• First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
• They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.
• Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
• We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
• As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
• Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
• We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
• We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
• We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing!
• We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
• No one was able to reach us all day. And we were o.k.
• We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
• We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, x-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no internet or internet chat rooms..........we had friends and we went outside and found them!
• We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
• We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.
• We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
• Little league had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
• The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. they actually sided with the law!
• This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
• The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
• We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all!

And you are one of them! Congratulations! Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

After everything is done at the funeral home and cemetery; she tells her closest friend that there is no money left.

The friend says, "How can that be? You told me he had $20,000 a few days before he died. How could you be broke already?"

The widow says, "Well, the funeral cost me $6,000. And of course, I had to make the obligatory donation for the church and the organist and all. That was $400 and I spent another $400 for the wake, food and drinks, you know. The rest went for the memorial stone."

The friend says, "$13,200 for the memorial stone? My goodness, how big is it?"

The widow says, "Three carats."

Submitted by Debbie, Middletown, MD.