The Good Old Days were not necessarily better than the present. We enjoyed the good and bad. True. Back then, the 30's,40's,50's,60's, life was just more simple. The music, social life, family values, and so many other things were different, very different. And yes, a little old-fashioned and conservative. They will never happen again and we cannot bring it back or go backward, but memories of the good times we had never fade away...it's part of our human system caught up in nostalgia. To all the friends who were born in the 1930's 1940's, 50's, 60's!. Remember these? First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer. Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nando’s. Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on a Sunday, somehow we didn't starve to death! We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks 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 old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY or Mnet, no video/DVD films. No mobile 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. Only girls had pierced ears! In my day men were men and pansies were flowers. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time. We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet because we didn’t need to keep up with the Jones’s! Not everyone made the rugby/football/cricket/netball team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on merit. Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and throw the blackboard rubber at us if they thought we weren’t concentrating. We can string sentences together and spell properly and have proper conversations because of a good, solid three R’s education. Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla' and 'Tiger' We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all!