Richard Aberdeen
Member
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2026
- Messages
- 369
When I was a kid, we collected empty soda bottles to pay for a pocket full of the best candy in the world; individually wrapped cinnamon red-hots, two for a penny. We also bought full bottles of soda when we could find enough empties.
When I was a kid, we made our own skate boards out of two-by-fours and our sister's roller skates. We had to cut her skates in half, but didn't mind getting a few welts from our father's belt, which we got used to after a while. Our sister's wrath was more difficult to deal with.
When I was a kid, frustrated teachers gave us swats, but no kid went to jail for misbehaving in school. There were no police officers or guns at public schools and no one carried a gun in public except for the police.
When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a mass shooting in an American school, shopping mall, movie theater, grocery store or anywhere else from sea to once shining sea. No one ever dreamed that owning an AR-15 would be more important to morally ignorant adults than our children's lives.
When I was a kid, we watched a tiny black and white tv screen with rounded corners, set in the middle of a large box-like piece of furniture. There were only two networks and one local station. The most watched thing was the early morning test pattern, as we waited for Popeye and Mighty Mouse cartoons to begin.
When I was a kid, my aunt flew all the way from Australia across the Pacific Ocean in a twin-prop airplane, to visit us in Southern California. We thought that plane was the coolest thing ever.
When I was a kid, we played many hours in the local park; boys and girls without chaperons and our parents didn't have to worry about us being abducted or worse. Us boys were all going to grow up to be baseball players, but none of us ever did.
When I was a kid, after we chewed the gum that came with a pack of baseball cards, we used our mother's clothes pins to fasten the cards to our bicycle spokes; cards that are now worth more money than the players pictured on them at that time earned. But kids who attached baseball cards to bicycle spokes were cool and we knew it.
When I was a kid, an entire large grocery bag of good food filled to overflowing cost ten to twelve dollars. There were no credit cards and everybody paid cash except for rich people, who held up the line at the store while they proudly took their time writing a check with a fancy pen.
When I was a kid, hamburgers were ten cents and fries were a nickel. Cokes in an eight ounce bottle cost a dime. Fountain drinks also cost a dime and so did a call from a payphone after being raised a nickel; there was no such thing as an extra-large fountain drink.
When I was a kid, there were far fewer overweight and obese people than there are today. And most people didn't have to go to the gym. Working hard with our hands was the only exercise anyone needed.
When I was a kid, there was no internet or video games or even calculators; we learned to do math the hard way, because most of us couldn't figure out how to use a slide-rule. We ran and played outside after cutting the lawn or washing the evening dishes; only rich people hired gardeners.
When I was a kid, we saw two first run movies with a cartoon in-between at the local downtown theater for fifty cents. We sat in the balcony and used our sling shots to hit people with popcorn and sometimes hard candy down below. We were cool and we knew it.
When I was a kid, professional baseball cheap seats cost a dollar and fifty cents and, professional basketball cheap seats cost three dollars. Disneyland cost five dollars to go on all the rides as many times as we wanted; sometimes we just went on the Matterhorn over and over again.
When I was a kid, only a very few mothers had jobs outside of the home. Yet we could afford vacations in the summer, amusement parks and trips to the beach and mountains, with a single blue-collar wage earner's salary and some paper route earnings thrown in.
When I was a kid, a brand new Schwinn ten-speed racing bike cost eighty-five dollars, an eight speed seventy dollars, a good baseball glove ten dollars and the best Wilson basketball also cost ten dollars. These were typically paid for from paper route earnings, about five dollars per week including tips; we earned more by having two or three routes.
When I was a kid, gas was as low as nineteen and nine-tenth cents per gallon. No one cared about mileage, though our lungs often hurt in the warm smoggy summers and, it was difficult to see the mountains near our home.
When I was a kid, a good used car cost about five hundred dollars and, a typical blue-collar house cost between five and twelve thousand. A brand new Chevy Corvette cost thirty-six hundred dollars, while an average car cost more than a thousand dollars less.
When I was a kid, adults who worked full time paid about a quarter of their income for the cost of rent or a mortgage. And there was enough left over to afford the basics for a blue-collar family of six on one wage earner's income. Homes where both parents worked often had two cars, plus a boat and a dune buggy or motorcycle.
When I was a kid, we all gratefully lined up for polio and other vaccines. There were no religious or other exemptions. And we had never heard of autism or a vaccine that harmed us. Today, no one seems to know how such superstition arises.
