by Kerry Dougherty
Baby Boomers are fond of social media posts that glorify their raised-by-wolves childhoods.
They usually go something like this:
We drank out of garden hoses, rode in the back of pick-ups, didn’t have seat belts let alone car seats, came home when the street lights went on, thought Howard Johnson’s was fine dining, played with BB guns and knives and earned our immunization to chicken pox, mumps and measles the old fashioned way. The fat kid in our class would be considered skinny today.
The implication? We’re tough. Today’s youngsters are pampered.
It’s worth remembering that not everything was wonderful when Boomers were growing up.
Suitcases didn’t have wheels.
Telephones were tethered to the wall.
Televisions received only three channels.
I could go on.
But one thing I remember well from my childhood in a small New Jersey town was that by the time I was six my mother would routinely send me to a corner store to buy her Pall Malls. The shop was probably about half a mile from our house. Continue reading
