Remember the old days

I was watching out the window the other day. The snow was falling from a gray, overcast sky and soon had the car covered in a blanket of white. The temperature hovered around 10 degrees and the birds were looking for their handouts at the bird feeder.

As I am prone to do, I began remembering “the good old days” and wondering why things are so different today.

My mom used to cut up chickens, chop hard-boiled eggs and spread Kraft Miracle Whip while working on the same wooden cutting board using the same knife and no bleach, and we never got food poisoning.

She used to defrost hamburger on the countertop and I would sneak bites of it raw whenever I could and I never had a problem with E-coli.

My brother and I used to play with toy guns while being cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers, or my particular favorite, Army soldiers fighting the Germans or the Japanese in World War II. If we didn’t have a toy gun handy, we would use our fingers and mouth sound effects.

We even played war at recess time on the school grounds. There were no concerns about political correctness or lack of sensitivity. We were never threatened with suspension or expulsion from school because of some “zero-tolerance” policy.

Speaking of public school, we regularly prayed openly and repeated the Pledge of Allegiance, including the phrase, one nation “under God.” We even studied Bible verses and my oldest sister won an award for remembering all the verses correctly. Staying after school for detention was not a “cool” thing.

I remember walking a mile one-way to the one-room country grade school through some nasty weather and, no, we didn’t walk uphill both ways. A large commercial gravel-pit operation was along the road and I used to sit on the side of the pit after kindergarten, with my feet hanging over the edge, watching the steam-shovel loading dump trucks.

Sometimes the teacher, who could see out a schoolhouse window to where I was sitting a half-mile away, would send one of the older kids out to tell me to go home because my mother would be wondering where I was.

An older couple lived further down the road home. Their yard had a low spot that always filled up with rainwater. We always went wading through the puddle on the way home and the puddle was always just a little deeper than our rubber boots were tall. The lady would often invite us in for cookies and milk afterward. We never felt threatened or abused in any way. We were neighbors, after all.

We didn’t act up at the neighbor’s house either, because we had been taught that kids should be seen and not heard when in public. We were supposed to be on our best behavior when visiting someone at their home. Novel concept, huh?

I was a senior in high school before we were given the “official” birds-and-bees talk. We were never offered condoms or told about abortions, like they do starting in third grade or whenever nowadays. I wouldn’t have known what those things were at that age anyway.

Our high school nurse wore a white uniform and hat and gave us aspirin and/or cough syrup, without a parental permission slip, if we started getting sick at school rather than immediately sending us home. When we felt better, we would go back to class. I guess kids were tougher back then.

Students and teachers were expected to dress appropriately and exhibit good personal hygiene (read clean, short hair and clean clothes). The principal would only issue one warning. The next time, we were either sent home to change or, with a little backtalk, given a three-day suspension to think about our transgression.

Well, the snow has stopped and the sun is trying to make itself visible once again. It’s time for me to come back to the present and get on with the day. Someday I hope to understand why today is so much more complicated than yesterday and learn when common sense gave way to political correctness.

Howard Delo is a regular Outdoors columnist for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.