When I was a kid, families could afford to take trips on holiday weekends because most blue-collar workers had paid holidays off. We also spent two or three weeks at the family farm in Alabama, because our father had paid vacations.
When I was a kid, the top income tax rate was ninety-one percent and in spite of what modern economists claim, the economy thrived. Instead of owning yachts and multiple mansions filled with expensive art, wealthy people invested in job producing companies in order to avoid paying the high taxes; millionaires were rare in our city.
When I was a kid, unions were as strong as they have ever been. Non-union companies were forced to pay a living wage in order to compete for labor. Nearly everyone willing to work five or six days per week earned enough to afford the American Dream.
When I was a kid, a college education was less than two thousand dollars per year at state universities. In two years you could graduate, after attending two years at an almost free junior college. Because there was no internet, we spent a lot of time at the local library.
When I was a kid, nearly every parent could afford medical, dental and optical care for their children. We didn't know anyone who didn't have good healthcare or a home.
When I was a kid, no one ever heard of the government lying to us about a war like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran. politicians lied, but not so they could start so-called "pre-emptive" wars, before the bloody fiasco in Vietnam.
When I was a kid, science textbooks didn't pretend there is no God, as if they somehow would know, as if anyone could possible know. As if the universe just magically appeared and out popped magical beings of intelligence and conscious awareness.
When I was a kid, there were no visible homeless people in the United States, other than a very few in large city skid row districts. We had never heard of a homeless veteran or a homeless child. Homelessness was never mentioned in the paper, on tv news or otherwise as an issue.
When I was a kid, it was before Nixon and Watergate and before the so-called "Reagan Revolution" destroyed unions. After the utter lie known as the "trickle down theory", less and less Americans can now afford to own a home or even rent one.
And less and less Americans earn a living wage or have healthcare or paid vacations. And now most mothers work full time, while working-class families with both parents working sixty hours or more per week, still struggle mightily to just afford the basics.
And after Clinton helped axe the "Glass-Steagall Act" that held corrupt banks in check and a corrupt court ruled that corporations are somehow people, the American Dream has vanished for the working-class and poor, becoming the American Nightmare instead.
Less and less Americans earn a living wage or have healthcare or paid vacations. And now most mothers work full time, while working-class families with both parents putting in sixty hours or more per week, still struggle mightily to just afford the basics.
WHAT THE HECK HAS HAPPENED TO AMERICA ? ? ?
When I was a kid, we made our own skate boards out of two-by-fours and our sister's roller skates. We had to cut her skates in half, but didn't mind getting a few welts from our father's belt, which we got used to after a while. Our sister's wrath was more difficult to deal with.
When I was a kid, frustrated teachers gave us swats, but no kid went to jail for misbehaving in school. There were no police officers or guns at public schools and no one carried a gun in public except for the police.
When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a mass shooting in an American school, shopping mall, movie theater, grocery store or anywhere else from sea to once shining sea. No one ever dreamed that owning an AR-15 would be more important to morally ignorant adults than our children's lives.
When I was a kid, we watched a tiny black and white tv screen with rounded corners, set in the middle of a large box-like piece of furniture. There were only two networks and one local station. The most watched thing was the early morning test pattern, as we waited for Popeye and Mighty Mouse cartoons to begin.
When I was a kid, my aunt flew all the way from Australia across the Pacific Ocean in a twin-prop airplane, to visit us in Southern California. We thought that plane was the coolest thing ever.
When I was a kid, we played many hours in the local park; boys and girls without chaperons and our parents didn't have to worry about us being abducted or worse. Us boys were all going to grow up to be baseball players, but none of us ever did.
When I was a kid, after we chewed the gum that came with a pack of baseball cards, we used our mother's clothes pins to fasten the cards to our bicycle spokes; cards that are now worth more money than the players pictured on them at that time earned. But kids who attached baseball cards to bicycle spokes were cool and we knew it.
When I was a kid, an entire large grocery bag of good food filled to overflowing cost ten to twelve dollars. There were no credit cards and everybody paid cash except for rich people, who held up the line at the store while they proudly took their time writing a check with a fancy pen.
When I was a kid, hamburgers were ten cents and fries were a nickel. Cokes in an eight ounce bottle cost a dime. Fountain drinks also cost a dime and so did a call from a payphone after being raised a nickel; there was no such thing as an extra-large fountain drink.
When I was a kid, there were far fewer overweight and obese people than there are today. And most people didn't have to go to the gym. Working hard with our hands was the only exercise anyone needed.
