Childhood

A friend asked me today, "Did you have a happy childhood?"

This made me stop and think about it.  Did I have a happy childhood?

I was born in the late 60's so I was a child in the 70's and a teen in the 80's.
Didn't we all have a great time back then?

We didn't worry about the environment, it was there then, it's here now, it will still be around for our grand kids.  You don't have to be a tree huggin' hippie to know that.  Our TV only had 3 channels and a UHF knob.  We watched our favorite shows every evening, and cartoons every Saturday morning.  It didn't destroy our brains, make us numb, or psychotic.  We did play outside, but if we had the cool toys back then that they have today, we would have done the same thing kids do today.  Play with them - inside.  We all played outside and unsupervised, but there weren't the perverts trolling the playgrounds with tootsie rolls like there are now.  If someone asked you for help looking for their puppy, you helped - you didn't have to run the other way.  Our holidays were great, lots of decorations and no "Keep Christ in Christmas" signs all over the place.  We didn't need them.  Everybody knew Christmas was about Jesus birth.  There were Nativity scenes in every yard and window.  We went to school every day, and every class had a bully.  By the end of the school year the bully had been taken care of on the playground by playground rules.  No one called the kids parents, no one tattled.  What happened on the playground, stayed on the playground.  If we were bad in school we were punished when we got home.  If we were bad anywhere, we were punished when we got home.  I'm talking about real punishment, a spank or worse - grounded, or even worse - no phone - that one would almost kill me.  Our parents didn't hover, they let us learn by our own stupidity.  "Don't put the butter knife in the outlet."  "Ok", we'd yell as we put the butter knife in the outlet, got zapped, and ran outside.  We never dropped the "F" bomb.  There were some things we just never did.  We went to church, ate dinner with the family at the kitchen table, and put the flag out on every holiday.

The more I think about it, I would have to answer yes.  I had a good childhood.  We laughed a lot, cried a little, and the 4 of us (my brothers and me) fought like the Stooges from time to time.  One thing was a constant, we were loved.  Our mom hugged us often, tucked us in at night, and always told us she loved us.  Yes, I had a good childhood, and hope someday, when he's asked, my son will say the same thing.