The 50s: a golden age to be a child. Free-range kids. Come home when the streetlamps turn on. I know, I was there. It was halcyon.
Parents would say: go out and play. Come home in time for dinner. Then (in the summer) go outside again, come home when the streetlamps, etc. My belief: they wanted us (brother and me) out of our tenement apartment so they could make make whoopee — and more siblings. Which they did.
Sometimes they gave us money and told us to take the el down to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs. Kids riding the el by themselves! We were eight years old!
Total, complete freedom. Yeah, sometimes I/we got hurt. There were stitches, and broken bones. It was worth it.
A golden age. Poor kids today, don’t know what they missed.
The wonderful 1950’s walking a half mile to school everyday playing with all of the other kids on the way, huge swings and slides and the teeter totter that would put you six feet up in the air and you had to trust your buddy on the other side would not jump off and let you slam into the ground. Hot metal slides were faster when you sat on sheets of wax paper going down just to slick things up and those jeans with metal rivets on the backside could be painful is you sat in one place too long. Roller skates which could ruin shoes real fast were great, especially if your buddy had one of those funny motorbikes, a bicycle with a small add-on gas engine to pull you behind like a water skier on the pavement. Thanks for the memories . . .
This is a young man who is relating what he’s been told or studied, so he’s jumbled features of different eras and venues.
Candice bergen had a sense of humor back then fast forward 13 years whwn she lost her mind
Scouting was different then too– kids were expected to learn actual camping, outdoor survival, and first aid skills back then. Boy Scouts could collect used cans and newspapers door-to-door, Girl Scouts could sell cookies the same way, and parents were fine with that. And nobody worried about the Scout leaders . . . .
I was blessed to grow up in that time as well. I grew up on the edge of the suburbs but it was pretty much the same.
@10 I was faster on my metal skates than some friends on their one speed bicycles 😉 Skating fast as you could on sidewalks, ready to fall on the grass if you stumbed.
Parents only concern when you were off playing was to make sure you looked both ways when running out into the street.
Lots of checkmarks on that video for me.
The worst one was a home invasion robbery in the dead of night after having left a window open on a hot night. A most unpleasant experience. It was the second big city I had lived in as a student, and I had already experienced two robberies (when the dwelling was unoccupied) in the previous city. So I was doubly stupid. But in city #1 an open window was not a requirement since they just chucked a huge boulder through a plate glass sliding door.
Those metal skates were great! In California, we could buy a pair for next to nothing, after the nifty new shoe-skates got on the market. So what next? Take one skate in halves, and nail each half to its own end of a three-foot 2×4. Presto, the invention of the skateboard!
“Go out and play! I don’t want to see you until dinnertime.”
I remember putting on the metal skates and having a friend pull me with his bicycle. We attached a long piece of rope to the frame of the bike, with the other end having a dowel attached to serve as a handle. It was like waterskiing on the pavement. We didn’t do it on the sidewalk, with all the cracks, but on the street or in a parking lot.
I had pretty much outgrown those “safety” merry-go-rounds by the time they appeared. The ones I played on were complex truss arrangements around a central hub. You were suppose to sit on the wooden seat on the outside.
I got thrown out of daycare for climbing into the middle of the one, over and over. Dutifully smacked with the paddle each time I was pulled out so not returning was a mutual agreement.
And it wasn’t until 1988 when I learned that riding in the back of a pick up was prohibited on Long Beach Naval station. I had surfed the back of a Datsun pick up over back country dirt roads in the national forest at 15 or so when the truck would only run if you kept it going fast. My brother and is best friend in the cab. No room for me, as the shifting had to happen fast. It was that, or a long walk out of the woods. So I hung on for dear life and had the time of my life.
Late sixties and early seventies for me. Playing with Estes rockets with no supervision, nailing gas powered model plane engines toy cars-set myself on fire twice! I remember the skate boards as well. By the time I was in fourth grade I had broken both arms. I had a great childhood!
Just sent that link to my kids.
Riding in the back of pickup trucks helping “hold” stuff in while not getting bounced out yourself was pretty stock standard too.
Good times. Good times.
How do people come up with this, you should pardon the word, “shit.”
“Take one skate in halves, and nail each half to its own end of a three-foot 2×4. Presto, the invention of the skateboard!”
That’s exactly what I did in the mid-sixties, and I don’t recall seeing it before that – I just thought it would be cool! Then I found an old pair of high-top lace-up skates, with the bigger rubber composite wheels, and put them on a shorter, wider board, cut a rounded front and a slightly notched rear, and whoa! Skateboard!
Was in an antique store very recently and I looked through a HIGH SCHOOL history book used in the 1920s.
In perusing through that book it was clear that today, that book would be considered a college level history book.
The author of that book was some PHd university professor, not some moron “doctor” of Education or other education major.
If that book was used today in high school I would not be surprised if most of the history teachers would find it too difficult to comprehend, and too advanced for most high school kids.
Blogger has now taken to banning posts on historical subjects which violate the Official Idea among the Millennial booger eaters who work for them. One of the posts they banned has been up on the site in question since 2012.
I think I’ve done just about everything in the video except riding on a sled behind a car. We always rode between our house and our grandparents’ in the back of a pickup, but the speed was never very fast in town.
