I've got four more years until I turn 60. These jokes are just the jealous young kids wishing they had it as good as we do.

As far as that long paste from artbrooks goes, it turns up every now and then. If I was teaching history I'd make it a project for the kids to figure out how much of it is actually true.

Down through the years this letter has surfaced now and again usually making a point about our society going down hill. Before I was young enough to think it was accurate. Now I am old enough to see the inaccuracies. I hope to be able to teach American history some day and then I plan to make my kids research an accurate version of this. Should be fun.

What follows are my own comments. Mostly I am trying to be light-hearted, not cynical or dismissive. Some of the sentiments are spot on. For example, I have always called an older person "sir" or "ma'am". I have always taken responsibility for my actions.

But, as someone else pointed out already, there are plenty of the items in that list that are anachronistic. Television, penicillin, polio shots, and frozen foods were all available when I was a kid. My generation were the first to have the electronic babysitter (TV). I still remember getting the polio shot in grade school and I have a vaccination scar on my arm from one of the other abuses we had to put up with. You should see my wife's arm. She has two that look like a bullet passed through the limb!

As for gay-rights, computer- dating, dual careers, daycare centers, and group therapy, I have to agree. I don't remember when they showed up but some of them are way overdue (gay rights) and some are necessary because the economy sucks (dual careers).

"Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, (not mine) good judgment, and common sense." "We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions." The last one were instilled by my parents. They didn't need religion to scare me into behaving.

"Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege." Obviously the writer doesn't remember the sixties. S/He must have been there! But here is my point. Remember I am 56 years old. I was too young to participate in what was happening!

"We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent." I gotta give him this one. My first encounter with Burger King was after boot camp. Of course, back then the Whopper really was big. Kareem Abdul Jabbar (famous basketball player) needed two hands to hold it.

"Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins." I don't remember incest... *Grin*

"Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors when the evening breeze started." See my comment above about the sixties. This line indicates just how old this "letter" is. Draft dodging hasn't been a hanging offense since the 70s.

"We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings." Hmm, when I was a kid I used to hear about guys who listened to fine music on the FM band because the clarity of the music beat AM all hollow... and rock'n'roll didn't need to be clear. My first tape deck (reel to reel) came to me from a guy who bought it from a PX in Viet Nam in the mid 60s. My high school had electric typewriters and pirates ALWAYS wore earrings. Didn't know about yogurt though. Yummy!

"We listened to the Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President's speeches on our radios. And I don't ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey." These lines put the writer back into the 40s and early 50s. As a child of the TV age presidents were ALWAYS on TV and ALWAYS interrupting the good TV shows.

"If you saw anything with 'Made in Japan ' on it, it was junk." I get endless fun telling my Japanese wife about this... as we watch our Japanese TV, drive our Japanese car, etc.

"The term 'making out' referred to how you did on your school exam." Actually it referred to what I wanted to do with several of the young ladies I went to high school with. Since then I have gotten old and fat. I'm guessing they did too. Anyone remember the term "submarine races"? I never used that term. I got it from my parents who must have been "making out" before I was born. I wonder, could that have led to my existence? Nah, my PARENTS wouldn't do anything like that!

"Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of. We had 5 &10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents." Gotta give the original writer these though I think I remember early instant coffee.

"Ice-cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel. And if you didn't want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards." I don't remember the cost of these things. The writer could be right. Plus, no matter how often my mother badgered me about writing thank you cards I never seemed to use the mail. Email is a real boon.

"You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600, but who could afford one? Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon." My first car, in 1972, was a 1967 Mustang convertible that I bought for $950. If the price had dropped that much in 5 years I doubt very much it sold for anything close to $600. I was 20 years old in 1972. I loved that car. I don't ever remember gasoline for $.11 a gallon. It seems to me it was around $.54 a gallon but I might have that mixed up with the price of cigarettes. When I was in grade school my mother used to ask me to walk up to the IGA to buy her another pack. Wasn't illegal then, just frowned upon.

"In my day: "grass" was mowed, "coke" was a cold drink, "pot" was something your mother cooked in and "rock music" was your grandmother's lullaby. "Aids" were helpers in the Principal's office,       "chip" meant a piece of wood, "hardware" was found in a hardware store and "software" wasn't even a word. And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby." Gotta give most of this one to him. I didn't run into "grass" until I joined the Navy. "Coke" as a drug came along much later in my life, not that I used it. I was clean by then. "Aids" were also helpers in hospitals. "He's also right about hardware and software though it still holds for some people I know who refuse to have anything to do with computers. As for the baby thing all I knew for the longest time was that babies tended to have parents but how they got there was a mystery. Finding the truth of that one was a pleasure I still enjoy.