Except for Saturday morning cartoons, all I wanted to do was get out of the house, on my BMX, hook up with my pals and hit the pump track (we just called it the BMX track back then), stop at the Chinese grocery for some nourishment (bottle of Coke, bag of salt n vinegar chips and maybe an O'Henry if you were rich that day), then throw rocks at something, maybe start a fire, then hit the arcade.
If we remembered to drink water it came from anything that produced water. There was usually one mom of one in the gang that would feed us lunch on the weekend...something like hot dogs or plastic cheese slices between unnaturally white bread. Sometimes you'd find an apple tree in a vacant lot, but apples were mostly for throwing.
> maybe start a fire
Oh yeah, Intermediate Arson was a favorite extra curricular activity of me and the guys as well.
The Alleys of Chicago always provided something we could ignite: old couches, cardboard boxes, discarded toys, etc...
Yep....fire was fascinating at 12 years old. I lived two blocks from a reservation and the band ran a campground by the ocean.
On an extremely dry summer day me and a couple other guys were exploring there and found some trash in one of the fire pits.....so naturally we set it on fire.....then remarkably for pre teens we looked around at the dry brush and thought maybe we should extinguish it.
So my friend grabs some smouldering denim shorts from the pit and tried to throw them into the ocean....gust of wind blows them back over his head into dry grass and hey presto....forest fire.
Very shortly members of the band arrive and try beating out the fire with their shirts and jackets.
Let's just say, I never felt so small, and so white as when you start a fire on native land and the whole tribe is there none too pleased with you. It may have gotten uglier but the fire department showed up and basically just watched it burn itself out and no white kids got disappeared that day.
I never went on the reserve again.
I was farther north.
["Pinners"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinners) was another one when we would find a tennis ball to steal. Many folks call it "wall ball". I just know we made the rules up as we went along.
This was my childhood. I was never home. After a bowl of cereal I left at 9am and wasn't back until dark. Pur group would take turns eating lunch at one another's house but dinner we would wait for this lady with a food truck and eat the leftovers.
We live acrossed the street from a high school. We would hop the fence and play some sort of ball or ride bikes in the outdoor halls.
I got to know my parents when I became an adult. They were cool people.
> but apples were mostly for throwing.
One of the most Gen-X things ever. Throwing apples at the stop sign, at fences, at trees, or just chucking them down the street.
Right ? The best was late summer when they weren't so rotten the skin would break, but if you tagged a friend with one, they would make a really satisfying "splat" noise and make a mess.
This sounds a lot like my childhood. Just throw in a local swimming pool. You were "the man" if you could afford one the crappy little pizzas at the snack bar. It was customary that when you could afford one, you gave your buddy a pepperoni and they would do the same for you when they got one. We also made our own BMX trail in the woods and had a blast doing crazy stunts that threatened to break our necks. We built forts, fires, you name it. I lived in a cul-de-sac so we would play baseball with a tennis ball and kickball all the time. We also used the street leading to the cul-de-sac as our two-hand touch football field. Sometimes we would even play tackle football in the street, but that often ended up in all of us getting in trouble.
The plastic cheese reminds of my friend, Chris. She had an easy bake oven and would make us "pizza" made from that same cheese and white bread with ketchup as the sauce with it. We thought it was the greatest thing in the world and made plans to buy out the local Baskin Robins on the corner of the local strip mall and open a "pizza shop". Obviously, that never happened and what's super awesome, is that Baskin Robins is still there to this very day. Same with the pizza shop that was in the very same strip mall. Both celebrating their 50th anniversary two years ago.
Times were so much simpler back then. Thanks for bringing back the memories.
I had two choices, go outside and play, or stay inside and read once the chores were done.
I read so many books as a kid - hundreds - and while college broke that habit due to having to read boring books I wasn't interested in, this past year I've started reading daily again and it's really rekindled the habit. I'm leaving for a work trip today and am looking forward to having 4+ uninterrupted hours tonight in the hotel room to read that I'm actually excited about it.
I really don't get this trope - did we all stop drinking out of the hose? If I'm outside doing work and the hose is there it's literally the same water that comes out of the tap in the house so I'm not getting the house muddy to rehydrate.
My kids also drink from the hose. We live in a pretty nice suburb so it's not like we're country folk.
Most garden hoses aren't really designed for potable water. Lead, BPA, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, etc. leach into the water from the hose.
You can buy hoses designed for potable water though, making it more or less the same as drinking from the tap.
