I had an interesting afternoon... a friend dropped by and returned some videos. And since the US had been devoid of news these past days, I diverted myself by watching 'AouTube. I wanted something cheerful to laugh about, so I typed in G'eorge Carlin, only to find out he died in 2008.. six months before Obama was elected. There were many clips, but one in paricular which sort of summed up his entire view of the world qnd politics and religion and was outrgeous.... because what he said was true... and that was nice...
I think it sort of shocked my friend... not so much the profanity but the content.
But one of his non-political themes sort of resonated with me. Children in the US are no longer allowed to be children in certain circles. The parents fight to get them into the best kindergartens at great cost. Make playdates fot them for crissakes.. Children can not be children any more over there.. seemingly... And parents here are also so overprotective... I just thought... I'm glad I'm not a child nowadays.
My parents weren't over-prtective... they both worked, but they istilled some sense into us and there were rules.... be home at five p.m. for supper, and if it was summer, before dark. They never questioned where we'd been or what we'd done and we rarely got out of hand on our early years...
I had a ro-mance with a young girl when I was nine... as was she. We traded notes at the VA club next door... in a grate in the wall... very romantic....
That club was the center of much attention for us kids. It had a huuuge hall where we could be onlookers at elegant weddings, and square dancing competitions, and on Saturday nights, we could watch the 'hops' sponsored by the local radio, and my brother would hang upside down on a fence and was obsessed with counting who had the most petticoats going it. It was the Fifties, after all. Many took umbrage, and I had to get him out of trouble, even tho he was three years ysounger.
And yesah, we could get out of hand and go down to the LOWER corporation beyond the canal and run riot with the really poor kids and hunt rats in the millyards, where the kids were really Dangerously cool... or something... and did dare sou stuff like jumping onto moving trains.
Or going onto the other side of Elm St and joining a gang for a day or so to help demolish the remnants of a house that was to Be demolished... jumpin oon beams and just revelling in being destructive, because it was coming down anyway...
Well, after two days of that without injuries, I decided it wasn't reallys my thing... Instead... four or five of us with meet under some bushes outside the Cancer Society... and it was dank and cool in there on a summer's eveining... and tell ghost stories or tell all about the latest hooror film we'd seen and try to creep one another out... till it got dark and we had to go home...
Later, when we were older, we'd join some lame-assd group and it was an excuse to get out once a week, but we didn't go to the meetings, oh no.. we cruised the main drag, and ate pepper steak sanwiches and smoked... shocking.
And when we started working in the cinema, we met people from all sociqal classes, and made friendships which would last a long time. And we's sit up till 2 a.m. and discuss the newest films, and it was so exciting, there were so many new ideas... and we'd share our expieriences and find out that kids from the rich part of town had the same problems we did. Which was sort of liberating...
Our parents ere worried we were taking DRUGS? We were hveing marathon discussion about religion and how it had affected our families.. ooooo we were such rebels....
A'lthough I was up to reading seven books a week at that point,,,,, once an addict always and addict, and it was about new ideas... i came into contact with other peers from diverse social strata, and that was a good thing.
So all the molly-coddling and wussification istn't EVAH gonna do any good, because if they do that... the trouble they'll get into later is going to be major.
I'm glad I was let to 'rund wild' because, hey taught me right from wrong but they gave me real freedom.
Just sayin'
I think it sort of shocked my friend... not so much the profanity but the content.
But one of his non-political themes sort of resonated with me. Children in the US are no longer allowed to be children in certain circles. The parents fight to get them into the best kindergartens at great cost. Make playdates fot them for crissakes.. Children can not be children any more over there.. seemingly... And parents here are also so overprotective... I just thought... I'm glad I'm not a child nowadays.
My parents weren't over-prtective... they both worked, but they istilled some sense into us and there were rules.... be home at five p.m. for supper, and if it was summer, before dark. They never questioned where we'd been or what we'd done and we rarely got out of hand on our early years...
I had a ro-mance with a young girl when I was nine... as was she. We traded notes at the VA club next door... in a grate in the wall... very romantic....
That club was the center of much attention for us kids. It had a huuuge hall where we could be onlookers at elegant weddings, and square dancing competitions, and on Saturday nights, we could watch the 'hops' sponsored by the local radio, and my brother would hang upside down on a fence and was obsessed with counting who had the most petticoats going it. It was the Fifties, after all. Many took umbrage, and I had to get him out of trouble, even tho he was three years ysounger.
And yesah, we could get out of hand and go down to the LOWER corporation beyond the canal and run riot with the really poor kids and hunt rats in the millyards, where the kids were really Dangerously cool... or something... and did dare sou stuff like jumping onto moving trains.
Or going onto the other side of Elm St and joining a gang for a day or so to help demolish the remnants of a house that was to Be demolished... jumpin oon beams and just revelling in being destructive, because it was coming down anyway...
Well, after two days of that without injuries, I decided it wasn't reallys my thing... Instead... four or five of us with meet under some bushes outside the Cancer Society... and it was dank and cool in there on a summer's eveining... and tell ghost stories or tell all about the latest hooror film we'd seen and try to creep one another out... till it got dark and we had to go home...
Later, when we were older, we'd join some lame-assd group and it was an excuse to get out once a week, but we didn't go to the meetings, oh no.. we cruised the main drag, and ate pepper steak sanwiches and smoked... shocking.
And when we started working in the cinema, we met people from all sociqal classes, and made friendships which would last a long time. And we's sit up till 2 a.m. and discuss the newest films, and it was so exciting, there were so many new ideas... and we'd share our expieriences and find out that kids from the rich part of town had the same problems we did. Which was sort of liberating...
Our parents ere worried we were taking DRUGS? We were hveing marathon discussion about religion and how it had affected our families.. ooooo we were such rebels....
A'lthough I was up to reading seven books a week at that point,,,,, once an addict always and addict, and it was about new ideas... i came into contact with other peers from diverse social strata, and that was a good thing.
So all the molly-coddling and wussification istn't EVAH gonna do any good, because if they do that... the trouble they'll get into later is going to be major.
I'm glad I was let to 'rund wild' because, hey taught me right from wrong but they gave me real freedom.
Just sayin'
No comments:
Post a Comment