Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by $ rockymountainpirate 10 years ago
    I remember those days. Outside as soon as breakfast was eaten and not back until time for Mickey Mouse Club on the black and white TV. Took turns getting buck off the cow or riding the horses. Later after moving to a more 'civilized' area we either spent the day body or board surfing, riding horses or riding bikes. The bikes had playing cards in the spokes to give them that awesome sound. The only time we didn't come home dirty was if we'd spent the day at the beach and the salt water washed all the dirt off.
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    • Posted by khalling 10 years ago
      Sounds wonderful. I rode my bike all over town barefoot. Used to sit in the garden with the salt and pepper shaker poaching cherry tomatoes. Made leis of passion flowers and was always climbing up on the elementary school roof-either to belt out show tunes or make dandilion chains that would span two stories and touch the ground. Trapped tadpoles and stole robin eggs...
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      • Posted by tpatter4 10 years ago
        We rode our bikes all over the place too. I devised a way to make it sound like a motorcycle. My friend "drove", and I rode on the back, holding a 5-gallon bucket against the back tire--sounded awesome! We caught spiders and found arrowheads in the creeks, and used twine to lasso steers' horns from the hay mow above them. We entertained ourselves with our own minds, curiosity, and creativity. We didn't need someone else to entertain us. What joy!
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 10 years ago
    Absolutely right!
    "They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
    "Experience is the name we give to our mistakes."
    "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful, than a life spent doing nothing"
    Used to ride my bike ~5 miles to swimming lessons every day in the summer. One day got hit by a car backing up. Went home and realized my foot was bleeding a lot between two toes that were split apart. Taped them together, healed just fine. No lawsuits, no fuss, more watchful for blind spots.
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    • Posted by khalling 10 years ago
      awesome comment, Thor. looking for more...
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      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 10 years ago
        Thanks. This is really a perfect example of where the well-meaning socialists are taking us in the wrong direction as they sell us our own fears, some as ignorant lemmings, some as power hungry central government-types.
        I have to admit to partly being a party to the foolishness. As an adult we lived not two blocks from the elementary school in a suburban area. However, the rule was that all kids ride the bus! The worst thing was that due to the bus direction, my kids rode for over 20 minutes, as they were picked up first, not last! I should've made an issue of it, but picked other windmills to joust.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 10 years, 1 month ago
    What the hell happened to the world?
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
      Perhaps the key moment was described best by Michael Crichton in State of Fear when a professor character points to a noticeable change in reporting of keywords associated with fear and the environmentalist movement. The professor pointed to the falling of the Berlin Wall happening just before. Without the US/USSR Cold War to fear, the looters/control freaks had to come up with something global to control the populace. The environmentalist movement was a convenient way of funding (looting) this reacquisition of control.
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      • Posted by WBD 10 years, 1 month ago
        This is exactly what Dr Patrick Moore ( a co-founder of Greenpeace) says happened in the early 80's. He saw people coming into the environmental movement who learned to use Green language to push Neo-Marxist ideals. It was no longer about the environment. It was about anti-globalization and anti-capitalism and some were pushing extreme ideas like trying to ban chlorine worldwide. He quit Greenpeace in 1986.

        It had slowly begun in the late 60's though, as Ayn Rand demonstrates in The New Left.

        That's what happened to the world. The looters always need a crisis to create fear. Real or imaginary.
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      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 10 years ago
        This is quite key. Like your terms "looters/control freaks".
        What makes them successful are the larger numbers of well-meaning ignorant. It is these people that provide the looters with democratic power, and it is these people we need to provide the simple arguments we all understand to slow down or avoid the horrible decent this country is making.
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  • Posted by DaveM49 10 years ago
    We also built tree houses and "forts". With real hammers and nails. We had chemistry sets and found interesting uses for them. AND for the most part we didn't wear seat belts.
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    • Posted by Zenphamy 10 years ago
      Hell, we didn't even have seat belts, we didn't have helmets except for football, we didn't have knee or elbow pads, we started hunting alone at 10 or 11 with 22's, we went swimming in the lake and surrounding creeks, we launched each other into the air with bent over saplings, we lived.
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    • Posted by $ pixelate 10 years ago
      Bingo on the seat belt comment / observation. I recall my folks driving us kids to the Drive In theater and we're just bouncing around in the back seat. Ditto on the tree forts (made from excess home building materials and scrap from along the railroad tracks). Cheers!
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      • Posted by DaveM49 10 years ago
        Yep--we used to go play around in half-built houses and collect wood from the scrap pail, along with any stray nails we could pick up. That's probably a felony now.
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  • Posted by squareone 10 years ago
    In 1964 I had just graduated from dental school. I was 30 years old. "Don't trust anyone over 30" was a very popular slogan at the time. For the past 50 years of my life I have been subjected to this garbage and other slogans and attitudes closely related. I read "Atlas Shrugged" for the first time in 1966 and entered the Gulch in 1983 where I have remained to this day.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 10 years ago
    Well, I was born in 1957. And I remember growing up just that way in those days. Non-toxic paint was something new. TV had only three networks, though some markets supported independent stations. And back then, you could still watch some decent TV dramas. And in those drama, and the ads, men were men, and had all the virtues (literally, "manly qualities"): discipline, leadership, and a willingness to accept responsibility.

