[Rudey]

What about the gross violations of rights??

What about women who were not given the right to education? to choose their own destinies? Didn't the phrase "rule of thumb" mean you could always beat your wife if the stick was no thicker than your thumb? If spousal abuse is so rampant now, just imagine what it was like back then.

And how about the flagrant racism? the lynchings and brutality of a system that wouldn't budge without force???

Oh and I would love to live in a society were diseases such as Polio could take away my life. I would love to live in a society where cancer simply had no treatment other than death. I would love to be in a society that gave me horrible illnesses because they felt asbestos and lead paint would not affect me. I would love to live in a society that promoted the benefits of smoking. I would love to live in a society where modern medicine might mean that several of my siblings would die during birth.

Perhaps it's the fact that it was safer back then? No, actually that is also false. It's the fact that we have more communication channels that people know about the dangers of letting their kids function independently. It is now that the court rooms are filled with people filing suit against the Catholic church. That more "innocent" time never existed, but what did exist was a curtain of silence that kept everyone ignorant and in the dark.

I always loved the whole American image of a mom baking an apple pie and wearing an apron. But that's not reality and I accepted it early on. My parents worked 60+ hours each and I grew up to be pretty independent as do a lot of kids from NYC.

I still have memories of free games at Shea stadium, stickball in the streets of Queens, riding my huffy bike (with baseball cards in the spokes) for a couple miles not just to buy one comic book but also for the adventure, taking the subway into Brooklyn for the world's best hot dogs and having to deal with that disgusting subway smell, going to that dirty Jones beach in the summer and coming back looking like a lobster, etc. I have no idea where that guy got the "no fighting" idea from because there were tons of fights I was involved with growing up. I remember getting made fun of for not speaking English yet and pummeling a kid for it and I remember stealing a guy's girl in my senior year of high school and getting bruised and suspended for that.

-Rudey
--These fantasy images are great but don't hold up to the test of time.