way OT but I was reading some posts some recalling the old days and it got me to thinking about my own kids and what they are gonna be missing and trying to think of what they are going to have to replace things like drive in movies, eat in your car A&W drive ins crap like that I think we kind of dropped the ball on them things for take out, deliveries and the VCR. we gave up to a point a life of getting out and doing for a life of convenience and stay home. I just hope they can gather some decent friends that can get together and still have some fun like the "old days" I'd appreciate if they could get friends I like and trust so I can turn them lose with my tools and equipment I sometimes wonder if our parents thought the same thing?
Here in Cincinnati, we still have a local drive-in root beer stand - Jolly's. Damn good root beer and burgers. If I ever get my project roadworthy, that's one of the first places we're heading. We also have a couple drive-in theatres...
The drive in I frequented in high school is still open; luckily, it lived through the lean years, and now that drive in theatres are an attraction again, it seems to have a full field whenever I go.
I'm lucky that we still have a drive in too. The downside is that it doesn't matter. Very few people I went to high school with frequented that place or had any interest in cars. It's all about drinking, the mall and sex these days. On a lighter note, when you said "today" in the title, I was thinking March 15, 2006.
I teach high school and talk all the time to my students about then and now. I'm so glad I grew up in the 60's and early 70's. Of course we had civil rights, the war, hippys,drugs, rock & roll and mean a$$ teachers, O'well life goes on
Ya know, I was goin' down the same road for a long time, thinking things were just going to be different, and somehow LESS, for my kids than they were for me-But I had them last weekend (every other, the divorce thing), and they were playing with their friends around the block. And despite having all the toys that I didn't have as a kid, and Playstation, and god knows what all in the name of really cool toys that we couldn't have even dreamed of when we were kids, these kids spent ALL WEEKEND digging through my scrap lumber pile to make a clubhouse. Then they grabbed their toy guns to run around playing "army man". Not unlike a certain punk I used to know...(ME) Maybe things aren't changing as much as we think they are.....
we still have 2 drive in thearters betwween 30-60 minutes from home and theres still an a&w rootbeer stand operating 30 minutes from here.both drivin thearters have added screens in the last few years!2 of my aunts were car hops at the local A&W that closed some 15 years ago.Funny thing is now places like denny's resturants are offering curbside service like it was just thought up or something!Call in your order ahead and wait in the designated parking area and someone brings your order to you in your car.
So, my daughter is nine years old. At times she feels she needs to follow the "pack" at school-- and tells me that her friends families have better cars (i.e. new Lexus, etc) versus my "junky old cars." But then again, I know she loves the thumbs up / comments when she rides with me. Lexus just dont get that.... We are lucky in San Jose, because we still have a drive-in..... and she loves going there (one of her favorites.) We also make a point of going to drive-in food / diners that may be wherever we are. To me, the most important "thing of old" that I miss today are proper respect and manners. This isn't just a kid problem either.... Recently a man approached me in a parking garage with a blunt "do you know where x is?" without even looking me in the eye or even at me. when I replied "sorry sir, but im not sure, i dont live aroudn here" he decided to simply not say a word, smile, or anything. Just turn his back and walk away, disregarding me completely. To me, he was not recognizing me a a fellow human who took time to reply to his need and was disrespecting me GREATLY. Needless to say, I can ignore disrespect, but not GREAT disrespect. In return, I had to create an uncomfortable situation through my reply, a brief comment about manners, and the risks of not respecting and disregarding a fellow person. That guy was obviously from a country that has different values than what I like to think ours has. Hopefully he learned something from the experience. I did. Manners and respect are important and valuable to me, and I try to make my daughter appreciate the same. -scott noteboom
give a kid an erector set or set of lincoln logs today and see if they play with it.my grandkids 5-8 just got a set of lincoln logs that i could only dream of having at their age.So how do they play with them ?lay them out end to end a and a few inches apart to make roads for their matchbox cars .OK so its cool that they are playing with the cars, but they have no clue that you can actually DO something with the logs, actually build something with them.as a lik my favorite toys were nails, hammer and saw I was almost always building things hardly ever got bored today if the batteries die a kid is lost!