    Does anyone still remember men's toiletry products named "Command"? Or a super-strong cough preparation named "Adulton," with a picture of a non-nonsense adult on the label? The idea was: "Don't 'kid around' with your cough, by taking cough syrup weak enough for a little kid to take!"

    These days, adding the world "children's" to a cough preparation is redundant. By the time I got old enough to vote, drink, and drive, "Adulton" was no longer on the market. Most of you probably don't even know what I'm talking about!
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    • Posted by DaveM49 10 years ago
      A strange time, when Cheracol and other cough syrups containing codeine were available over the counter and placed out on drug store shelves, while condoms were kept behind the counter.

      Never heard of "Adulton", but I wonder if it was a codeine-based preparation. Which I have no doubt worked quite well as long as you didn't drink several bottles of it. Which the vast majority of people knew better than to do.
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      • Posted by Temlakos 10 years ago
        Codeine was just beginning to fall out of favor. Another preparation, called "Code 44" I believe, came on the market right about then. I never learned what its active ingredient really was, but the trade name given it was "Silentium." The tag line: "As effective as codeine, but non-narcotic."

        That time also saw the release of two anti-drug classics: "Synanon" and "Narcotics: The Pit of Despair."
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        • Posted by DaveM49 10 years ago
          I wonder if that was dextromethorphan? People have found a way to abuse that in recent years, and in my home state at least it is regarded as a "Schedule Five Controlled Substance". Purchasing it for minors or "with the deliberate intention of abuse" is a crime. I wonder if that means it is unlawful to buy cough syrup for your kids?
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  • Posted by WBD 10 years, 1 month ago
    Yes, I was a 60's "free range kid". Didn't stop moving from breakfast to sunset. It was an awesome childhood. My range was bounded by 3 major roadways and a railway. It was a large area to roam with friends.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years ago
    Perhaps we are still a majority silenced by the propaganda machine owned and operated by an evil well-funded minority. Smash your kid's iphone and tell them to go skip rope instead.
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  • Posted by $ pixelate 10 years ago
    My parents sent me this posting about a week ago -- and so very true it is. Back in the 70's all us kids would enjoy the experience of discovery as we put on the miles wandering the countryside which was our neighborhood. We built tree-forts right next to the railroad tracks on a hillside - and used bailing twine and debris from the railroad to construct a crude physical line 'telecommunication system.' At one point, a train had started a fire due to excessive sparks. We had a hundred gallons of water in old milk jugs (yeah, public works - a firestation) -- put out the fire before the city crew even showed up! Nobody was overweight as we were out running and climbing and cycling all day. Of course, you cannot do any of that if you're a kid nowadays what with all the Amber Alert crap. Those were the days...
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    • Posted by $ Susanne 10 years ago
      Problem is, instead of raising kids to be responsible and the difference between right and wrong, and not being part of the zoned-out TV and Game example, society has taught itself not to get involved, to turn their collective head, and even if something seems totally freaking wrong to ignore it out of fear of being "rude" to someone... When we were kids we were taught to keep away from the perverts in the neighborhood, and they were pointed out to us. Now, that would be "anti-social" to point out a pervert. I remember being swatted when I misbehaved - and people *knew* the difference between disciplining kids and beating the crap out of them as if they were the insulting target of a drunken bar brawl... now, a whole gov't bureaucracy is there to imprison the parents for doing such a brutal and bestial anti-social thing as swatting them on the butt when they misbehave.
      Then again, then you could trust other adults in your neighborhood. Nowdays, no one knows anyone, even their next door neighbor, and FEARS talking to them. Because, ya know, *they* might be child molestors or cannibals, and instead of saying "Heya NEighbor" it's better to stay in the dark and become mushrooms with the you-know-what we feed ourselves...