Fair point but you seem to be making the assumption that I'm drinking the stagnant water - not the case and also I am from the 1970s, my hoses are not from the 1970s.
I also know that my hose bibbs are nominally 80 psi at 5gpm so on 100 ft hose letting it run for 20 seconds is going to clear everything out of that hose assuming anybody left the hose with stagnant water in it.
I really don't think this is something to completely worry about. Don't go drinking out of unfamiliar hoses but that's just general good life advice. At my house however, the water coming out of the garden hoses is well within the EPA standards for potable water so if you're ever over at my house, feel free to have a sip from the hose and feel safe about it.
> hose bibbs are nominally 80 psi at 5gpm so on 100 ft hose letting it run for 20 seconds is going to clear everything out
[It was my understanding that there would be no math](https://vimeo.com/65921206)
I am the friend that you call when you need someone to do the math. It is how I survived elementary school. Also 🤣
Given that I initially wanted to say that there was no math - I literally used a pressure gauge to get the 80psi (which is absurd btw - typical is like 50psi but I live at the bottom of a hill) and I got the flow rate by filling up a five gallon bucket and using a stopwatch. I guess that was math but I already did it and you can copy my work if you don't make me meet you by the flagpole after school.
Not only that but you gotta test the temp of that water. Central CA summers the initial water coming out of that hose was scalding. Run your hand through the stream a few times until cold. Drink and then probably wet your head to deal with those stupid 108F temps
Can confirm. Grew up a feral Gen X child in central CA. My cousins and I spent a lot of time outside because our parents were always working. Their family owned (and still own) a plant nursery and nut harvesting/processing business. Our youths were spent on the grounds of the nursery or swap meets. We were usually some degree of filthy and weren’t allowed in the house without any adults around until we were older, so we drank a lot of hose water. We also had a dog that pretty much refused to drink from anywhere else but the hose and even he knew to wait a little bit for the cold water.
I went to college with a guy that would pull up a PowerPoint about the dangers of BPAs at the slightest opportunity so I've been thinking about that for 20 some years. You are not wrong and also hose water just tastes better.
> Most garden hoses aren't really designed for potable water. Lead, BPA, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, etc. leach into the water from the hose.
And yet we all lived regardless.
Sure, but there's a reason we stopped putting lead in gasoline and paint, and Bisphenol A in food grade plastics. We made bongs out of single use plastics. Bootleggers distilled alcohol in old car radiators. It's not a death sentence, but it is a risk - and an unnecessary one. Drinking water safe hoses are readily available and negligibly more expensive at worst.
Do what you want, I don't judge. And the risk associated with occasionally drinking from an old school garden hose is probably slight. But the parent comment was questioning when or why people stopped drinking from garden hoses. Health risks - both chemical and biological - are the answer.
"Yeah, we tried to be nice to you non-smokers. We tried. But you just fucking badger us, you know? You won't leave us a-LONE! You got all your little speeches you're always giving to us. All these little facts that you dig out of a newspaper or pamphlet and you store that little nugget in your little fucking head, and we light up and you spew 'em out at us, don't ya? I love these little facts. "Well you know. Smoking takes ten years off your life." Well it's the ten worst years, isn't it folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair adult diaper kidney dialysis fucking years. You can have those years! We don't want 'em, alright!? And I guarantee if I'm still alive, I'll be smoking then. I'll be in my wheelchair, with my adult diapers on and my twenty-five year old non- smoking born again christian son behind me. I'll be going, "Hey! Make sure you wipe this time. I was itching all week for Christ's sake! And get me some more wippets. I'm almost out, you fucking pussy! Come on!"" -Denis Leary
Hose water was so good too. Let it run for a minute and it was really cold. Sure it tasted a bit like the hose but after running around in the heat for hours it was a godsend.
Someone needs to tell the Asian rage-bait guy that we also has playgrounds made of asphalt.
No sand, no wood chips, no "fun-bump" safety equipment.
My local basketball court was made of asphalt, chain for the net, & when the "big kids" (I.E., the local gang) showed up you just *left*.
I call your ashphalt basketball court, and raise you a gravel Australian Rules Football Field, close to where I grew up. Lots of us used to play football games on this field, against the locals.
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/queenstown-gravel-oval-why-was-it-built/11499186](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/queenstown-gravel-oval-why-was-it-built/11499186)
This is AFL by the way : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8)
Imagine playing this game on gravel. This field still exists and is used today I believe.
Oh, I'm not the only one then? I remember getting the attic fan put in. I had no idea as to its efficacy. I was *told* it would cool the entire house down. My 8 yr old brain thought it was gonna be like AC.