I don't think about it as "dropping the ball"... everything changes. Our grandparents probably thought the same thing about our parents as kids; "Damn kids have no respect for hard work, I remember when we used to have to get water from the well".. you know, shit like that. Didn't have to CRANK an engine to start it, indoor outhouses, television instead of stories around a oil lamp, a bottle of Crown Royal instead of a crock of moonshine... shit just changes. Look how much enjoyment we get from visiting with the greybeards about the good old days of hotrodding... as long as we appreciate it, and don't let traditions die, no balls are being dropped.
What I used to get hot about is that they would sit around with more than three channels of TV,more than one rock station and FM to boot and video stuff and bitch about nothin to do! I would always tell them to go mow some lawns and make some money--no way!
There are no kids today past the 8th grade. The girls are pregnant or working to support babies and boyfriends who won't get a job for fear of having to pay child support or for the birth of their kids. They can afford pizzas and beer and wings or stereos for their Hondas, but that family shit is the State's problem. Her parents can buy the formula and diapers. The boys are hanging out around the high schools they dropped out of or hanging out at the malls looking to pick up another dumb girl to replace the one too far pregnant to work to feed his lazy ass. When they're not doing that, they're cutting tires, keying paint, bashing windshields, spraypainting buildings and cars or just stealing shit. You know, Fun Stuff. Youthfull exuberance expressing itself. Liberal councellors tell us it's all our fault for not supporting and nurturing these youths self esteem thru adolescence. Bullshit, I worked thru high school and paid rent to my parents. I had to fight off bullies and help friends. I had to pass tests and actually learn things in school. You didn't graduate by just showing up there for 2/3 of the year. These little assholes need to be nurtured with a belt and a baseball bat. They need to be taught to work for a living instead of falling back on everyone else to feed them. Maybe they'd respect other people's stuff if they had to work for their own.
I often wonder if it's even worth it to be a kid anymore. Helmet laws for bicycles. Curfews imposed by the city. More strip malls than public parks. At 34yo, I still find myself cursing and spitting on signs that say, "NO SKATEBOARDING."
I was actually thinking about this last night--I had a Eddie Cochran CD in and that song "Teenage Heaven" came on. And all that stuff that he's talking about--my parents gave it to me. So I think that it depends on the parents. I ain't perfect, but I got through school, I haven't gone to prison, I have a job and I think I'm a good guy. Jury's still out, I guess, and you'll have to wait to see the verdict on my headstone! Seriously, I think we get caught in the trap of assuming that the old days were better about everything--we sure do it with cars! But we build them better now, on average, and life is better. I mean, I haven't seen any signs on the drinking fountains, lately. The one constant is change, as the man said, and we're going to, as a society, make choices that we will regret. And then we'll recognize that and fix it. I mean, they stopped making the Edsel, didn't they?! Tucker
Little bit harsh there smokin Joe. Im a kid in high school, not even a senior. I have a job that I work at 3 days a week. AND I go to school 5 days a week. Pulling three eight hour shift when Im not in school isnt the easiest thing to do. I also dont go around getting chicks pregnant. No more so than any other kid I know would. For the most part, kids scare the shit out of me. I have a one year old sister so I know what its like to raise a kid. I dont slash tires or key paint, I also dont go around doing heroin and shooting people. Alright, there are more kids screwing around with guns and stuff now then there were 20 years ago. That partly due to the fact that theres more kids period. Also, some of the parents from the hippie era arent the greatest. Not to mention the fact that the poor have just gotten poorer and the rich have got richer (this has nothing to do with politics). There is a dwindling middle class. In California, where I live, I would say that 75% of the people are going to get a degree from a state or higher college. Were not all fuckups.
