Violence In The Old Days

Last night I was thinking of the old days. When I grew up there was a lot of violence children had to put up with.

First of course, were the gays, not only did gay men and women have to worry about getting a beating but all school age boys had to do violent things to avoid being called gay and beat up.

The girls had to have a boyfriend in high school or she was a 'lez' as they used to say back then. Well, girls back then weren't physically violent but they did a lot of psychologically cruel things, like a girl without a boyfriend or one who pays too much attention to other girls would walk into the showers to change for gym. All the other girls would pick up their stuff and move as far away from her as they could.

And those girls who didn't want to get in on abusing someone had to, or risk being called, Lez too.

Back in grade school there was the strap. Only the bad kids got the strap but I remember good kids standing around a kid showing off his red hands and saying, "it wasn't really that bad." That kid was always getting the strap, still a lot of kids had sympathy for him because it was a punishment that hung over all our heads.

Lastly, another thing that irks me now is the fact that we were supposed to train our dogs by hitting them on the nose with rolled up magazines. Any time they didn't do what we wanted, they'd be bunged on the nose.

Imagine if that were you, just finishing a meal and someone comes up and hits you in the nose to get you to go into the bathroom to do your business.

I actually trained my dog, Cindy, like that and hated every minute of it but didn't have any other idea of how to go about it. I just remember that look and slouch that came over her whenever I went to get the magazine. It worked but it's nasty.

It's much better nowadays when you take your dog outside and praise them and give them a treat when they do the right thing.

So good riddance bad old days, hope never to see your like again.


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