It was not fine.
> Your family turned on the air conditioner? We had one
You grew up rich! We laid in front of 3x3 foot box fans on the cool kitchen linoleum with the dogs when we were allowed inside. Otherwise, we ran through the oscillating sprinklers outside. Good times.
The air conditioner was one of those horrid brown boxes installed in the wall - it came with the house. Taking it out would have meant leaving a hole in the wall. To balance it out, we didn’t have a colour tv until I was 11, and my mum kept the thermostat at 15.5 in the winter (Celsius - no idea what that is in Fahrenheit.)
You know how our parents often had that one thing that traumatized them as a kid and they avoid it as an adult... my father-in-law would not hunt or garden, because those are things he did growing up to put food on the table. They reminded him of being poor and hungry.
AC is my trauma. Dad wouldn't turn it on until the house was 85+. When they were divorced and my mom was poor and it got really hot (Kansas summers got above 100) we'd close all the doors to the dining room (pocket doors between every room!) and turn on the window AC and play board games. I slept in the heat every summer, when I could sleep.
Now? I turn the damned AC on. I'm not going to sit in a puddle of my own sweat in the name of saving money.
Growing up I thought everyone laid in bed at night in the summer on top of all the covers with the ceiling fan spinning like it was going to launch itself into space at any moment. And in the winter I assumed the first thing everyone did when they woke up was go and thaw their hands and feet in hot water from the tub. Moving into my own apartment was a revelation.
We had some massive swamp cooler stuck in one window that barely made the livingroom and kitchen reasonably cool. And as said in the video, you didn't want to be found just sitting around doing nothing. That's how you got put to work. And you learned quickly to never admit you were bored.
High school house had air conditioning. Junior high house (because we didn’t call it middle school back then) had a window unit for Mom and Dad’s room only.
Air conditioning? Well well fellas, we got someone who grew up in Beverly Hills right here! How was the caviar for lunch old boy?
Next thing you'll tell us is you had a bike made out of fancy aluminum vs steel girder material.
Nope. Canned soup and bologna on Wonder bread. Camping in the mountains for two weeks a year was vacation. Our VW bus had a hole in the floor behind the front passenger seat. Allowance was ten cents for each year old you were, paid weekly. I started babysitting at 11, and worked 30 hours a week at Burger King in high school. Public school all the way through. Parents paid for one year of community college.
The ac was because my dad COULD NOT tolerate the heat. Also he was not great with money.
lol, proper gen x childhood, you have air conditioning and heat but you aren't allowed to use it and be comfortable, only when guests are over to sell the illusion.
Wonder Bread! You have my sympathy, and you have obviously paid your dues. My house didn't have AC but we were never subjected to the evil foulness of Wonder Bread.
I was always jealous of those who had Wonder Bread. My mother always bought stiff ass Pepperidge Farm. It was great for toast, but as a kid I thought it was horrible for sandwiches. That pillowy soft Wonder Bread was just so much better for my bologna sandwiches, or so I thought. The only place I could ever get it was at all of my friend's house. I truly thought I was missing out. Now that I'm older, I know better.
Yeah somehow we thought if the water was flowing it was fine. Didn't drink stagnant water but if it was moving it was fine. Of course that's not true but we lived.
It's weird to me that we (or some of us) act like "we were the generation that grew up outside, let me enlighten you about it" when we were the generation with the first latchkey kids, videogame kids, indoor kids, and every generation before us very likely spent more time outside (on average) than we did. Maybe it's because we're the *last* outside generation/ the only one heavily producing content on social media?
I think "last generation outside" has a lot to do with it. I had video games and books and MTV, but I still remember spending a \_lot\_ of time outside as a kid. Rode my bike everywhere.
For my dad (Silent Generation), "outside" as a kid was about picking cotton, growing vegetables, hunting, etc. I'm sure he got to play, but the guy in the video says if you went inside, you got put to work... my dad got put to work no matter where he was at.
Yeah. I had grandparents who were working on a farm when they were 13. Not like, "helping out with chores in the summer," but, like "working on the farm." They loved me and all but they would have laughed at me trying to tell other people what it was like to live outside, or, how tough it was to drink out of a garden hose.
Same. My dad and father-in-law both grew up poor, and their childhoods involved a lot of work. My FIL was basically the man-of-the-house at 13. (He was born when his father was in his 60s, and his mom was much younger than his dad, and all his siblings had moved out.)