@ IS & Ray > “Take one skate in halves, and nail each half to its own end of a three-foot 2×4. Presto, the invention of the skateboard!”
My dad made us one like that, because we were too poor to buy a real one (or so he said; my Depression-era-raised parents were very frugal).
Had just as much fun, I suspect. We weren’t doing the stunts kids got up to later on. It’s interesting that such a simple innovation is still going strong, with skateboard parks all over the country (our little town has one). What surprises me is that parents allow & government nannies build them, concrete and all.
Since the intention is to keep the kids OFF of buildings, walls, streets, etc, I suspect it’s a “mutual agreement” although not an explicit one.
@ JK Brown > “The ones I played on were complex truss arrangements around a central hub. You were suppose to sit on the wooden seat on the outside.”
We never knew there were any other kind. To really get up speed, a couple of kids would get between the seats and hub, lean into the support bars, and run.
Good times!
The swing set in our backyard was not anchored, and one day it did fall over, narrowly missing the back of the house. I don’t know if my dad remedied that defect after setting it up, or if we just took our chances; I don’t remember it falling again.
My “ I invented the skateboard “ story is slightly different. I had a 2 x 4 with skatewheels on bottom and nailed to the top of that a wooden milk bottle container about 12 x 12 with a stick for steering attached to the top of the box Eventually the box collapsed and I was left with a 2 x 4 with the bottom of the milk container still attached and for my money a great steering device. A few years later when the skateboard was introduced I thought I had the better idea.
Smoking was so ubiquitous I didn’t even know cigarettes smelled bad until after I went to college, where none of my friends used tobacco (and the weed was kept for private parties I was not invited to). When I came home for Christmas, the odor was overpowering! My folks finally quit after I raised a fuss about bringing their grandkids into the haze.
Connie Willis “predicted” this in one of her science fiction works about 30 years ago, don’t remember now exactly which one. A guy has the job of editing old movies to remove cigarettes, alcohol drinking, and other “vices” that have become taboo. He eventually concludes that all of that “business” served a useful dramatic purpose, contributing to the pacing of the film and establishing the characters.
On a more mundane level, most (if not all) branded products were used by design, the manufacturer having paid for their placement as advertising.
Although this is disputed for tobacco.
I like StraightDope for nonpolitical “fact checking” –
I grew up in a constant haze of cigarette smoke until I was eight, when my mother quit.
@ George > “Eventually the box collapsed and I was left with a 2 x 4 with the bottom of the milk container still attached and for my money a great steering device.”
Sounds like a foot-powered Segway.
@ Neo > “In particular I remember those metal skates:”
For my money we haven’t begun to calculate the damage done to the young by social media and smart phones.
Paradoxically extreme risk-averse parenting and teaching does its damage as well.
Born ’54, grew up in small town N. California.
My brother and I, around 10 years old, biked to just out of town to shoot our .22 rifles.
Riding on uncle’s pickup tailgate around Yosemite (up until about ’72), 5 kids side-by-side with legs dangling.
In late ’70s riding motorcycle to work across Bay Bridge into SF, helmetless, with girlfriend (toll for bike – 10 cents).
When I talk to my 93 year old mom about the free range upbringing, she just says “that’s how I was brought up”. Did she worry when I said I’d be gone on my motorcycle for a few days? No.
Somehow I survived it all.
Yup I was a free range kid in the 1960’s and experienced just about everything in the video as a matter of course. I remember the day my dad came home after having seat belts installed in our 1961 Oldsmobile. One of the few pleasures illustrated in the video I did not experience was being pulled behind a car on a sled. My dad would have never gone for it. But I do remember sitting on his lap in the driver’s seat, me steering while he controlled the gas and brake. Great memories! I grew up to be a very self-reliant adult.
T-Rex, well of course you remember way back then.
You are a dinosaur.
I grew up in the ass-end of nowhere, Kentucky in the 70s and early 80s. Life was like that still in the early to mid 80s. A world lost, and the cultural power behind it is something we will come to regret greatly.
Saturday was Constitution Day. Will it be the last one in our now deeply divided and thoroughly broken nation?
“Who needs Covid…” (continued)
…Sure, Fauci did his very best for “us”…but “we” don’t really need him anymore. (OTOH, after so deftly helping to “fortify” the election and so creatively regaling the country with those wonderful stories, “we” can’t just cut him loose, can “we”?…. “I” mean, whatever happened to LOYALTY???)
IOW, Orban takes an interest in his vernacular population and tells the Klaus Schwabs and Peter Sutherlands and Mary Robinsons to get stuffed. More of this, please.
I’ve written here before about a South African born blogger whose handle is “Serpentza,” a person who lived in China for over ten years, speaks and reads Chinese, has a Chinese wife and in-laws, still has a lot of contacts in China, and was able to escape China (where the authorities did not like his blogging about the real China) with his wife and child to come live here in the U.S.
He has a Youtube channel, and below is a link to his newest post, about how China deals with environmental destruction by concealing it–painting mined-out brown mountains and quarries, withered grass and trees green using harmful chemicals, rolling nets of fake foliage down the sides of mountains to make them seem alive with greenery, and even going so far as to staple fake leaves in the bare branches of trees.
