Sorry about the promised land......

[Cougar Mag]

The house with a picket fence became all brick with swimming pool, bath house, and stone patio.

Transportation became an SUV and latest gadegtry auto.

Television and radio became wall-to-wall surround sound system including screen befitting a small movie theatre.

Kids clothes and sneakers became fashion statement featuring the "in" logo.

Working 40 hours a week became give me overtime.

Housewives became career women.

Simply saving became credit cards.

Needs became wants.

Quality family time became planning ahead for that time.

Little things became big things.

[bigbulls]

Yep, my father and I were talking about this very thing the other day. How much different it would have been growing up in the 20's and 30's. None of this running around like chickens with our heads cut off. When we could take the time to do things that we wanted to do. When we wouldn't have had the need to carry a concealed weapon to feel safe traveling on vacation. When kids could go out in the woods all day long and you didn't have to worry about them getting kidnapped on their way home.

[trapper T]

It has changed but it is still what you make it, I try and stay a step or two behind the "Jones" I don't have or want a cell phone, the only reason I got a puter was to communicate with my NWTF committee in passing documents. I get funny looks at the store when I'm buying vinegar to clean the deer carcass and when I tell people I want to get some acreage to buy a steer,chicken, pigs and to grow my own garden, bascially just because I feel life can be a little too easy to come by those things anymore.

THese gadget like the puter and TV are nice, but sometimes I wish I'd just throw them both away.BUt if I did that I wouldn't be able to yak at folks like ya'll and learn that there's still some decent folk still around

[James B]

I am glad I grew up when I did and where I did. We were very poor but we didn't know it. We had to grow are own food and raise our own crops. We didn't have the money to buy that stuff and it was to far to town to go very often. My mother always said in her later years, "We were so poor and so very very happy" Technology is ok as long as we remember that WE are ITS master and not the other way around. We even carried our shoptguns and rifles in our cars to school; so we could hunt on the way to and from school. I brought a couple rifles into school to refinish the stocks and reblue the metal in shop class. Try that today. Times change and sometimes its for the better and sometimes not.

[Aught Six]

I consider myself very lucky, as well. I'm the oldest of three, and I caught the end of the "traditional family". Dad worked, mom kept house, I ran around the woods with my dog literally for years, the first car I rode in was an old Ford LTD, and my dad's idea of fun on a Saturday evening was to sit in front of the CB base station with a drink and some snacks (his handle: Bullwinkle, mine: Rocky).

I sure do hate modern, suburban culture.