Confessions of a Full-Figured Gal

Kids These Days

I never thought I'd ever be old enough to talk about “these kids today!” but here I am, and here it comes.  A few weeks ago,  I was wondering what ever happened to Mercurochrome.  When I was a kid, every household had a bottle of cheery red Mercurochrome with its little applicator stick, and the red blossoms under our Band-Aids were blotches of the antiseptic, not gore.  Wow, did it sting.  The school nurse would tell us to “blow on it,” not because it made it hurt less, but because we couldn't blow and scream at the same time.  Just because our knees and elbows hurt was no reason for the nurse's ears to hurt.

 Even though I'm old enough to talk about the 'good old days', I'm not so old that I don't know about Wikipedia, so I looked it up.  Yes, there is an entry about Mercurochrome on Wikipedia.  Try that with your old Funk and Wagnalls.  Mercurochrome is no longer sold in the US because it consists of - surprise - mercury. (Gee, what would have clued me in to that.)

 Today's moms don't want to get their children immunized because they're concerned about mercury in vaccinations.  We had mercury smeared on our open wounds.  I had lots of wounds, too, from playing tag on the school parking lot without wearing my eyeglasses.  (I didn't really need glasses, unless I wanted to see something.) Even today, my knees look like an elephant's (both in size and in texture).  Today, schools don't let children play running games on asphalt.  Maybe it's because there's no Mercurochrome to smear on their open wounds.

 We also had mercury in thermometers.  The ones our moms put in our mouths (or other areas) to check our temperatures. Imagine.

 I teach Sunday School at my church, and the kids are always asking if they can bring their bottled water to class.  I tell them, it's just one hour, you won't dry up and blow away.  What's with kids these days?  We went most of the school day without drinking, and we survived. What's more, when playing vigorous, sweaty games in our yards, often with full-body contact or using dangerous toys like lawn darts, we quenched our thirst by drinking out of the hose.  Yes, the outdoor garden hose, full of bugs, germs,and chemicals leaching out of the vinyl.  Nothing tasted as good as cold hose-water on a hot day, unless it was Kool-Aid.  Yum, artificial flavors and colors!

 Does anybody buy lemonade concentrate in cans anymore?  I haven't seen it in years.  We always had lemonade and OJ cans in the freezer.  I used to like to eat them with a spoon.  I liked the occasional cup full of sugar from the sugar bowl, too, though Mom did try to discourage that.  Pixie Stix were okay, though.  The most disgusting sugar rush came in the form of the Giant Sweet-Tart.  I'm amazed that I have any teeth left in my head. Many were the times, on the playground, when a friend would pull a damp, partially-gnawed, fist-sized Sweet-Tart out of a linty pocket to offer me a nibble.  And I'm still here.

 Hand sanitizer?  I, for one, never even washed my hands unless Mom was supervising.  However, there was nothing to worry about, because we were vaccinated against smallpox.  That's the vaccine that they won't reinstate today because it's too dangerous.  It probably has mercury in it. But we all got it.  And we're still here. Plus, I've never had smallpox, though I had every other childhood disease that kids are now vaccinated against, if their mothers let them get vaccinated.  I had several types of measles, the mumps, chicken pox, you name it.  I'm still here.

 While building my natural immunities by drinking hose-water and sharing candy with unwashed hands, I developed my physique and my mental curiosity by wandering in the woods, unsupervised, for most of the day, coming home smeared with mud up to the knees, possibly missing a shoe.  Today, I suppose my parents would be put in jail for letting a third-grader run loose in the wilds of the suburbs.

 Shall we discuss the grand old New Jersey tradition of riding a bicycle behind the mosquito fogger?  “But I didn't inhale.”  Our parents warned us, not that we could get poisoned by the toxic chemicals, but that we might get hit by a car in the thick fog.  But, we're still here. 

 Boy, we 'Boomers' sure must be tough.