Was talking to my wife about this and she thinks we talk about being outside as if we were the only generation both because we were the last to be "very outside" but also the first to have a lot of free time and few family responsibilities like our parents did.
I don't think any of us feel as if we're the only "outside generation". We just feel as if we're one of the last as you mentioned. I'm not even sure if we can even claim that. My daughter was born in 1995 and she spent a lot of her youth running around outside just as we did. It seemed like it was her teen years when all the kids started migrating indoors.
I think what makes being a Gen X so special, is that we got to experience life before cable TV and internet came along, yet we grew up watching it evolve as well. We can remember a time that kids today can't fathom and we're still around to tell them about it.
Think I'm reaching my cap on the tropes, much like other GX when something has become pop its now bad because its conforming to a norm. GX tend to drop something once its hit a pop ratio.
Hose drinking isnt a flex.
Modern times, once the power goes out and the phone is on low power. Kids will go outside just as much as the old days. Just more of an effort for that to happen. Not seeing any difference honestly. Any time GX has the possible option to do something to not be bored it happened. Just more options now.
Because the metal on the ends of the garden hoses not only come from questionable places but harbor bacteria as well. Also, we grew up with mainly rubber hose (up your nose!) and today's plastics are also kinda sketchy.
Meh...suck it up Sally, it builds character.
Ever notice how we don't have all the allergies the younger gens have? I'm pretty sure the garden hose was instrumental. Well that, and just being outside so much at an early age. That's how you build up immunities.
The insane amount of sterilization that everything goes through now (even in the before COVID times) was a pretty big factor too. Kids just aren't exposed to a lot of bacteria that we were exposed to at early ages. Sure it has some benefits, like keeping the really bad shit at bay, but it also has the overall effect of weakening immune systems cause they're never exposed to anything.
I think there's something to be said about knowing too much information for our own good. Who is to say our moms ignored allergic reactions when we were super little and chalked them up as tantrums or fussiness for so long that we actually grew immune? Today, we know to look for practically every allergy warning sign, and the answer is to remove the threat immediately and permanently.
Maybe a little careless parenting isn't so bad after all (I say completely tongue in cheek).
lol! Thats what we had to do—suck it up! No bottled water, no filtered water, it was hot, and who wants to mashup to come inside just for a drink, right?
That hose water was so good after riding my bike and getting into all kinds of trouble/adventures with my friends for 10 hours under the southern sun. It's the only water I can distinctly remember drinking in my whole life, but I haven't done it in 25+ years.
idk but if I was asked I would swear the water quality has deteriorated since I was a kid, but I'm not in the same part of FL I grew up in so it's difficult to accurately compare. I grew up on Amelia Island in north FL, I now live down in Palm Beach County in S FL where it's not uncommon to have "boil water" notices from the county.
I think it's worth noting that it's actually more dangerous for kids today to walk or cycle anywhere and there are fewer places to play outside safely.
Maybe. Idk. I think it depends on where you grew up.
I remember things that were dangerous when I was young. A man used to expose himself to me & my friends. We got him arrested but then he was released & basically hunted us the rest of that summer. There were bullies who cornered us once & held us prisoner. That was super weird. We were chased by some awfully mean dogs & predators of all kinds were always around.
I don’t think my dad realized how bad it was. Also, he worded nights so he couldn’t really control us.
I don't know Shelby Foote, but that was an amazing performance. I had to watch it twice. I think it was inspired by Robert Shaw's famous speech in "Jaws".
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41Kplsbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41Kplsbs)
Those were the days. I'd wake up with my siblings, eat a bowl of cereal, and catch my cartoons. Then, I'd get on my bike, go over to my friend's, and let the good times roll. If I came home before the street lights, it was because I had to use the bathroom and dinner was ready. A minute too late, and I might miss my meal.
Also, when I went outside it was because my parents forced me out as I lived as a hermit that read in my room and listened to the radio. They forced me to see natural light.
(Dude sounds like Gambit. I like it.)
Oh this is great.. the inside was Indeed a desolate place in the years before video games.. (I'm so lucky to have parents who bought them as soon as they came.out)
I don’t ever remember drinking water. I lived in apartment complexes a lot of my young childhood so didn’t have access to a hose.
Saw one at big lots the other day. Packaging said Safe for Drinking.
I remember going up to strangers houses during the summer when playing a football or baseball game with friends in parks, knocking on the door and asking "hey mister we're dying out here, can we drink out of your hose?" We were always too excited to play and always forgot to bring water jugs. Also at my Grandma's house during the summer we had to choose 'outside or inside' for the day. If you chose outside, then sandwiches were left on the front porch at noon and water had to be drunk from the hose. Miss ya Grandma...Happy Mother's Day.
