THE PAST COMES TO LIGHT !!!!!

Just so you don't think of me as a palagomist, I will admit from the get go that I did not write this. A friend sent it to me some time ago just to give me some kind of an idea on what to write about.  I just took this list out not long ago to see if there were some things I could add to my list of things that might be of some interest.
As I thumbed through the list it became more and more evident that life is so very much different now......then when I was growing up. No wonder people just shake their heads over what this wonderful world is going through at this time. The longer we live the more things get screwed up.  No wonder our kids and the new generation just can't believe what we tell them about our days of growing up. They probably never thought life could be so great.

WE ARE AWESOME !!!  OUR Lives are LIVING PROOF !!!

To Those of Us Born  1925 - 1955:  

   First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank  While they were pregnant.

   They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

   Then, after that trauma, we were  put to sleep on our tummies  in baby cribs
Covered   with bright colored
Lead-based paints.

   We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets,  And, when we rode our bikes,  We had baseball caps,  Not helmets, on our heads.

 

   As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes..

 

   Riding in the back of a pick- up truck 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, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar.
And we weren't overweight. 
WHY?

   Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

   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 OKAY.

 

   We would spend hours building  Our go-carts out of  scraps  and then ride them 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 Play Stations, Nintendos and X-boxes. There were  No video games,
No 150 channels on cable,  No video movies
Or DVDs,  No surround-sound or
CDs,   
No cell phones,  No personal computers,  No Internet and
No 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 those accidents.
 
    We would get
Spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand,
And no one would call child services to report abuse.

 

    We ate worms,
And mud pies  Made from dirt,
And  The worms did
Not live in us forever.

 
   We were given
BB guns for our 10th birthdays, 22 rifles for our 12th, rode horses,made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and
   -although we were
Told it would happen- we did not put out very many eyes.

   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! 

 

   These generations have
Produced some of the best risk-takers,  Problem solvers, and
Inventors ever.

   The past 60
To 85 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas..

   We had freedom,
Failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all

 

   If YOU are
One of those born  Between 1925-1955, CONGRATULATIONS!

   You might want
to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers
and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

   While you are
at it, forward it to your kids, so they will know how brave and lucky their parents
were.

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

 AH.....................THOSE WERE THE DAYS

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Vito

IT'S BEEN A GREAT LIFE

Some people have written me and asked, what the reason is that I'm writing a blog.....................especially about me.  Who in the world do I think I am.   Well, my friends, this started as a little challenge to life. A way of passing down ...................to my daughter, son and my twin grandsons a little bit of life factors..........that they may not have known about the old man. I wanted it to be just oral and photo vignettes of what life was about growing up in another era.  I wanted it to reflect basically four periods of life.
1. from what I can remember from infancy to collage
2. working years
3. retirement years to present
4. my prospectus on present day issues and my thoughts

I wanted all of this BUT in the humorous light of things rather than the harshness. After all. life is to be enjoyed. 
So far it has worked out that way. I can honestly say that the things I may have thought were bad  when they were happening, actually turned out to be funnier when I really thought about them. I try to relive some of them every time I need to fill an hour of time.  I remember sitting my grandsons down when they were at the age of being interested in what grandpa had to say .........and telling them some of "the stuff".  They would immediately turn to grandma and  ask " Is that true grandma" almost as if they thought she was there for everyone of those days.  I have led  life filled with all kinds of friends and have broken bread with people that some would only be able to dream about.  Sure, there are many things I wish I had done better or differently but I have very little regret for the way things have worked out. Now, I can look back and honestly say "been there, done that and moved on".

When I say.  "grandpa walked a mile to school in 10' of snow."  grandpa did that.......oh sure some might say...............and take that as SOME LITTLE imagination   Right after the snow plow had been down the road and pushed the snow to the side of the road where it then measured 10' it was all true.  The snow was 10' and the distance 1 mile. The comparison is very simple, now a days, the bus will not run in more than 10" of snow and school is now closed for a snow day. Proving      the youth are wimps.

