Topic: A question for the older generation.

[BobbyR]

I agree with my contemporaries. I was born in the Bronx in 1950 and lived near the projects. We moved a wealthy suburb in 1962 which was a tough transition, but kept me out of jail. You needed to be affiliated with a street gang to keep from getting your ass kicked. I too was a free range kid if we stayed in the neighborhood and affiliated neighborhoods, which meant White.
 
In the "burbs" it was different I was left alone since I #$%* slapped the toughest kid in the area till he cried my first week.

It was a weird time to grow up apart from the above. We had one foot in our Parents pre and post WW2 America and another foot in trying to do something different. As a kid we has Atomic Bomb drills since we were told the Godless Commies were poised to attack at any moment. So there was some paranoia. We saw JFK, RFK and MLK gunned down. Race riots were burning down major Cities.

The Vietnam War was escalating. The Peace marches were escalating. So you either sweated out the draft, or enlisted if you had something to offer them.

The Music was great and so was the Sex, find chicks on the pill and let it flow.   The economy was booming (which is how the old man got us out of the Bronx). It was a time of optimism and it all seemed like the good times would never end.

Today it is much more confusing, I am not sure I would want to be my Son's age. I think the small amount of innocence and optimism we had is gone.

Maybe I am getting old and I long for an idealized past that never actually existed or things are really more fuked up.

         

[dusterdude]

The 70's were groovy baby

[bwaller]

I think it certainly was a simpler time. I was a farm kid born in 55 with lots of other kids around & bikes & baseball games. It was fun. Eventually the world unfurled and I couldn't wait to get out. I didn't like school, but loved the social aspect (read chicks) Before I got my license I hitchiked everywhere. Was a motorcycle mechanic until 76, lived hard and abused absolutely everything. As mentioned the music was awesome, I still live there too! 

We can't expect today's kids to want what we had, but I wouldn't change much. It was a cool time.

[Bob Wessner]

So you either sweated out the draft, or enlisted if you had something to offer them.

Or some judge helped you to decide. 

[JeffSTL]

I was born in '74, so I feel like I was kind of stuck in the middle. We were definitely "free range kids", not much technology (still had to get up to change the channel on the TV when my dad wanted to watch something else), you could get busted with beer and not go to jail...etc. Childhood was good. My dad was lucky and drew a high draft number, but many of his friends were not so lucky. He worked for UPS and retired with a decent pension after 35 years. Housing and living was cheap. The eighties killed the labor movement and corporations have completely taken over. My generation is screwed. No pensions, little in the way of benefits, wages falling and the boomers will drain social security and Medicare before I make it there. This depressing reality is what made me get my 750k6. Might as well live a little because I'll be working until I die.

[70CB750]

So you either sweated out the draft, or enlisted if you had something to offer them.

Or some judge helped you to decide. 

Yeah, heard that from a friend of mine.

[70CB750]

My background is so different, I don't think I qualify for this topic 

Elaborate please???

You axed for it 

I was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia back than, 1964.  My country was under a stalinist regime since 1948, in sixties it started to loosen up a bit, but in 1968 the Warsaw pact put an end to it, my first political memory are russian tanks in streets, full of soldiers with mongol like faces. 

After this attempt for better government/life was killed, the country went into kind of a freeze that lasted till 1989.  We were told how well we are living and we were fighting for peace (fighting for peace makes as much sense as fcuking for virginity) and we were listening to VoA just to have an idea what is really going on in the world.  Red flags and banners on buildings would tell you who you love and why and for how long (With USSR for ever and ever), we were brainwashed in schools and we would get in trouble for absurd things such as visiting a church, borrowing a book at US Embassy, speaking our mind, you name it.

However, the regime was sihty, we still had fun.  I joined scouts (scouts were banned of course, along with many books and movies, we were officially communistic youth - in reality we were scouts in Baden Powell spirit learning woodcraft and white water canoeing, camping, and such).  We would camp on weekends and hitchhike all over the country, the weekend was the time to be free and do as you please.  Police would chase us around every so often but it was part of the game.

As many Czechs my father built a cabin for weekends and summers and there I lived the life of a farm kid with endless hours in woods, fishing and such.  Do you know you can catch trout with your bare hands?  I learned how to when I was 10

In some sense I had more freedom than my kids now and here - i.e. USA of 2013.  I carry knife in my pocket since I was 7, we would always mess with diy explosives and nobody called us terorists,  we could go places and do things scouts here can only dream off.

I can rant forever, but better stop now 

[jas67]

One big difference I see is that when I was a kid in the 60s Mom could just let us go in the morning on Saturdays and during the summer. We were "free range" kids. As long as we were in our neighborhood she didn't have to worry. All the grown ups watched out for each others kids (but we managed to get in our share of trouble). When my kids were younger, I felt like I had to watch them walk half a block to a friends house. They never jumped on their bikes and rode around for hours. I feel like they missed out.

I was one of those 70's "Free Range Kids" too.   And, yes, now, as a parent, I feel the that I can't let my kid do that.    The world just doesn't seem as safe for that anymore.

[Tews19]

Whole different perspective! Thanks for sharing!

[bikerbart]

yeah. its pretty sad that kids cant wait at bus stops by themselves anymore. Always an adult in a car waiting with them. Says a lot about our society if you ask me. Bobby was right about the bronx. Its where I was born and where my entire family is from.  If you werent in a gang , you were fckd. Our neighborhood Vs the other. Games of ringolevio that were brutal, if you didnt learn to fight , you stayed home. I took my licks. Kids nowadays are soft.

[azuredesign]

I thought this thread was interesting enough to share with some friends outside the biking community.
One of them said that what was better now than back in the day was medical treatment.

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

A couple of the guys have brought up something - back then we fought with fists vs the modern chicken #$%* way of shooting someone. You won or got your ass kicked and you lived either way.

[bikerbart]

thats right. just because you have a gun doesnt make you a bad ass

[JeffSTL]

I thought this thread was interesting enough to share with some friends outside the biking community.
One of them said that what was better now than back in the day was medical treatment.

The advances in medical science are pretty amazing, but now days our insurance companies dictate our medical treatment instead of our physician.

[BobbyR]

So you either sweated out the draft, or enlisted if you had something to offer them.

Or some judge helped you to decide. 

Yeah, I had several friends who became Patriotic in Court. 

[BobbyR]

yeah. its pretty sad that kids cant wait at bus stops by themselves anymore. Always an adult in a car waiting with them. Says a lot about our society if you ask me. Bobby was right about the bronx. Its where I was born and where my entire family is from.  If you werent in a gang , you were fckd. Our neighborhood Vs the other. Games of ringolevio that were brutal, if you didnt learn to fight , you stayed home. I took my licks. Kids nowadays are soft.

Where in the Bronx were your people from. I was in the North East Bronx around E233rd. We would bounce over to White Castle on Boston Rd, and hit some Clubs on Morris Park.

[bikerbart]

revere ave , castle hill ave. My dad would hang around Hickey's bar, I think on castle hill. Its been a while.