His larger point is that most of the glittering propaganda-created face of China is also a fake; just a facade.
“…just a facade.”
Indeed…how does one say “Potemkin” in Mandarin?
– – – – – – – – – –
…and from the “Who Would’ve Ever Thunk It” Dept.:
“Trump/Russia investigator hid ties to Russian billionaire. “— https://instapundit.com/543242/
One thought I have on China and how it ‘sees’ the environment . . .
I haven’t been lately, but I have been to many touristy places in China with my Beijing born wife’s family back in the late 90’s and up to the teens. I’ve concluded that they have a somewhat different idea about what’s beautiful when It comes to their environment.
There are few places in China where their civilization hasn’t touched and had an impact. Thus a completely natural place, pristine and left to nature, is not very common and not very reachable, and probably somewhat feared. What I noticed is that the beauty places in China all have man’s imprint, be it an ancient temple, big rocks with carved Chinese characters painted in red, etc.
In other words, artifice can be kind of an enhancement in their eyes. So spraying a mountain green, or camouflaging it with netting, doesn’t surprise me much.
From Russiagate with Love…
(And it sure looks like there’s gonna be a whole lotta love… “can-a’-worms”-style love…)
1.
“Former DNI Ratcliffe: FBI Seized Misclassified Documents in Trump Raid”— https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/john-ratcliffe-trump-raid/2022/09/18/id/1088012/
Key grafs:
‘…”The FBI took 11,000 documents from Donald Trump’s home and they claim that there are reports of hundreds of documents that have classified markings,” Ratcliffe said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” telling show host Maria Bartiromo that while he was in office, he’d seen several documents himself that had questionable classification levels.
‘ “I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of documents related to Christopher Steele, things like the Alpha Bank connections…there is a question if they are marked top-secret whether they are top-secret,” said Ratcliffe. “All of these things were no more top-secret than your children’s creative writing assignments for their homework.” [Emphasis mine: Barry M.]
‘ …“I can tell you that many of those Russiagate documents were not top-secret, although they were marked that way.” [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
‘Radcliffe said that one of the documents he’d declassified on his way out the door related to Igor Danchenko, the Russian national who will go on trial next month under the charges brought by special counsel John Durham….
‘ “He is facing trial next month because he lied repeatedly to the FBI,” said Ratcliffe….’
Query: If Danchenko was an FBI agent (which he in fact was), isn’t he permitted to lie to the FBI? (Or maybe that should be, “Isn’t he OBLIGATED to lie??”…) …especially since they’re all lying all the time, anyway—just ask Michael Sussmann!
2.
“The Trump Russia investigation was run by a total lunatic. The Mueller Report is a $42 million collection of lies and half-truths. Just the other day,
@sergeimillian
exposed that Mueller/Weissmann blatantly lied about him.
(the statute of limitations on that scam runs until 2024)” https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1571550635606130688?cxt=HHwWgIC-3cC-os8rAAAA
Gosh, at this stage of the GAME, maybe “POTUS” will issue an E.O. arresting all judges that don’t do what “Biden” wants them to….
I found this piece by a changer from last May:
Confessions of a Social-Justice Meme Maker
I made pretty pictures that helped keep people enraged and mobilized. Then I asked myself: ‘Why am I doing this?‘
Meanwhile, Japan’s in the path of a major typhoon…and S.E. Taiwan just got hit with a mag. 6.8 (give or take) earthquake.
Something tells me Gaia’s not pleased.
Not.at.all…
(Though perhaps this is the way she’s mourning E.R.II…)
If you have avoided Covid infection and are willing to participate in an online survey, please provide your info to high-tech entrepreneur and statistician Steve Kirsch
The courageous Matt Taibbi steps up (once again):
“…The Justice Department Was Dangerous Before Trump. It’s Out Of Control Now”— https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-justice-department-was-dangerous-trump-its-out-control-now
Key grafs:
‘ On Monday, August 8, Justice Department officials spent nine hours raiding the Mar-a-Lago home of Donald Trump, carrying out 12 boxes of material. When criticism ensued, FBI spokespeople in wounded tones insisted the press eschew the harsh term “raid,” and use “execution of a search warrant” instead.
‘ “Agents don’t like the word ‘raid,’ they don’t like it,” complained former assistant FBI counterintelligence director turned MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi. He added with unintentional irony: “It sounds like it’s some sort of extrajudicial, non-legal thing.”
‘ But it was a raid, as the surprisingly enormous number of people who’ve been on the business end of such actions since 9/11 will report. The state more and more now avails itself of a procedural trick that would have horrified everyone from Jefferson to to Potter Stewart to Thurgood Marshall….
‘ But, [the state says], don’t worry, we’re not using any of those secrets, you can trust us….’
Key Word Salad:
‘…when asked whether American forces would defend the self-ruled island if it came under Chinese military invasion…[Biden said]… “Yes, if, in fact, there was an unprecedented attack…”…’
“…IF, IN FACT, THERE WAS AN UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK…”
Savor that one.
Roll it around the tongue.
(And then ask yourself, how long until Webster’s-Merriam decides to redefine “unprecedented”….)
}}} The 50s: a golden age to be a child. Free-range kids. Come home when the streetlamps turn on. I know, I was there. It was halcyon.