When I was a kid, there was no internet or video games or even calculators; we learned to do math the hard way, because most of us couldn't figure out how to use a slide-rule. We ran and played outside after cutting the lawn or washing the evening dishes; only rich people hired gardeners.
When I was a kid, we saw two first run movies with a cartoon in-between at the local downtown theater for fifty cents. We sat in the balcony and used our sling shots to hit people with popcorn and sometimes hard candy down below. We were cool and we knew it.
When I was a kid, professional baseball cheap seats cost a dollar and fifty cents and, professional basketball cheap seats cost three dollars. Disneyland cost five dollars to go on all the rides as many times as we wanted; sometimes we just went on the Matterhorn over and over again.
When I was a kid, only a very few mothers had jobs outside of the home. Yet we could afford vacations in the summer, amusement parks and trips to the beach and mountains, with a single blue-collar wage earner's salary and some paper route earnings thrown in.
When I was a kid, a brand new Schwinn ten-speed racing bike cost eighty-five dollars, an eight speed seventy dollars, a good baseball glove ten dollars and the best Wilson basketball also cost ten dollars. These were typically paid for from paper route earnings, about five dollars per week including tips; we earned more by having two or three routes.
When I was a kid, gas was as low as nineteen and nine-tenth cents per gallon. No one cared about mileage, though our lungs often hurt in the warm smoggy summers and, it was difficult to see the mountains near our home.
When I was a kid, a good used car cost about five hundred dollars and, a typical blue-collar house cost between five and twelve thousand. A brand new Chevy Corvette cost thirty-six hundred dollars, while an average car cost more than a thousand dollars less.
When I was a kid, adults who worked full time paid about a quarter of their income for the cost of rent or a mortgage. And there was enough left over to afford the basics for a blue-collar family of six on one wage earner's income. Homes where both parents worked often had two cars, plus a boat and a dune buggy or motorcycle.
When I was a kid, we all gratefully lined up for polio and other vaccines. There were no religious or other exemptions. And we had never heard of autism or a vaccine that harmed us. Today, no one seems to know how such superstition arises.
When I was a kid, families could afford to take trips on holiday weekends because most blue-collar workers had paid holidays off. We also spent two or three weeks at the family farm in Alabama, because our father had paid vacations.
When I was a kid, the top income tax rate was ninety-one percent and in spite of what modern economists claim, the economy thrived. Instead of owning yachts and multiple mansions filled with expensive art, wealthy people invested in job producing companies in order to avoid paying the high taxes; millionaires were rare in our city.
When I was a kid, unions were as strong as they have ever been. Non-union companies were forced to pay a living wage in order to compete for labor. Nearly everyone willing to work five or six days per week earned enough to afford the American Dream.
When I was a kid, a college education was less than two thousand dollars per year at state universities. In two years you could graduate, after attending two years at an almost free junior college. Because there was no internet, we spent a lot of time at the local library.
When I was a kid, nearly every parent could afford medical, dental and optical care for their children. We didn't know anyone who didn't have good healthcare or a home.
When I was a kid, no one ever heard of the government lying to us about a war like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran. politicians lied, but not so they could start so-called "pre-emptive" wars, before the bloody fiasco in Vietnam.
When I was a kid, science textbooks didn't pretend there is no God, as if they somehow would know, as if anyone could possible know. As if the universe just magically appeared and out popped magical beings of intelligence and conscious awareness.
When I was a kid, there were no visible homeless people in the United States, other than a very few in large city skid row districts. We had never heard of a homeless veteran or a homeless child. Homelessness was never mentioned in the paper, on tv news or otherwise as an issue.
When I was a kid, it was before Nixon and Watergate and before the so-called "Reagan Revolution" destroyed unions. After the utter lie known as the "trickle down theory", less and less Americans can now afford to own a home or even rent one.
And less and less Americans earn a living wage or have healthcare or paid vacations. And now most mothers work full time, while working-class families with both parents working sixty hours or more per week, still struggle mightily to just afford the basics.
And after Clinton helped axe the "Glass-Steagall Act" that held corrupt banks in check and a corrupt court ruled that corporations are somehow people, the American Dream has vanished for the working-class and poor, becoming the American Nightmare instead.
Less and less Americans earn a living wage or have healthcare or paid vacations. And now most mothers work full time, while working-class families with both parents putting in sixty hours or more per week, still struggle mightily to just afford the basics.
WHAT THE HECK HAS HAPPENED TO AMERICA ? ? ?
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