Wayback Machine

So, I'm just sitting here thinking about how times have changed.  I mean like the differences from when I was a child and kids today.  Started as I was watching TV and someone mentioned how different things were when they were a child.  Now, I grew up in the 60's and 70's.  I know not the greatest times for fashion but still a very interesting time to be a kid.  The United States was in the middle of the Space Race with the USSR, in the war in Vietnam, The collapse of the Cubs in 1969, Psychedelic rock, hippies, free love, Disco, Star Trek, Star Wars, this list goes on and on.  But the biggest difference is the way we were brought up.  Times were freer, less worries, just a safer time in general to be a kid.  Played kick the can, ghost in the graveyard, the normal sports, but didn't have cell phones, iPods, video games, unless you count Pong, no computers, had to handwrite your homework, had chores to do when you got home before you could go out and be with your friends.  And half the time you would just got to your friends house and ask if they wanted to go out.  No calling or texting before, cause, you couldn't, why, no cell phone.  Well, you could use the landline, which was all you could have.  Cable was really only for those who couldn't get broadcast cause they were too far from the transmitting antenna.  And here in Chicago you had 2,5,7,9,11(till midnight),26, and 32.  Radio was mostly AM with the big stations until about 1974 when some of the new FM stations started.  Cars were much cooler then too, they had style and class, and you could tell the makes and models apart.  None of this cookie cutter stuff that goes on with the car makers today.  And parents could punish you like they cannot today.  Now I am not an advocate of beating a child but I do feel society has gone too far the other way.  Everything is too politically correct, if you were not good enough to play a sport, you found another interest that you were good at.  This way you could find your niche in life and not have delusions that you will be the next great sports hero when you are not good at it.  Yea, it hurts when you cannot do something you want to do but suck it up and find something you are good at and you should still have the fun and joy in that.  Plus, life is full of disappointments and the sooner you learn that the better you will be later in life.  Now, I am not saying to take all disappointments lying down, but learn from the mistakes you have made and better yourself.  I am saying all this because I have the feeling that when today's kids get older they will not be able to handle disappointments in their lives like their parent because a lot, not all have been spoiled by today's society.  They have been coddled and protected from everything that they haven't learned how to develop the thick skin needed to function in the real world.  Who knows, maybe the Mayan's might be right as some of the children that society has chosen to overprotect starts to rule the world you will have wars because someone crossed their eyes at someone else.  I just pray to the Gods that they don't have the button to the nukes.  If anything, it will be man who will destroy the earth with the constant wars, and fighting.  Well, I seem to have gotten a bit of the subject, but not really as it is all relevant to the topic, change.  I know change for the most part is good, but change an also be bad if not done for the right reasons.  Society has a tendency to overdo its protections, and as such strangle progress.  Well, that is the ramble for tonight.

Luv Ya,

Nikki