Thinking about The Rev's post about "Awww poor babies", got me looking back at my own childhood.
I grew up in the 60's and 70's, like a lot of kids. There was no MTV, there was no Playstation, Wii, or even Nintendo. You respected your parents and obeyed the rules. You
tried to stay out of trouble, and if you didn't, there would be hell to pay.
My dad (1922 - 2002.
R.I.P. Pop... 
)
6'3" 250lbs, US Army Air Corps WWII Vet
Senior electronics engineer at IBM
Asst chief, volunteer fire dept/ambulance/rescue squad.
Me (1961 - present)
Baby of the family
The only boy amongst 4 older sisters
I loved my dad, respected him, and also feared him.
The worst a$$ whippin' of my life
I was probably 8 or 9 yrs old, and was goofing around in the garage on a Saturday. My dad had gone to do something at the fire dept, or at the county's alarm HQ/dispatch. I found his big grease gun and squeezed the lever. Black grease came out the end of it in a string. How cool, I thought to myself... So, I decided to "decorate" the garage with the grease gun. I sprayed strings of grease all along the walls, along his workbench, and even wrote "BUTCH" in big letters on the concrete floor!!!!
Well, as you would guess... My dad came home right at the exact moment, I had emptied the grease gun and I was caught red handed with it. He pulled up to the open garage door, got out and just stood here with this look on his face that I have never seen before. He couldn't even speak from what I remember. All I remember is him pulling his belt off his pants and coming towards me. I won't go into gory details, but, let's just say that God Himself had to step in and save me! God must have spoken to my dad and said,
"Hold on...don't kill him..."
Fast foward 40 years. Imagine this same event happening today. The dad would end up in prison, the boy would be taken away to a foster home and probably put on Ritalin or Lord only knows what.
Anyway, I didn't turn out to be a murderous thug, or have serious, emotional trauma, and turn to a life of crime. I grew up learning right from wrong. If you do wrong, you pay the price. My dad was awesome and did everything possible for me. He taught me that you have to work hard to get ahead. Nobody owes you anything, and you shouldn't depend on handouts when you are perfectly capable of working.
I think a lot of us grew up just like I did. We all learned from our mistakes, and learned what to do and what not to do. But what has happened to our society? Today's generation of kids don't understand and they listen to the crap that Obama says, and I fear they don't know any better.
Growing up then vs growing up now