60s and 70s were good, too… kids were still free-range. I had rules when I was 10, but by the time I was 12 I was pretty much on my own… if i was going to be gone long, I had to leave a note, other than that my time was my own, and my limit was mainly how far I wanted to ride a bike.
I had sense enough to stay off the “bad” roads that didn’t have a place for a bike — but those were unusual (most streets had streetside parking areas, so you just had to dodge cars briefly or use the sidewalk), or, alternately, there was a nearby neighborhood on most of them that allowed me to go the same direction but stay off the main road. But going 2 miles or more on a bike wasn’t atypical.
}}} @ IS & Ray > “Take one skate in halves, and nail each half to its own end of a three-foot 2×4. Presto, the invention of the skateboard!”
The primary difference between those old skates and modern skates and skateboards is the late-70s-early-80s application of the neoprene wheel. Those wheels have so much more traction than the old “sandpaper” type wheels it’s not even funny. That’s an even bigger change than the other thing it enabled, which is in-line skates. You could not have done a fraction of the tricks, and not even to the same level for ones you could still do, with those older types of wheels.
Neoprene also made the bumps and cracks less disruptive. I don’t recall (as I was never a skateboarder) if those older skateboards had variable trucks (i.e., the individual pair of rollers had “play” in them, so you could angle the board readily while still keeping full contact with the ground) but I bet the newer neoprene ones were far more adjustable, which is relevant if you’re learning, as you can tighten them to make it easier to learn how to balance. Modern ones have a fat screw on the truck to allow you to tighten it down.
I had a friend decide he was going to go down a long, long hill on his skateboard. After he got up above a certain speed, the trucks became far more wobbly and he wiped out, leaving some serious road rash as he fell into some small gravel (think “Grape Nuts”, if you can remember those). He was picking gravel out of his skin two weeks later. :-/
Growing up on the Jersey Shore in the 60’s–we did all of that & more with almost no adult supervision. We had a 2 seat MG convertible for a couple of summer months and we kids would sit on the top of the back while Dad drove the Asbury Park “circuit”. Climbing trees, building tree forts, playing “combat” with buddies, exploring in the woods, raked up piles of autumn leaves, played “goal line stand” diving into the leaves, burned them while cooking a potato on a branch. At the beach in summer we only had to check in with Mom for lunch, all day in the ocean or pool–for winter snow days we were gone all day sledding right after breakfast–played pick-up baseball/football/basketball games in all weather till dark. Good times!
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The 50s: a golden age to be a child. Free-range kids. Come home when the streetlamps turn on. I know, I was there. It was halcyon.
Parents would say: go out and play. Come home in time for dinner. Then (in the summer) go outside again, come home when the streetlamps, etc. My belief: they wanted us (brother and me) out of our tenement apartment so they could make make whoopee — and more siblings. Which they did.
Sometimes they gave us money and told us to take the el down to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs. Kids riding the el by themselves! We were eight years old!
Total, complete freedom. Yeah, sometimes I/we got hurt. There were stitches, and broken bones. It was worth it.
A golden age. Poor kids today, don’t know what they missed.
The wonderful 1950’s walking a half mile to school everyday playing with all of the other kids on the way, huge swings and slides and the teeter totter that would put you six feet up in the air and you had to trust your buddy on the other side would not jump off and let you slam into the ground. Hot metal slides were faster when you sat on sheets of wax paper going down just to slick things up and those jeans with metal rivets on the backside could be painful is you sat in one place too long. Roller skates which could ruin shoes real fast were great, especially if your buddy had one of those funny motorbikes, a bicycle with a small add-on gas engine to pull you behind like a water skier on the pavement. Thanks for the memories . . .
This is a young man who is relating what he’s been told or studied, so he’s jumbled features of different eras and venues.
And then we face reality’s bitter taste
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11222287/Prime-Minister-Liz-Truss-WONT-hold-talks-Joe-Biden-tomorrow-meeting-postponed.html?ito=link_share_article-image-share#i-7b8fa8807d774cca
One man’s ‘Rosebuds’: Davey Crockett coonskin hat; complete Hopalong Cassidy outfit; plastic statue of Stan Musial; Bobby Lane football helmet.
Made me flash on vintage Akroyd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veMiNQifZcM
Candice bergen had a sense of humor back then fast forward 13 years whwn she lost her mind
Scouting was different then too– kids were expected to learn actual camping, outdoor survival, and first aid skills back then. Boy Scouts could collect used cans and newspapers door-to-door, Girl Scouts could sell cookies the same way, and parents were fine with that. And nobody worried about the Scout leaders . . . .
I was blessed to grow up in that time as well. I grew up on the edge of the suburbs but it was pretty much the same.
@10 I was faster on my metal skates than some friends on their one speed bicycles 😉 Skating fast as you could on sidewalks, ready to fall on the grass if you stumbed.
Parents only concern when you were off playing was to make sure you looked both ways when running out into the street.
Lots of checkmarks on that video for me.
The worst one was a home invasion robbery in the dead of night after having left a window open on a hot night. A most unpleasant experience. It was the second big city I had lived in as a student, and I had already experienced two robberies (when the dwelling was unoccupied) in the previous city. So I was doubly stupid. But in city #1 an open window was not a requirement since they just chucked a huge boulder through a plate glass sliding door.
