I coulda been killed...
That's me. I wasn't even a year old in this picture and here I was zooming around a parking lot under the el, somewhere in the Bronx in, (oh my god) a walker! What were my parents thinking! Sheesh, by today's standards they might as well let me run with scissors!
Considering that cars didn't have seat belts or collapsible steering columns and babies were often placed to sleep in the back window next to the bobbing head Yankees player doll on the way to Bear Mountain, it's a miracle any of us baby boomers survived at all.
Labels: childhood memories, family, humour, Photographs
9 Comments:
My mom used to let me stand up on the bench seat of the car, hurtling down the road at 75 mph.
We didn't have those little protector dealies for the electrical plugs and I managed not to put a fork in it.
The poisons under the sink were left right there and never locked up.
Women drank and smoked during pregnancy.
I was sent to the park, blocks away to play--by myself.
Good times!
I was riding my bike to the grocery at 8 and 9 to bring things home for Mom...
So much has changed in this world!
Now I think of having myself chipped...
alan
My mom, whom I'm sure was placed in the rear window to sleep, had a huge COW when our neighbor collapsed all the back seats in her station wagon, slid in a mattress and let us kids bounce around the back while we were going 65 on a major roadway on our way to Santa's Enchanted Village one year.
hahn - yep doctors and dentists smoked right in the exam room with you and you could even smoke in the hospital! I think they invented those plug protectors because of me - I once stuck a diaper pin in an outlet.
alan - Me to. I used to run little errands for mom all by myself up on White Plains Rd in NY and later up at Carlingwood when we moved to Canada.
fidget - That's how I took my kids home from the drive-in movies. Remember the drive-in?
Personally, i think we should get back to those days of risk-taking. It's all good character-building stuff as you are testimony to.
There's far TOO much so called 'protection' these days. Most confuse protection with 'control'.
Let's all turn the clock back to 'Days Of Freedom'.
Great picture by the way.
Pete.
My sisters and I were often placed in the tiny little cargo area behind the back seats of our VW Bug. My little sister was BORN in the front seat of the same bug (right ON mom).
My older sister was in the same VW Bug waiting for mom, with younger sister. Older sis released the hand break and they rolled down a gentle incline headed straight for the canyon's edge. She jumped out the front window, the Bug ran over her foot and turned into a driveway just feet from the edge. She had no broken bones. These are GREAT family stories and illustrate how dangerous - and lucky - life can be!
Hell, my mom has stories of being 5 yrs old and being sent to the store with a grocery list and money.
We are such wimps today.
I, too, at 9 yrs. old rode by bike to the store on Sundays to pick up the newspaper for the family. It was my 'job.' I felt so independant and grown-up.
I'm 33; I feel like I'm one of the very last of the children who wasn't protected to death. I hate how wimpy parents are raising their kids to be these days. How are they going to *compete* against the rest of the world?!?!
Jeff Foxworthy speaks about this a lot in his routines, incidentally.
I believe that photo was taken in the housing project parking lot at Westchester avenue at jackson Avenue. By looking at historical satellite photos, it was probably taken sometime between 1954 (when the old buildings on the other side of the station were still standing)and 1966 (when they are gone, and newer projects were evident there. The station platform visible would be the Jackson Avenue station.
I believe that photo was taken in the housing project parking lot at Westchester avenue at jackson Avenue. By looking at historical satellite photos, it was probably taken sometime between 1954 (when the old buildings on the other side of the station were still standing)and 1966 (when they are gone, and newer projects were evident there. The station platform visible would be the Jackson Avenue station.
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