I mean…have you seen the size of cars then and now? Or the number of cars then vs now?
Just a helmet is fine and still 99.99% as fun
So you admit that it is less fun…
It is less fun because having the wind in your hair and risk of instant death is fun.
My ma (Boomer) likes to talk about how her and her siblings used to chew on road tar like gum and than she laughs about it, har har. Whenever I mention something I’m being cautious about with my kids.
She also had lung and breast cancer, could be unrelated but maybe it didn’t help.
I’d like to add that neither of my parents believed that second hand smoke was “real” either. So I got blasted with carcinogens from birth until I moved out at 17. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get cancer.
I thought that was just my father.
He also told me many times how that was their chewing gum.And also the bottle of mercury they used to pour down a slide.
Oh, and also the tradition of melting lead on Christmas and pouring it into water, getting prediction of the future.getting prediction of the future
Does molten lead in water magically spell out “you’re gonna get cancer” ?
Now I need to find out how deep this tar chewing goes…
This is a gen-x’er from the cars.
Graveyards full of kids
“Oh how did we survive lol 😂”
Many didn’t. That’s the trick!
Survivor bias… they incorrectly believe that because they lived that there was no actual danger. Truly, the selfish and self-absorbed generation. :(
Well ya know I drank really really hard for 40 years, but I didn’t have liver failure.
Guess there’s no consequences for alcoholism! Guess I can keep drinking forever! I am immortal!
And THAT is what I imagine my still alcoholic boomer dad must think daily.
I grew up when drunk driving was legal! I had a van, and was always the designated drunk driver! Cops would stop me and tell me to drive safer in case another cop was arsed to pull me over! Never got busted, and never died!!
Woke snowflakes today, I tell ya’ !
I died every day for the past 30 some-odd years, until woke cancelled my deaths! People were just built stronger back then! Every night, after being an alpha mega-male, I’d force myself into a cocoon of dead organic matter encased in synthetic materials, and then wait to die, and then go to Hell. The next day, I’d come back to life, as though nothing even happened. Lots of us ended and restarted our lives just like this!
Don’t get me wrong, some people didn’t make it. There was a series of documentaries about some of those unlucky few. Most of them, coincidentally, had run-ins with a burn victim who was fond of knives and children. Sadly, that guy who looked like a young Jack Sparrow was an early victim night-death unreturning.
But now, ever since DEI ruined science, everyone keeps trying to tell me that I actually never died! They keep accusing me of being woke, too! I’m not woke! I’m not “open-minded!” In fact, I’m dense as fuck, like a real man!
When I was younger, I had my Boomer in-laws decide that I would drive because I had drunk the least—I had drunk plenty. And this just seemed like something normal and I’d just nonchalantly say, “Oh, that makes sense. That’s smart.”
They were upset that I wouldn’t, insisted they would, and got more upset that I ordered a cab.
Fortunately, after they realised they’d lost, they sided with the idea being really stupid and irresponsible, but I think that’s just because they got morally caught out by a 22-year old.
Nobody who smoked for 70 years ever died young. That’s a fact.
one of my best friends growing up drak heavy for 30 years and then tried to quit but had a Alcohol-related seizures from going cold turkey, fell and broke his neck. But his liver is fine.
he has barely any movement of his upper body but he kicked the bottle, hasnt had a drink since! (Because he cant do it without somone helping him)
I often think of the old man that lost his horse.
It was before my time, but, when my father joined the army to get away from the hell that was home the day he left a boy he went to school with was hit while riding his bike. No helmet, no shit, no protective gear, no breaks. He didnt survive. There were two kids on the bike (17 years old but you get what I mean), we broke all the bones in his legs, barely survived.
Its 100% survivors bias, I know plenty of people my age who were seriously hurt in bicycle accidents too, myself included. I think some of that pain of crashing is fine, its part of learning how to take safety seriously. But somenpeople never learn.
Can’t believe The Onion is nearly a century old.
they incorrectly believe that because they lived that there was no actual danger.
Also, incorrectly believed that they were the ones on the bicycle.
For every kid doing this right, there were ten that did it wrong and fell over.
For every ten that did it wrong, there were another ten laughing up their sleeves and then… putting on a helmet and pads because they didn’t want to end up in traction (or because their parents were yelling at them to be safe).
I always like to point out that they were originally called Generation Me. They were the first generation studied, who were more concerned with self fulfilment, than social responsibility.
Nextdoor is filled with this
“I saw a person outside of a local bar past 10pm, they should close the place down!”
Of course you survived! The ones that died from traumatic brain damage aren’t around to make stupid comments
And let’s be honest, fewer of us survived than nowadays.
Yeah, not everyone got rocketed out the front window from lying up on the rear deck of our parents’ oldsmobile. Not all of us had life altering injuries from jumping bikes off shitty ramps with no protection. Not every one of us ended up in a pedo neighbors basement, But some of us did. Our parents’ apathy to parenting and our own poor judgment skills weren’t lessons to make us better or badges of honor. We survived despite of all that rather than because of it.
It’s the lead. They inhaled too much leaded gasoline fumes and lived during the golden era when a job at the hardware store was enough to afford a 2,500sq/ft house and 4 kids.
Many didn’t.
Some safety equipment encourages accidents.
For bicycles though, can’t really say anything negative about helmets. They save brains.
American Football though? I bet the concussion problem would go away overnight if they took them away. You don’t bash your head against someone unless you think you’re invulnerable thanks to a helmet anyway.
Flag football was meant to replace tackle football. Rather than stopping the ball being based on takedowns, the players wear a belt with flags on their hips. If an opposing player yanks a flag off the belt, that’s where the stop is counted.
Oh, but nooooo, it’s not manly and powerful and warrior-like enough. So it never really got popular outside of high school gym class.
Or they call CPS or slowly crush the kid under their F150 extended cab
When I was 7 years old in 1982 I fell off my bike and got a concussion. I was unconscious for a whole day. Not every child survived injuries sustained during those decades. I’m lucky I did.
I have had a concussion as an 11 year old, and have absolutely zero memory of what happened or how. It probably involved my bike, since that was outside when I somehow stumbled back home (which I also don’t remember).
My brain goes from two or three days pre-concussion, to having the absolute worst time with my parents waking me every hour at night for no clear reason and my arm being broken. I think I have some vague delirious memories from that, but none of them make sense, and maybe I inveted them afterwards.
It was not a fun time, and a helmet would have probably prevented that. There’s no permanent damage, i think, but that was extremely lucky.
Ya a whole day pretty bad. You’re lucky you woke up, pretty sure that was a coma. If your out for 20 - 30 mins you pretty much received brain damage.
I was a pretty intelligent kid with all my wits, and that accident happened in the 2nd grade, and I remember in the 4th grade being a wiz at geography lessons, same year my teachers chose me to be the “class president” and in 5th grade was invited to special early morning classes for gifted writers at the high school campus, so I guess my brain remained intact after the 2nd grade concussion. I also remember in 4th grade writing about my “concution” and my teacher talked with me for a minute about it, she was concerned & interested, and told me the correct way to spell “concussion.” 😄 I’m 50 now & still remember so much, so I guess my brain’s alright.
