This was posted by "ignoramus" to the AVR tech forum. AVR is the name of
the chip I am using in my MIDI file player and the USB scanning
interface. The full thread is at
<http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=37122>


> Gotta Be Over 30 to Understand
>
> 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 a bite 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 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 played sport, and also did PE... and risked permanent injury
> with a pair of Dunlop runners (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 the mate's house either, because if we did, we
> got our bum smacked there, and then we got bum belted again when we
> got home. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing
> his tricks on the front veranda, 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.
>
> 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?
>
> LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T---- SORRY
> FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING
>
> Pass this to someone (over age 40, of course), and brighten their day
> by helping them to remember that life's most simple pleasures are very
> often the best!
>