Those metal skates were great! In California, we could buy a pair for next to nothing, after the nifty new shoe-skates got on the market. So what next? Take one skate in halves, and nail each half to its own end of a three-foot 2×4. Presto, the invention of the skateboard!
“Go out and play! I don’t want to see you until dinnertime.”
I remember putting on the metal skates and having a friend pull me with his bicycle. We attached a long piece of rope to the frame of the bike, with the other end having a dowel attached to serve as a handle. It was like waterskiing on the pavement. We didn’t do it on the sidewalk, with all the cracks, but on the street or in a parking lot.
I had pretty much outgrown those “safety” merry-go-rounds by the time they appeared. The ones I played on were complex truss arrangements around a central hub. You were suppose to sit on the wooden seat on the outside.
I got thrown out of daycare for climbing into the middle of the one, over and over. Dutifully smacked with the paddle each time I was pulled out so not returning was a mutual agreement.
And it wasn’t until 1988 when I learned that riding in the back of a pick up was prohibited on Long Beach Naval station. I had surfed the back of a Datsun pick up over back country dirt roads in the national forest at 15 or so when the truck would only run if you kept it going fast. My brother and is best friend in the cab. No room for me, as the shifting had to happen fast. It was that, or a long walk out of the woods. So I hung on for dear life and had the time of my life.
Late sixties and early seventies for me. Playing with Estes rockets with no supervision, nailing gas powered model plane engines toy cars-set myself on fire twice! I remember the skate boards as well. By the time I was in fourth grade I had broken both arms. I had a great childhood!
Just sent that link to my kids.
Riding in the back of pickup trucks helping “hold” stuff in while not getting bounced out yourself was pretty stock standard too.
Good times. Good times.
How do people come up with this, you should pardon the word, “shit.”
https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/14/the-internet-thinks-a-chess-grandmaster-cheated-using-anal-beads-17370756/
“Take one skate in halves, and nail each half to its own end of a three-foot 2×4. Presto, the invention of the skateboard!”
That’s exactly what I did in the mid-sixties, and I don’t recall seeing it before that – I just thought it would be cool! Then I found an old pair of high-top lace-up skates, with the bigger rubber composite wheels, and put them on a shorter, wider board, cut a rounded front and a slightly notched rear, and whoa! Skateboard!
Was in an antique store very recently and I looked through a HIGH SCHOOL history book used in the 1920s.
In perusing through that book it was clear that today, that book would be considered a college level history book.
The author of that book was some PHd university professor, not some moron “doctor” of Education or other education major.
If that book was used today in high school I would not be surprised if most of the history teachers would find it too difficult to comprehend, and too advanced for most high school kids.
Blogger has now taken to banning posts on historical subjects which violate the Official Idea among the Millennial booger eaters who work for them. One of the posts they banned has been up on the site in question since 2012.
https://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2022/09/note-to-google-blogger-immediately-un.html
I think I’ve done just about everything in the video except riding on a sled behind a car. We always rode between our house and our grandparents’ in the back of a pickup, but the speed was never very fast in town.
@ IS & Ray > “Take one skate in halves, and nail each half to its own end of a three-foot 2×4. Presto, the invention of the skateboard!”
My dad made us one like that, because we were too poor to buy a real one (or so he said; my Depression-era-raised parents were very frugal).
Had just as much fun, I suspect. We weren’t doing the stunts kids got up to later on. It’s interesting that such a simple innovation is still going strong, with skateboard parks all over the country (our little town has one). What surprises me is that parents allow & government nannies build them, concrete and all.
Since the intention is to keep the kids OFF of buildings, walls, streets, etc, I suspect it’s a “mutual agreement” although not an explicit one.
@ JK Brown > “The ones I played on were complex truss arrangements around a central hub. You were suppose to sit on the wooden seat on the outside.”
We never knew there were any other kind. To really get up speed, a couple of kids would get between the seats and hub, lean into the support bars, and run.
Good times!
The swing set in our backyard was not anchored, and one day it did fall over, narrowly missing the back of the house. I don’t know if my dad remedied that defect after setting it up, or if we just took our chances; I don’t remember it falling again.
My “ I invented the skateboard “ story is slightly different. I had a 2 x 4 with skatewheels on bottom and nailed to the top of that a wooden milk bottle container about 12 x 12 with a stick for steering attached to the top of the box Eventually the box collapsed and I was left with a 2 x 4 with the bottom of the milk container still attached and for my money a great steering device. A few years later when the skateboard was introduced I thought I had the better idea.
Smoking was so ubiquitous I didn’t even know cigarettes smelled bad until after I went to college, where none of my friends used tobacco (and the weed was kept for private parties I was not invited to). When I came home for Christmas, the odor was overpowering! My folks finally quit after I raised a fuss about bringing their grandkids into the haze.
Now, the vendetta against smokers has reached truly nonsensical levels.
https://notthebee.com/article/hbo-which-is-known-for-soft-core-porn-like-game-of-thrones-is-spending-time-photoshopping-cigarettes-out-of-posters-for-old-movies
Connie Willis “predicted” this in one of her science fiction works about 30 years ago, don’t remember now exactly which one. A guy has the job of editing old movies to remove cigarettes, alcohol drinking, and other “vices” that have become taboo. He eventually concludes that all of that “business” served a useful dramatic purpose, contributing to the pacing of the film and establishing the characters.
