Saturday, March 26, 2005

Fuzzy Childhood Memories XI

Childhood Influences
The impact of media and pop-culture on children today is far different from when I was growing up. It was all about 'The Dukes of Hazzard', the 'A-team', and Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' Album. 'Knight Rider' and 'The Incredible Hulk' were staples of a kid's TV watching diet. The huge satellite dish in the back yard picked up all kinds of signals, scrambled or unscrambled, that were things that kids really shouldn't be watching. We had fake, candy cigarettes and cap guns that looked real. We had yard darts, which was sort of like natural selection of the 1980s. We rode bikes and skateboards with no helmets or pads, in cars with no seatbelts, or in the back of pickups. We were living on the edge, rebels without a clue. It's not that parents cared less about kids back then than they do now, I don't know, things were just different. How many kids today wear clothes that their mother made? I know I wore my share of homemade 'jamz', the short-pants of choice back in the day. Man, we were a bunch of retards, but life was good. As a kid, you're bombarded with all these things, but ultimately it's the parents who are the most influential.

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