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Back in My Day ...

April 5, 2022•1,141 words

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/back-in-my-day


By Sarah Hutto

The New Yorker / October 18, 2019

When I was a kid, we were tough. We didn’t whine like the kids today. Nobody had “peanut allergies” back then. Sometimes people’s throats just closed up for no reason, and we accepted it. The only peanut boycott I can recall is the one I organized when Carter got elected. I still like to take credit for his losing that farm.

We didn’t get “participation trophies” back when I was a kid. Actually, we didn’t have trophies, period. If you accomplished something, your reward was that no one pushed you in a lake or teased you until you had to move. It separated the winners from the losers. (Most of those losers ended up going into “computers”—good luck with that, pal!)

And no one wore seat belts back then. If you got in an accident, you just got sewn up and didn’t complain. And, look, I turned out fine! My brother didn’t, but you’d never hear him whining about it if he were still here.

Everyone smoked back then, too. Parents smoked. Doctors smoked. The babysitter smoked. And, let me tell you, if you were in a crowded room, you were grateful for the smoke, because it made it harder to see all the car-accident scars.

We didn’t bother with sunscreen when I was a kid. You were lucky if you lived long enough to get cancer. We used to throw a block party any time someone got a tumor. Tumors were a symptom of longevity. Suddenly, what, everyone’s too good for cancer now?

When I was a kid, if an adult handed you a shot of whiskey, you drank it. There was none of this namby-pamby “What’s in this drink? Why does it taste funny?” You were lucky to be given anything at all! We didn’t have these nanny laws about kids needing to stay sober all the time. What do they need to be sober for? It’s not like they’re driving anywhere. Well, maybe to the store to get me a carton of non-filters, but that’s just local roads.

No one ever wore helmets in the good old days, unless they were going into combat, and, even then, all the helmet did was slow the bullets down. “The skull is nature’s helmet,” our coach used to tell us.

We didn’t worry about “spaying” and “neutering” our “pets” back in the day. We just had some stray animals that came around for scraps. And, where I come from, your neighbor’s cat’s sex life was none of your business!

I’m old enough to remember when married couples actually stayed together. When a spouse died, which they did often, the marriage kept going. Widows wore their husband’s ashes around their necks in a jar, and everyone respected that. If a man lost his wife, he got the next oldest sister who wasn’t already spoken for. Lucky broad.

That’s another thing—people used to have respect in the old days. We said “Sir,” “Ma’am,” “Officer,” “Sheriff,” “Your Honor,” “Bailiff,” “Warden,” etc. None of this Logan and Stacey. Or Corey, whatever in the hell kind of name that is.

And there wasn’t any “sleet” or “thundersnow.” There was sun, wind, rain, snow, and that was it. None of these fruity combinations of weather. Sleet is for people who can’t make up their minds about what’s going on.

Kids have it so easy these days, with their clean lungs, neutered cats, and intact skulls. I’d like to take the lot of ’em out back, force-feed them peanuts, and send them into combat. Actually, I tried to do that recently, and am no longer allowed within a hundred feet of that 7-11. But, one of these days, those kids are gonna find out what the real world is all about, and, boy, oh, boy, I can’t wait to laugh it up on my back porch while enjoying the ninety-five-degree November heat that my generation created. You’re welcome, Corey.

© 2019 Condé Nast. All Rights Reserved.

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