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

My Mum used to defrost mince-meat on the kitchen sink AND I used to eat some 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 anybody getting e.coli.

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

The term mobile phone would have conjured up a moving phone, and a pager was the school loudhailer or PA system.

We all played sport, and also did PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of sandshoes (only worn in the gym or the sports ground) 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 now....

Flunking sport was not an option.... even for stupid kids!

There were not many fat kids.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the National Anthem and got free school milk for strong bones and teeth, 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, and she could even give you an aspirin for a headache or fever.

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 castle' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mum 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 hair ruffled and got told to get back out there!

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

We didn't misbehave at our mate's house either, because if we did, we got our bum smacked there, and then we got our bum belted again when we got home.

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

We climbed trees, rolled down grassy slopes, made dams in the gutter, jumped into privit hedges...

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?

 

........and for how much longer
without good-ole Common Sense?

 

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who had been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and Maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

He declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Tylenol, sun lotion or a band-aid to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense took a beating as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense lost the will to live when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the ghost, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by his three stepbrothers: I Know My Rights, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

 

Keep life simple!