On a more mundane level, most (if not all) branded products were used by design, the manufacturer having paid for their placement as advertising.
Although this is disputed for tobacco.
I like StraightDope for nonpolitical “fact checking” –
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cigarettes-in-old-movies-did-tobacco-companies-pay-for-this/415338
“FIGHTING IGNORANCE SINCE 1973.
(IT’S TAKING LONGER THAN WE THOUGHT.)”
AesopFan:
I grew up in a constant haze of cigarette smoke until I was eight, when my mother quit.
@ George > “Eventually the box collapsed and I was left with a 2 x 4 with the bottom of the milk container still attached and for my money a great steering device.”
Sounds like a foot-powered Segway.
@ Neo > “In particular I remember those metal skates:”
Can’t believe no one posted this song yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p02DgHeGdyI
For my money we haven’t begun to calculate the damage done to the young by social media and smart phones.
Paradoxically extreme risk-averse parenting and teaching does its damage as well.
Born ’54, grew up in small town N. California.
My brother and I, around 10 years old, biked to just out of town to shoot our .22 rifles.
Riding on uncle’s pickup tailgate around Yosemite (up until about ’72), 5 kids side-by-side with legs dangling.
In late ’70s riding motorcycle to work across Bay Bridge into SF, helmetless, with girlfriend (toll for bike – 10 cents).
When I talk to my 93 year old mom about the free range upbringing, she just says “that’s how I was brought up”. Did she worry when I said I’d be gone on my motorcycle for a few days? No.
Somehow I survived it all.
Yup I was a free range kid in the 1960’s and experienced just about everything in the video as a matter of course. I remember the day my dad came home after having seat belts installed in our 1961 Oldsmobile. One of the few pleasures illustrated in the video I did not experience was being pulled behind a car on a sled. My dad would have never gone for it. But I do remember sitting on his lap in the driver’s seat, me steering while he controlled the gas and brake. Great memories! I grew up to be a very self-reliant adult.
T-Rex, well of course you remember way back then.
You are a dinosaur.
I grew up in the ass-end of nowhere, Kentucky in the 70s and early 80s. Life was like that still in the early to mid 80s. A world lost, and the cultural power behind it is something we will come to regret greatly.
Saturday was Constitution Day. Will it be the last one in our now deeply divided and thoroughly broken nation?
This piece at American Thinker goes a long way to count the costs being suffered.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/09/constitution_day_liberty_once_lost_may_be_lost_forever.html
Meanwhile….Hey! The “next” epidemic!!
‘Violence In California Reaches “Epidemic” Levels As Our Society Rapidly Deteriorates All Around Us’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/violence-california-reaches-epidemic-levels-our-society-rapidly-deteriorates-all-around
Just think—if crime is too rampant, we’ll just have to close the voting booths entirely. Too darn dangerous!!…(and we MUST do everything in our power to PROTECT OUR FELLOW AMERICANS….)
Just WOW!!
(Short version: Who needs Covid, anyway?…)
“Who needs Covid…” (continued)
…Sure, Fauci did his very best for “us”…but “we” don’t really need him anymore. (OTOH, after so deftly helping to “fortify” the election and so creatively regaling the country with those wonderful stories, “we” can’t just cut him loose, can “we”?…. “I” mean, whatever happened to LOYALTY???)
‘ ‘Fauci knows’ he funded gain-of-function research, ‘misled Congress,’ former CDC director says;
‘ “Nothing’s going to happen as long as the Biden administration is here,” Robert Redfield says, citing threats on his life for promoting the lab-leak theory.” ‘—
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/fauci-knows-he-funded-gain-function-research-misled-congress-former-cdc
And where would we be without a little rear-guard action….?
“Fury As The Lancet Sensationally Claims Covid May Have Leaked From An AMERICAN Lab – Echoing Anti-Western Claims Peddled By Beijing”—
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/09/16/fury-as-the-lancet-sensationally-claims-covid-may-have-leaked-from-an-american-lab-echoing-anti-western-claims-peddled-by-beijing/
Well…the “Lancet”…
Sigh…
INSPIRED!
‘…Nineteen Eighty-Four, the book most relevant for our time, came in “virtually perfect.” ‘
https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/17/orwell-inspired/
H/T Powerline blog.
“1984” as “Biden” How-To manual.
The battle lines have been drawn.
(Orwell “drew” them 73 years ago…. So when will the book/H-T-manual be canceled…?)
From the “But-How-The-Hell-Can-We-Totally-Destroy-Our-Political-Enemies-And-Achieve-TOTAL-POWER-If-You-Keep-Interfering-Like-This??!” File:
“Mar-a-Lago Raid: Feds File Emergency Appeal After Trial Court Special Master Order”—
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/09/mar-a-lago-raid-feds-file-emergency-appeal-after-trial-court-special-master-order/
Hungary is apparently refusing to commit national suicide as fast as the EU would like it to.
In fact, it’s refusing to commit national suicide at all.
This dire situation must be remedied ASAP….
