I was bored on Sunday, and happened to switch on ESPN 2, and watched about 2 minutes of these kids skateboarding. I was thoroughly disgusted.
I can remember when I was growing up, we had skateboards, but we were less pussies than the kids of today.
Today, they wear helmets, knee pads, and probably protective cups, too. We wore none of those. When we fell off the skateboard on the hot asphalt, we welcomed the pain. This was something we could show our friends, kind of like a status symbol. The bigger the scab, the cooler you were. There was nothing better than going home to have Mom pick put pieces of rock and glass from our elbows and knees.
As for helmets, we didn’t need those either. Hell, my brother had 2 concussions from falling off his skateboard, and he was the toast of the town!!! I think our heads were a little bit harder back then, too. Or heads weren’t turned soft by Nintendo or Sega. We had the Odyssey game system featuring Pong.
And how about these bicycles?? We had bikes that weighed about 50 pounds apiece, and we did not wear any protection riding those either. As a matter of fact, we used to go down hills really fast and then stick a baseball bat in the front spokes just to see how far we could fly off the bikes.
The new bikes have a foam rubber protection gizmo on the bar to protect men’s testicles. We didn’t have those. If we happened to slip off the seat, we would just whack our nuts on that bar and fall gracefully headfirst to the ground.
But, we got up! No whining, no pity seeking. We were men in little bodies back then. Our clothes, especially our pants, fit us too. We didn’t have to worry about our pants falling to our knees. Kids nowadays need to learn how to dress themselves a bit better, I suppose.
I will believe this is a true sport when they skateboard or bike on asphalt without any benefit from padding or helmets. Nowadays, this “sport” is just too damned wussy-like.
Back to the Odyssey system. If you wanted to play something other than Pong, like Haunted House, you had to get your ass up from a couch and put a piece of plastic with a drawing of a haunted house on your television. Man, we had it tough. Yet, we wore no protection.
In case you are wondering, no I did not have to walk 15 miles to school every day. It was only 5, and there was only 1 hill. And we got rides to school when it snowed and rained. So, I guess we were pussies to the preceding generation.
But, they wore no protection either!!!
Walter Matthau passed away this past Sunday, and I have compiled a list of my 5 favorite Walter Matthau movies:
5. “The Sunshine Boys”
4. “The Odd Couple”
3. “Charade”
2. “Hopscotch”
1. “The Bad News Bears”
RIP Walter, we’ll miss you!!!!!!!
Coming Next: That special thing????
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