'd like to be able to combine the best of the old with the new.

Our new technologies combined with personal responsibility would a be a winning combination.

[KL7AJ]

Quote[/b] (N8UZE @ Sep. 20 2007,12:09)]I'd like to be able to combine the best of the old with the new.

Our new technologies combined with personal responsibility would a be a winning combination.
Dream on. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[KR9D]

Quote[/b] (n9lya @ Sep. 20 2007,11:58)]I am 45 I feel old and get senior citizens discounts without showing proof...


Jerry
Don't enclose others within your own boundaries.

I'm slightly older than you, and I feel limitations I didn't used to, but I refuse to feel old. My father, who is 78, similarly refuses to feel old, even though he still battles his physical infirmities. Consequently, most folks don't believe him when he tells them his age. It's a good model for his 49-year-old son.

His father, on the other hand, died at 70, and looked and acted like an old man for at least ten years prior. My 73-year-old mother's mother died at 70, and had looked old for a couple of decades prior to that. My mother still looks younger than my grandmother did at 53. This is not just because of medicine, though that's part of it, because life, as a whole, is much better now than it was then.

Amateur radio will reflect that, or not, depending on the behavior of those involved in it. That is a responsibility shared equally by old and young, new and experienced.

I've never been offered a senior discount, though I don't really think I look younger than my age.

Rick "thankful for our blessings and feeling responsible to do something with them" Denney

[N0NWO]

WRONG FORUM!!!

[KC5CSG]

Quote[/b] (n9lya @ Sep. 20 2007,09:44)]How life should have remained...

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE.. and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym)
instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are no w.

Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

73 Jerry n9lya



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wow, stop the presses people. You're not going to believe this. I actually agree with this guy and can relate to every statement he made and I'm only 39 years old.

Let me elaborate how it was in my neighborhood when I was 7 years old. My dad was an extreme racist. Back in the 70's most adults I grew up around was considering it was Louisiana.

I lived in an all white neighborhood until a black family moved in down the street. I used to hear the arguments among the white adults about those N****** this and a N****** that. Well, at 7 years old I thought my dad's opinion was law.

Coming home from school one day I decided to cut through the black families yard and the man of the house came out and yelled at me to not do that again. Well, enter my smart mouth. I yelled back "I don't have to listen you N*****"!!! Well that didn't fly too well. That man tore my butt up right there in broad daylight with his belt and he dragged me home kicking and screaming. After a few heated words between my dad and that guy my dad broke out his belt and gave me the worst beating he's ever given me.

The beating wasn't for the use of a racial slur, but for being a child that was disrespectful of an ADULT! It didn't matter what his race was in my dad's racist mind. What mattered is the fact that I disrespected an adult and I had to pay the price for it.

Now, let something like that happen today be it either people of the same race or cross race, police would be called, assult charges filed, law suits filed, etc,...

We wonder why our children so out of control today. Wow Hilary, I guess back in the day it did TAKE A VILLAGE.

Jerry

[N8UZE]

Quote[/b] (kl7aj @ Sep. 20 2007,15:12)]
Quote[/b] (N8UZE @ Sep. 20 2007,12:09)]I'd like to be able to combine the best of the old with the new.

Our new technologies combined with personal responsibility would a be a winning combination.
Dream on. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
It is our dreams that can give us the strength to keep trying.

[K0CMH]

The slide down the slippery slope all started when the code requirement was redcued. We are accelerating at a break neck speed now that it is completely gone. Soon the FCC will send a license in the mail to every person listed in the US census, if they want it or not. I am sure Ham radio will die before the ice caps melt. It will make global warming look like kids play. Mankind will end when Ham radio dies.

[KC5CSG]

Quote[/b] (k0cmh @ Sep. 20 2007,14:15)]The slide down the slippery slope all started when the code requirement was redcued. #We are accelerating at a break neck speed now that it is completely gone. #Soon the FCC will send a license in the mail to every person listed in the US census, if they want it or not. #I am sure Ham radio will die before the ice caps melt. #It will make global warming look like kids play. #Mankind will end when Ham radio dies.
I'm like this. No one has noticed how our society, in gernaral, is going to the toilet? You have kids now that do not respect adults, bringing guns to school, parents that will not be parents, and people in general are just plain RUDE now days!

So with this is mind, how can you possibly say for certain it was the CW requirement being dropped that has caused all of this. Society's attitude in general is going to trash and you don't consider this in wondering why amateur radio is going to the dogs?

People, it's a variety of factors that is contributing to this problem not just the one issue of CW being dropped as a requirement. If you want to approach this rationally with no intention and come up with a solution then beating the hammer of the CW anvil isn't going to solve diddly.........you have to address ALL the issues.

Now, I know CW requirements did sort of define the mindset of the person going for a license but by now means consider it a viable solution to keeping the scum off the bands. Even a jerk can learn CW. We've all seen proof of that anyway as much as we don't like to dwell on that issue.

Seriously,

KC5CSG