Renzatic on 5/9/2017 at 06:33
I can't exactly complain either, Tocky. I mean sure, I had to deal with the occasional idiot adult lording over me, but it's not like I listened to anyone anyway while I was growing up.
If I have any one thing to complain about, it'd be that my first 11 years were pretty lonely ones, since I lived out in the middle of nowhere, with no kids my age around me. I had my friends from school, but I only got to see them then. I wasn't allowed to spend the night at anyone's houses until I was 10. Besides those occasions when I'd go see family, my afternoons and weekends were just me out in the fields and woods all by myself.
Sulphur on 5/9/2017 at 06:39
I don't think childhood can be summarised to an episode of life where thing were great/not great in any way that doesn't reduce its essence down to nostalgia or resentment. My childhood had all of the magical things I won't forget -- the sounds and smells of the beach at sunset with gigantic Chinese fishing nets like sails unfurled against the sky, the discoveries I happened upon whilst cycling down to the edge of the road past our neighbourhood and pushing on into the unknown without caring if I could remember the way back (I didn't), but also all of the things that were dark and awful and never left. It's a heady broth, and you can't just boil it down to a few words.
Sulphur on 5/9/2017 at 06:56
Quote Posted by demagogue
I took "showers" from a bucket too... But that wasn't so bad once I learned I could use the kettle to heat the water, and mix a little into each bucket. I later learned that was "life in a developing country" 101 stuff that everybody around me knew, but I guess that's part of the process/charm of learning to live in a new culture.
(They had "heating sticks" you could stick into the cold water basin to warm it up, but call my crazy, I was highly suspicious of putting a metal rod connected to I-don't-know-how-many-but-a-lot-of volts of electricity into a pool of water with my bare hands while standing on a wet floor. Egads!)
It's funny reading this, because it's pretty much a way of life for people here, even those with access to showerheads. Tends to use less water, you see. Yes, heating rods aren't generally safe as they're essentially a shielded heating element in water without an automatic shut-off mechanism; there's stories of people falling on them and dying as recently as
2014 this year, but people here use 'em anyway because they're cheaper than mounting a heater ('geyser', in our oldspeak post-independence parlance) on the bathroom wall.
montag on 7/9/2017 at 03:53
So many good stories in this thread, just like me to start a thread and then not contribute to it. I am fascinated by the stories from those of you who were born before me (1965), and especially voodoo47's remembrances. The good news for all you youngsters is, if we are all lucky, you will be able to recount stories about how scary it was to live in a world where nuclear war was something people had to actually worry about! But to get back on track, I remember DOS and 5.25" floppys. I remember when I had my last cutting-edge PC. It was a 386 DX-40 with a Math Co-processor, 16 MBs(!)of ram and a 4MB video card, and 2 huge 40MB HDDs with DiskDoubler on both. I bought all the components from "Computer Shopper" and that rag was as thick as a phone book.(I'm so old I remember phone books) I could make beautiful models of our solar system with 3-D Studio, and they looked almost better than models of our solar system made with crayons. I'm so old my first degree was in Industrial Design, from the University of Cincinnati's college of D.A.A. (Design, Art and Architecture), for several decades now that college has been known as D.A.A.P. (the P is for Planning, as in City Planning, which is apparently a thing now) I'm so old, when I attended that school, they had no computer courses, we did everything by hand, with archaic tools like Rapidagraphs, T-squares, Triangles and French Curves. If you fucked up, you started over, there was no Ctrl+Z.
ffox on 21/11/2017 at 10:57
I'm resurrecting this thread because of recent conversations with people of my son's generation. I'd noticed that they are very much more risk averse than people of my age, perhaps because we'd spent many years half expecting to be bombed (WW2) or nuked (cold war).
When I mentioned the number of aircraft accidents accepted as normal when I started flying with the RAF, they didn't believe me. When shown the stats, they thought my colleagues and I were raving mad to choose RAF aircrew as a career. (We all thought it probably wouldn't happen to us and the pay was good.)
Here are the RAF aircraft losses the year I started:
(
http://www.ukserials.com/losses-1956.htm)
I make that 378, ie more than one per day.
The figures reduced significantly when National Service stopped (164 in 1959). Coincidence?
I'll be interested to hear what you younger ones think.
Craeftig on 21/11/2017 at 15:06
Quote:
I'm resurrecting this thread because of recent conversations with people of my son's generation. I'd noticed that they are very much more risk averse than people of my age, perhaps because we'd spent many years half expecting to be bombed (WW2) or nuked (cold war).
It's a good job everyone gave up Nuclear Weapons and there aren't Rogue states like North Korea and Iran wanting to nuke the Yanks.
Kolya on 21/11/2017 at 22:40
@ffox: Not wanting to die on your job isn't overly risk averse. Especially since they got lots of other options today. Which options did you have?
Pyrian on 22/11/2017 at 03:05
Honestly, there have always been foolhardy people and cowards, and they tend to congregate. If your sample set is jet fighter wannabes, you're going to get a skewed perspective. Meanwhile, the now-PotUS was finding a doctor willing to diagnose him with bone spurs.
ffox on 22/11/2017 at 10:04
Yes, it would be a skewed perspective, but the general population didn't regard it as being an unacceptable risk. Many applicants were turned away.
@Kolya: If you were educated there was a wide choice of jobs available. Excitement, pay and glamour were important to us; a graduate engineer was paid about £500 pa but a qualified pilot got twice that. (Average house price was £2,200.) For some reason the girls seemed to like us too. ;)
@Craeftig: I reckon you are more in danger of being shot by a fellow citizen, or failing that being caught in a terrorist attack. The risk of being nuked is largely in the hands of POTUS (so yes, it's a possibilty).
I've noticed an exception to the risk-averse attitude, which is riding bicycles in town. That's much more dangerous than being a pilot imho.
I'm a lot more careful these days now I have one foot in the grave and the other on a bar of soap. But there is still a good chance that I'll be killed by a fast silent bicycle in Cambridge, ridden by a student on their mobile phone.
Craeftig on 22/11/2017 at 12:54
Quote Posted by ffox
@Craeftig: I reckon you are more in danger of being shot by a fellow citizen, or failing that being caught in a terrorist attack. The risk of being nuked is largely in the hands of POTUS (so yes, it's a possibilty).
Surely you mean PUTIN? Apparently he has an invisible hand resting on the brain of the POTUS pushing the right squidgy parts to make him to do and say their right things.
