A week or so ago, I picked up a book called "Regrettable Food". It's all about some of the bizarre concoctions that came along after the privations of WW2. It's liberally illustrated, and one of those was an ad painting for A&P, from the mid-Fifties. It showed housewives (in their flaring skirts with full white petticoats, white gloves and, of course, hats) heading into the store to shop, leaving their toddlers and babies lined up on the sidewalk in their strollers. Of course, the attitude of the book's author was to point at these stupid women. How crazy could they be to leave their kids unattended like that. My thought was to look at our own society, and feel sad that such times have slipped so far away.

Yeah. That book is by James Lileks. He's usually a pretty good and funny writer but sometimes he seems to try to oversell something as being nasty with and it just doesn't work.

I end up thinking "It's just a freaking pork loin Mr. Lileks. You can jabber on about a length of intestine swallowing a car fender all you want. It's just a damned pork loin." There are pork loins just like that one at the super market right now and they are hardly alien or unspeakably unappealing, nor are they likely to evoke the same reaction as an exotic regional dish like hog head cheese, spicy dried cuttle fish snacks, or some Swedish jelly dish mixing fermented fish and raw sliced yams.

Pork loins are rather far from being unusual. If James Lileks is truly that bothered by a pork loin then it is his own strange set of meat asthetics and not the dish that is worthy fodder for the application of cruel humor. Or maybe the yellowish tinge of old photos is what set him off. Dunno.

Then he goes on about how most casseroles look like puke. Next he offers a picture of a brisket and notes the unattractiveness of the visible muscle striations. It's a damned brisket! Does this sort of thing keep him from eating salmon or lobster?

He got a laugh from me when dicussing the gelatin dishes noting that one looked sort of like a smoked klingon's scalp. No one contemporary with the publication of that book would have ever heard of a klingon much less the lumpy headed post 1978 versions. But it DOES look like a smoked klingon's scalp.

A week or so ago, I picked up a book called "Regrettable Food". It's all about some of the bizarre concoctions that came along after the privations of WW2. It's liberally illustrated, and one of those was an ad painting for A&P, from the mid-Fifties. It showed housewives (in their flaring skirts with full white petticoats, white gloves and, of course, hats) heading into the store to shop, leaving their toddlers and babies lined up on the sidewalk in their strollers. Of course, the attitude of the book's author was to point at these stupid women. How crazy could they be to leave their kids unattended like that. My thought was to look at our own society, and feel sad that such times have slipped so far away.

That is so true.  I remember when I was a youngster living in a small town in Pennsylvania that I could leave the house on a early summer morning and spend the day with some friends hiking for miles through the woods.  I wouldn't come home until dusk or sometimes even after dark.  Our parents didn't have to worry and dinner was waiting.  People left their keys in their cars and their front doors unlocked with no concern about the car getting stolen or the home robbed.  I regret that today's kids will never know that kind of freedom.  It is truly sad.

In a similar vein my mum emailed me this

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE

1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70’s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.




They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.




Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.




We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.




As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.




We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.




We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.




We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......




WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!




We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.




No one was able to reach us all day.. And we were O.K.




We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.




We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!




We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.




We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.




We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.



We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!




Football teams had trials and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!




The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!




This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!




The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.




We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned




HOW TO

DEAL WITH IT ALL!




And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!




You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.




and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.




Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!



PS -The big type is because your eyes are shot at your age

 I spied the comic whilst waiting in line at the local 7-11

*************

Kind of interesting that the age of innocence and freedom for kids ended about the same time comics were no longer sold at the local 7-11.