Now, it's time to write that book...................not that I plan on selling a lot of copies..............I just want to have a Christmas gift to give with a bottle of my homemade  Vito's Vino.  What I've tried to do is go back over all my blog postings and put them in some kind of  chronological order.  That is a job in itself.  Seems that the almost 40 years I spent with SAS certainly cries out what my life was totally about.  Second comes my "growing up" years (school)  followed way in the rear is my retirement years. They just didn't seem to catch on................so that's the reason I just dabbled into anything I could get my hands into.  I just find that it gives me just the right amount of time and ATTITUDE to make my life still something to crow about.   I find myself totally involved in fact checking everything politicians are doing...............this administration has certainly increased my mind power to searching out information.  That leads me to the final chapter of my book. Now I have to find a name for that chapter.......................oh so much is going through this mind of mine right now.  It's like creating something of beauty and putting it down in pencil then turning into pen  and finally into the written word .  I have tried to self-draw my photo and it will soon be finished..


 Perhaps I will wrap up this part of my life and begin anew......................then again maybe I should just continue along the same road.



Before I go for this one.   Enjoy the video.  Perhaps I should consider show business.                  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrlKxJ7yQbo

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WHAT FEELS GOOD FOR ME



One day last week, I decided to take a lite nap just before dinner. I turned the TV on just to have a little noise in the background and found myself nodding off in less than the usual 5 minutes it takes. Twenty minutes later l was awake, my back was killing me from laying on the couch, legs stiff from hanging over the side of the couch so not to get the couch dirty from my shoes. I was more tired, felt lousier than before I started the nap and totally out of sinc. That's when I finally asked myself........"myself, why did I ever take that nap" I really feel tired.now.

This brings me to another part of the day.  Morning........oh what a glorious part of the day, just to be able to feel your eyelashes s l o w l y separating letting in a hazy start of daylight little by little, feeling the warmth of the bed covering close to my stretching body.  STRETCH stretch .... legs reaching for the end of the bed. My feet wanting to point my wiggling toes even further that I know they can go.  Slowly rotating my feet, first in a simultaneously same circle direction and  then each foot turning into opposite directions simultaneously ...........ah  what a glorious feeling..........my arms stretching reaching for the ceiling.......it's  like..........like my whole body is waiting to feel the start of the day, poised to be lifted out of bed and my feet touching the softness of plush carpeting caressing almost hugging my feet as I stand preparing my whole body for the first movement forward.   AH    what a glorious feeling.  That first step, a Little wobbly but well worth it, heading for the bathroom turning on the shower water while I relieve your body of liquids stored up over the past 7 hours, slowly stepping into the rushing  cold water but now feeling it getting warmer and warmer....................goose bumps now gone as you lean into the stream of water and feeling the warm water hitting my head and quickly rolling over my whole body.  The occasional squirt of the liquid soap being released by the automatic soap dispenser.  Finally rubbing shampoo into my hair and feeling it running down my body......................oh what a feeling. Just standing and feeling the water splashing on my face and quickly reaching my feet. I have the feeling that...........what's the rush to leave this................but I know that on the other side of the shower doors awaits the heavy terrycloth towel and the heat lamps to dry my body.............oh heaven. After this the day awaits for me. The rest of the  "waking up" is about to begin. Now dried and almost fully awake, I  let the final stage begin. Smell, the richness of the Arabic beans brewing my first cup of the day. A rich black cup of Zoegas (Swedish) coffee today, two eggs sunny side up, two slices of crisp bacon and one slice of lightly buttered Jewish rye bread.  What more can one person possibly ask for.  I better pinch myself just to confirm I have feeling.  Now to check to see if this was just a dream.  Open the newspaper to the obituary.  Lets see now.  Rizzo,     Rizzo,    Rizzo,    nope  not listed  let the balance of the day begin.

As I look out the window onto my deck, I can see that it is still to early in the season to enjoy my breakfast and my paper there. I must admit, once those days arrive, Seattle the rain capital of the USA turns into heaven on earth. The spot for all my serious thinking takes place on my deck and many of the world's problems are solved there.



It's always so much fun to find and publish a video of some sort.  Here is one that may put some people off but let me say,   NO ONE WAS HURT............it's just funny.

Little piggy

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/k1bG2EPGmI0?autoplay=1&vq=hd720&rel=0&showinfo=0&start=82&end=321


Just goes to show you how very concerned people are  about certain things.

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