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The Watercooler
A sixty-year mystery solved ...
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<blockquote data-quote="donna723" data-source="post: 444479" data-attributes="member: 1883"><p>Sue, St. Louis was where I was living when we were doing the hide-under-your-desk drills and the walk-don't-run trips to the school basement! But this was back in the mid to late 50's. I think most of this was over by the 70's.</p><p></p><p>Parents were so different back then! On one hand, they could tell you, "Don't take candy from strangers", and feel very confident that their children were then protected from any and every predator that might lurk out there. On the other hand, they didn't worry too much about what might be going on in kids' head and didn't mind using fear as a teaching tool if it worked. I, for one, grew up afraid of EVERYTHING! I just knew that if those atom bombs didn't get us, something else surely would! Even the prayer we used to say before we went to bed contained the line, "<em>If I should die before I wake</em> ... "! So I figured that there must have been a whole lot of kids out there that went to bed and never woke up! I saw it as a distinct possibility! I was told that my eyes would be permanently damaged by crossing them at my brother (while sticking my tongue out at him) and that I would go blind from sitting too close to the TV. When I found a small piece of electrical wire outside I was told that it might shock me because "there might be some electricity left in it!" I was told to always be very careful not to swallow any cellophane because "you can't digest it and it might kill you!" I distinctly remember unwrapping and eating a little piece of candy one time and then noticing that there was a tiny piece of the cellophane wrapper that was missing! OMG! I must have swallowed it! That was it! I was doomed! And I remember laying awake that entire night, staring at the ceiling and waiting to die! I was about 4 or 5 at the time. And it wasn't just our mother, most mothers were like that! She may have even believed this crappola herself and thought she was protecting us ... who knows! But like I said before, it's a miracle that my generation didn't grow up even more warped than we were!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="donna723, post: 444479, member: 1883"] Sue, St. Louis was where I was living when we were doing the hide-under-your-desk drills and the walk-don't-run trips to the school basement! But this was back in the mid to late 50's. I think most of this was over by the 70's. Parents were so different back then! On one hand, they could tell you, "Don't take candy from strangers", and feel very confident that their children were then protected from any and every predator that might lurk out there. On the other hand, they didn't worry too much about what might be going on in kids' head and didn't mind using fear as a teaching tool if it worked. I, for one, grew up afraid of EVERYTHING! I just knew that if those atom bombs didn't get us, something else surely would! Even the prayer we used to say before we went to bed contained the line, "[I]If I should die before I wake[/I] ... "! So I figured that there must have been a whole lot of kids out there that went to bed and never woke up! I saw it as a distinct possibility! I was told that my eyes would be permanently damaged by crossing them at my brother (while sticking my tongue out at him) and that I would go blind from sitting too close to the TV. When I found a small piece of electrical wire outside I was told that it might shock me because "there might be some electricity left in it!" I was told to always be very careful not to swallow any cellophane because "you can't digest it and it might kill you!" I distinctly remember unwrapping and eating a little piece of candy one time and then noticing that there was a tiny piece of the cellophane wrapper that was missing! OMG! I must have swallowed it! That was it! I was doomed! And I remember laying awake that entire night, staring at the ceiling and waiting to die! I was about 4 or 5 at the time. And it wasn't just our mother, most mothers were like that! She may have even believed this crappola herself and thought she was protecting us ... who knows! But like I said before, it's a miracle that my generation didn't grow up even more warped than we were! [/QUOTE]
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A sixty-year mystery solved ...
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