“Hungary Can No Longer Be Considered A Full Democracy, Claim EU Lawmakers In Latest Attack On Orbán’s Conservative Government”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/hungary-can-no-longer-be-considered-full-democracy-claim-eu-lawmakers-latest-attack-orbans
IOW, Orban takes an interest in his vernacular population and tells the Klaus Schwabs and Peter Sutherlands and Mary Robinsons to get stuffed. More of this, please.
I’ve written here before about a South African born blogger whose handle is “Serpentza,” a person who lived in China for over ten years, speaks and reads Chinese, has a Chinese wife and in-laws, still has a lot of contacts in China, and was able to escape China (where the authorities did not like his blogging about the real China) with his wife and child to come live here in the U.S.
He has a Youtube channel, and below is a link to his newest post, about how China deals with environmental destruction by concealing it–painting mined-out brown mountains and quarries, withered grass and trees green using harmful chemicals, rolling nets of fake foliage down the sides of mountains to make them seem alive with greenery, and even going so far as to staple fake leaves in the bare branches of trees.
His larger point is that most of the glittering propaganda-created face of China is also a fake; just a facade.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvc7VymDa4c
“…just a facade.”
Indeed…how does one say “Potemkin” in Mandarin?
– – – – – – – – – –
…and from the “Who Would’ve Ever Thunk It” Dept.:
“Trump/Russia investigator hid ties to Russian billionaire. “—
https://instapundit.com/543242/
Heinlein’s prophesied “Crazy Years” are upon us.
See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/update-ontario-high-school-defends-transgender-teacher-wears-massive-grotesque-boobs-school-name-inclusivity/
One thought I have on China and how it ‘sees’ the environment . . .
I haven’t been lately, but I have been to many touristy places in China with my Beijing born wife’s family back in the late 90’s and up to the teens. I’ve concluded that they have a somewhat different idea about what’s beautiful when It comes to their environment.
There are few places in China where their civilization hasn’t touched and had an impact. Thus a completely natural place, pristine and left to nature, is not very common and not very reachable, and probably somewhat feared. What I noticed is that the beauty places in China all have man’s imprint, be it an ancient temple, big rocks with carved Chinese characters painted in red, etc.
In other words, artifice can be kind of an enhancement in their eyes. So spraying a mountain green, or camouflaging it with netting, doesn’t surprise me much.
From Russiagate with Love…
(And it sure looks like there’s gonna be a whole lotta love… “can-a’-worms”-style love…)
1.
“Former DNI Ratcliffe: FBI Seized Misclassified Documents in Trump Raid”—
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/john-ratcliffe-trump-raid/2022/09/18/id/1088012/
Key grafs:
‘…”The FBI took 11,000 documents from Donald Trump’s home and they claim that there are reports of hundreds of documents that have classified markings,” Ratcliffe said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” telling show host Maria Bartiromo that while he was in office, he’d seen several documents himself that had questionable classification levels.
‘ “I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of documents related to Christopher Steele, things like the Alpha Bank connections…there is a question if they are marked top-secret whether they are top-secret,” said Ratcliffe. “All of these things were no more top-secret than your children’s creative writing assignments for their homework.” [Emphasis mine: Barry M.]
‘ …“I can tell you that many of those Russiagate documents were not top-secret, although they were marked that way.” [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
‘Radcliffe said that one of the documents he’d declassified on his way out the door related to Igor Danchenko, the Russian national who will go on trial next month under the charges brought by special counsel John Durham….
‘ “He is facing trial next month because he lied repeatedly to the FBI,” said Ratcliffe….’
Query: If Danchenko was an FBI agent (which he in fact was), isn’t he permitted to lie to the FBI? (Or maybe that should be, “Isn’t he OBLIGATED to lie??”…) …especially since they’re all lying all the time, anyway—just ask Michael Sussmann!
2.
“The Trump Russia investigation was run by a total lunatic. The Mueller Report is a $42 million collection of lies and half-truths. Just the other day,
@sergeimillian
exposed that Mueller/Weissmann blatantly lied about him.
(the statute of limitations on that scam runs until 2024)”
https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1571550635606130688?cxt=HHwWgIC-3cC-os8rAAAA
Gosh, at this stage of the GAME, maybe “POTUS” will issue an E.O. arresting all judges that don’t do what “Biden” wants them to….
I found this piece by a changer from last May:
Confessions of a Social-Justice Meme Maker
I made pretty pictures that helped keep people enraged and mobilized. Then I asked myself: ‘Why am I doing this?‘
Christina Buttons
https://quillette.com/2022/05/17/confessions-of-a-social-justice-meme-maker/
Looks like someone spoke a bit too soon….
“All of Puerto Rico plunged into blackout due to Hurricane Fiona”—
https://justthenews.com/nation/all-puerto-rico-plunged-blackout-due-hurricane-fiona
Meanwhile, Japan’s in the path of a major typhoon…and S.E. Taiwan just got hit with a mag. 6.8 (give or take) earthquake.
Something tells me Gaia’s not pleased.