      Yeah, I do miss those days. Because living like that now is... figure this out... "anti-social" behavior. Making friends outside of your office. Or outside your own 4 walls...
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  • Posted by Kath 10 years ago
    Nostalgia. There is a lot of the glossing over of the problems, but there is a germ of truth here. We have given up freedom for the semblance of security. One big problem nowadays is that everyone has a pet cause and even libertarians want to cram it down other throats. Especially if it pertains to health or property. We used to mostly leave you alone if you wanted to make different choices. We may have grumbled or argued but now, in addition, laws are made about every little thing.
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    • Posted by $ Susanne 10 years ago
      And if you don't believe exactly what I believe you are WRONG WRONG WRONG... and no one wants to stir the pot, or jostle the boat, because we all have to be cookie cutter model worker bees... and not have anyone say anything about us.

      Remember "Mind Your Own Business"? Now EVERYONE has to get involved in someone else business, because its the social norm. Absolute strangers have to "correct" others because they have to insure everyone fits into *their* model of what's right and wrong. And if you have different beliefs, then you need to be turned in. Punished. Run off the road. Shamed and Humiliated. Because you're not following *their* rules, and you didn't let THEM tell you how to behave.

      We gave up Freedom, because no one wants the responsibility of making their own decisions, finding it easier to let someone else tell them what to do, so they will never suffer the shame of being blamed for anything. We've gone 180 degrees from responsible adults and became cowardly juveniles. And no one dares challenge that because to do so would be considered "anti-social and rude" by those we wish to take charge of our lives.
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  • Posted by jimslag 10 years ago
    The problem was that we (the baby boomers) survived and we did not want our kids to go through the same thing. We can only blame ourselves, we raised them, we lived our lives, vicariously, through them and now we are having to live with consequences. So, if you want to know what happened, look inside yourself.
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    • Posted by Robbie53024 10 years ago
      There's a lot of truth in that. I fight the urge (and fight with my wife) to protect our children from all harm. A few bumps and bruises help to teach and reinforce real-world lessons. Too many have been sheltered from all pain, so now they expect everything without needing to work for it. And at the first instance of blockage, they give up.
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      • Posted by $ Susanne 10 years ago
        My daddy (rest his soul) taught me a damned valuable lesson as a kid (even tho he didn't realize he was doing that) - that if you coddle, shelter, and come to your kids rescue every time they get in dutch, they will never be able to handle responsibility, situations, or life as an adult. Saying that breaks my heart, but it's true - not allowing the kids to experience the results of their untoward actions when young will mean as an adult they will not know right from wrong, or worse, choose to do wrong because "someone will come to their rescue", whether its a rehab revolving door, a lawyer with pull, a rich relative, a bail bondsman, or a loan shark... in short, it turns people into moochers and pullmongers.
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    • Posted by $ Susanne 10 years ago
      I *wanted* my kids and grandkids etc. to enjoy at least the same things I did when I was young. If not more. I wanted them to experience life, so they could forge their own path, and NOT learn how to be good serfs to some stranger, and have THEIR sense of discovery and challenge prohibited by some stranger. Grrr....
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
    The person who composed this video ought to be working on AS III. Is he/she a Gulch member? If not, this person deserves an invitation. That video, followed by a "If this was you, you need to see Who is John Galt"! would make an effective advertising campaign.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 10 years ago
    Yes, those were the days! There are many posts here expressing the joy of those times. I certainly have a million marvelous memories from exploring the woods, shoveling snow off the bay so we can play hockey, and doing things with friends and family. One thing that never happened is we and our parents never sued each other if someone got a scrape or a bruise or if something accidentally got broken. We made things right in our own way. Now days lawsuits and liability crushes almost everything. Today's kids have to just watch TV or play video games just to avoid creating lawsuits.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 10 years ago
    now, that's a voice -- second, of course, to Sam Elliott's, Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe is super, a good influence on us, and sonorous with the best!
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  • Posted by barwick11 10 years ago
    Hey that's how I'm raising my kids. You know how many times they come to me and say "so and so did this and that" and I'm like "well what did you do to them?"
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