Hell Yea! Right with ya on that one! What happened to the days when you could kick a punks ass for doin somthing stupid! .
I agree with Smokin Joe. My wife works at a High School. I cant believe the stories she comes home with. She says the kids treat the teachers like crap. The kids cuss at them,wont pick up the trays in the lunch room, wipe tampons on the mirrors,crap on the floor and I really mean crap on the floor! Wont listen to a damn thing. If you send them to detention or suspend them then the parents are up at school cussin out the teachers too! What happened to if you got out of line at school you got a swift kick in the ass! I was brought up to respect my elders. Im not lumping all the young kids in there because there are plenty of good ones. I blame the parents for letting these kids get by with this crap. If I would have came home and told my dad that I was suspended for cussing out a teacher, my ass would have been grass. Its a shame the teachers are scared of what will happen if they take a hard stance.
wow im 20 and from bfe iowa and i might see a teen nocked up but 16 or older i have never taken or even seen ileigel drugs but im still a kid at heart and i bet u are too cant we all just get along-neck (opps inner readneck shows up once in a whille) but any way lets talk abouut t's and a's hehe and customs
But look how the law changed in the years,I can rember racing cars on the back roads,and drinking. And if the police showed up and you were drinking,they would give you a ride home. NOT to jail. We were not hurting anyone. Everyone of that age group that lived in the town would drop by to see what or who was there (guys and girls). The local hang out. But we have to go with the change.
im 18, and a senior in high school, im going to be going to college in phili i work a job as a cook 4 nights a week and when im not doing that, im working on my car i dont do drugs, i dont drink, and i respect my elders and others property were not all bad kids
Well I'm 16 and I can safely say my generation is fucked up. 90% of all the people I know only care about getting drunk or high. At lunch you can see people passing weed or pills. No one gives a damn about the teachers and cant take pride in school. and walls and ceilings and just about everywhere but the toilet. The bathrooms at my school dont even have stalls there are just a bunch of toilets and shit everywhere.
Man, this thread took an ugly turn! BTW, you can still get a burger at Sonic here, but they don't come up on roller skates. And we still have drive-in movies too! I guess it's not ALL bad.
i'm 36 and didn't have anything around where i grew up like that. had to drive to la county to get a car hop and had 1 drive in (it was really run down). i for one miss an era i didn't even grow up in.
I hate generalizations. I have 2 kids coming up 11 and 13, that have manners, respect their elders and have daily/weekly chores. My daughter is learning to cook from my wife, and my son mows the lawn in the summer and is helping build his own custom. I know there are a lot of kids that are lost in the generation of single parent or both parents career people but.......there are a lot of good kids out there and a lot of good parents still trying. I know of a few right on this board. I agree the kids grow up too fast....but that's our fault as parents for letting them. My kids think I am too strict as well as a lot of the other parents because my kids don't run wild and spend the night with all these other kids. Sorry.....they'll get over it. It's my job...... Now what was the question......
I too, hate generalizations. Both my wife and I work at schools, me a high school and she a middle school. By and large most of the kids are respectful, hard working kids, albeit we both work at schools in upper middle class neighborhoods. The bad kids are just the ones who get noticed by administrators, neighbors and the media. There is no story in the kids who play sports, work part time jobs and get good grades. The story is always in the bad seeds who vandalize property and cause problems. I've coached high school football for 10 years now and can count on one hand the number of disrespectful, bad kids I've coached. The other 800 or so kids have been a joy to work with. True, they don't work as hard as they used to and some have a sense of entitlement, but that usually fades as they near the end of high school. My wife has the same experience that most kids are good, but the bad ones are the ones who attract the most attention from outside. It's just as in society, the paper never does stories about ordinary hard working people, the story is in the criminal acts. Being on the front line, working with kids every day, the situation is not as bleak as some of you paint it to be.
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