Not.at.all…
(Though perhaps this is the way she’s mourning E.R.II…)
If you have avoided Covid infection and are willing to participate in an online survey, please provide your info to high-tech entrepreneur and statistician Steve Kirsch
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/did-you-avoid-getting-covid-please
The courageous Matt Taibbi steps up (once again):
“…The Justice Department Was Dangerous Before Trump. It’s Out Of Control Now”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-justice-department-was-dangerous-trump-its-out-control-now
Key grafs:
‘ On Monday, August 8, Justice Department officials spent nine hours raiding the Mar-a-Lago home of Donald Trump, carrying out 12 boxes of material. When criticism ensued, FBI spokespeople in wounded tones insisted the press eschew the harsh term “raid,” and use “execution of a search warrant” instead.
‘ “Agents don’t like the word ‘raid,’ they don’t like it,” complained former assistant FBI counterintelligence director turned MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi. He added with unintentional irony: “It sounds like it’s some sort of extrajudicial, non-legal thing.”
‘ But it was a raid, as the surprisingly enormous number of people who’ve been on the business end of such actions since 9/11 will report. The state more and more now avails itself of a procedural trick that would have horrified everyone from Jefferson to to Potter Stewart to Thurgood Marshall….
‘ But, [the state says], don’t worry, we’re not using any of those secrets, you can trust us….’
Watch out!!
Fauxcahontas’s on the warrenpath….
“Warren furious at DeSantis ‘new low’ for shipping migrants to Martha’s Vineyard”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/warren-furious-desantis-new-low-shipping-migrants-marthas-vineyard
And it looks like “Biden” has for all intents and purposes given the go-ahead….
“Biden Again Vows US Forces Would Defend Taiwan If China Invades”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-again-vows-us-forces-would-defend-taiwan-if-china-invades
Key Word Salad:
‘…when asked whether American forces would defend the self-ruled island if it came under Chinese military invasion…[Biden said]… “Yes, if, in fact, there was an unprecedented attack…”…’
“…IF, IN FACT, THERE WAS AN UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK…”
Savor that one.
Roll it around the tongue.
(And then ask yourself, how long until Webster’s-Merriam decides to redefine “unprecedented”….)
Andrew McCarthy, with a sober article on the upcoming Danchenko trial:
“John Durham’s final act: exposing the FBI”—
https://nypost.com/2022/09/18/john-durhams-final-act-exposing-the-fbi/
H/T Powerline blog.
I imagine that this was not an easy article for him to write…
It looks like the scales may have—finally—fallen from the eyes….
oh really now,
https://twitter.com/TomWrightAsia/status/1571802632452472833
some things are so obvious, even scary larry gets it,
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/will-united-states-nato-wake-happened-meeting-shanghai-cooperation-organization/
yep
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2022/09/18/exclusive-venezuela-empties-prisons-sends-violent-criminals-to-u-s-says-dhs-report/
the clown show continues,
https://amgreatness.com/author/roger-kimball/
}}} The 50s: a golden age to be a child. Free-range kids. Come home when the streetlamps turn on. I know, I was there. It was halcyon.
60s and 70s were good, too… kids were still free-range. I had rules when I was 10, but by the time I was 12 I was pretty much on my own… if i was going to be gone long, I had to leave a note, other than that my time was my own, and my limit was mainly how far I wanted to ride a bike.
I had sense enough to stay off the “bad” roads that didn’t have a place for a bike — but those were unusual (most streets had streetside parking areas, so you just had to dodge cars briefly or use the sidewalk), or, alternately, there was a nearby neighborhood on most of them that allowed me to go the same direction but stay off the main road. But going 2 miles or more on a bike wasn’t atypical.
}}} @ IS & Ray > “Take one skate in halves, and nail each half to its own end of a three-foot 2×4. Presto, the invention of the skateboard!”
The primary difference between those old skates and modern skates and skateboards is the late-70s-early-80s application of the neoprene wheel. Those wheels have so much more traction than the old “sandpaper” type wheels it’s not even funny. That’s an even bigger change than the other thing it enabled, which is in-line skates. You could not have done a fraction of the tricks, and not even to the same level for ones you could still do, with those older types of wheels.
Neoprene also made the bumps and cracks less disruptive. I don’t recall (as I was never a skateboarder) if those older skateboards had variable trucks (i.e., the individual pair of rollers had “play” in them, so you could angle the board readily while still keeping full contact with the ground) but I bet the newer neoprene ones were far more adjustable, which is relevant if you’re learning, as you can tighten them to make it easier to learn how to balance. Modern ones have a fat screw on the truck to allow you to tighten it down.
I had a friend decide he was going to go down a long, long hill on his skateboard. After he got up above a certain speed, the trucks became far more wobbly and he wiped out, leaving some serious road rash as he fell into some small gravel (think “Grape Nuts”, if you can remember those). He was picking gravel out of his skin two weeks later. :-/
Growing up on the Jersey Shore in the 60’s–we did all of that & more with almost no adult supervision. We had a 2 seat MG convertible for a couple of summer months and we kids would sit on the top of the back while Dad drove the Asbury Park “circuit”. Climbing trees, building tree forts, playing “combat” with buddies, exploring in the woods, raked up piles of autumn leaves, played “goal line stand” diving into the leaves, burned them while cooking a potato on a branch. At the beach in summer we only had to check in with Mom for lunch, all day in the ocean or pool–for winter snow days we were gone all day sledding right after breakfast–played pick-up baseball/football/basketball games in all weather till dark. Good times!