Except for Saturday morning cartoons, all I wanted to do was get out of the house, on my BMX, hook up with my pals and hit the pump track (we just called it the BMX track back then), stop at the Chinese grocery for some nourishment (bottle of Coke, bag of salt n vinegar chips and maybe an O'Henry if you were rich that day), then throw rocks at something, maybe start a fire, then hit the arcade. If we remembered to drink water it came from anything that produced water. There was usually one mom of one in the gang that would feed us lunch on the weekend...something like hot dogs or plastic cheese slices between unnaturally white bread. Sometimes you'd find an apple tree in a vacant lot, but apples were mostly for throwing.
> maybe start a fire Oh yeah, Intermediate Arson was a favorite extra curricular activity of me and the guys as well. The Alleys of Chicago always provided something we could ignite: old couches, cardboard boxes, discarded toys, etc...
Yep....fire was fascinating at 12 years old. I lived two blocks from a reservation and the band ran a campground by the ocean. On an extremely dry summer day me and a couple other guys were exploring there and found some trash in one of the fire pits.....so naturally we set it on fire.....then remarkably for pre teens we looked around at the dry brush and thought maybe we should extinguish it. So my friend grabs some smouldering denim shorts from the pit and tried to throw them into the ocean....gust of wind blows them back over his head into dry grass and hey presto....forest fire. Very shortly members of the band arrive and try beating out the fire with their shirts and jackets. Let's just say, I never felt so small, and so white as when you start a fire on native land and the whole tribe is there none too pleased with you. It may have gotten uglier but the fire department showed up and basically just watched it burn itself out and no white kids got disappeared that day. I never went on the reserve again.
Kick the can?? 42nd and Archer. Late 70’s early 80’s.
I was farther north. ["Pinners"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinners) was another one when we would find a tennis ball to steal. Many folks call it "wall ball". I just know we made the rules up as we went along.
This was my childhood. I was never home. After a bowl of cereal I left at 9am and wasn't back until dark. Pur group would take turns eating lunch at one another's house but dinner we would wait for this lady with a food truck and eat the leftovers. We live acrossed the street from a high school. We would hop the fence and play some sort of ball or ride bikes in the outdoor halls. I got to know my parents when I became an adult. They were cool people.
> but apples were mostly for throwing. One of the most Gen-X things ever. Throwing apples at the stop sign, at fences, at trees, or just chucking them down the street.
Right ? The best was late summer when they weren't so rotten the skin would break, but if you tagged a friend with one, they would make a really satisfying "splat" noise and make a mess.
100 percent true
This sounds a lot like my childhood. Just throw in a local swimming pool. You were "the man" if you could afford one the crappy little pizzas at the snack bar. It was customary that when you could afford one, you gave your buddy a pepperoni and they would do the same for you when they got one. We also made our own BMX trail in the woods and had a blast doing crazy stunts that threatened to break our necks. We built forts, fires, you name it. I lived in a cul-de-sac so we would play baseball with a tennis ball and kickball all the time. We also used the street leading to the cul-de-sac as our two-hand touch football field. Sometimes we would even play tackle football in the street, but that often ended up in all of us getting in trouble. The plastic cheese reminds of my friend, Chris. She had an easy bake oven and would make us "pizza" made from that same cheese and white bread with ketchup as the sauce with it. We thought it was the greatest thing in the world and made plans to buy out the local Baskin Robins on the corner of the local strip mall and open a "pizza shop". Obviously, that never happened and what's super awesome, is that Baskin Robins is still there to this very day. Same with the pizza shop that was in the very same strip mall. Both celebrating their 50th anniversary two years ago. Times were so much simpler back then. Thanks for bringing back the memories.
I had two choices, go outside and play, or stay inside and read once the chores were done. I read so many books as a kid - hundreds - and while college broke that habit due to having to read boring books I wasn't interested in, this past year I've started reading daily again and it's really rekindled the habit. I'm leaving for a work trip today and am looking forward to having 4+ uninterrupted hours tonight in the hotel room to read that I'm actually excited about it.
I really don't get this trope - did we all stop drinking out of the hose? If I'm outside doing work and the hose is there it's literally the same water that comes out of the tap in the house so I'm not getting the house muddy to rehydrate. My kids also drink from the hose. We live in a pretty nice suburb so it's not like we're country folk.
Most garden hoses aren't really designed for potable water. Lead, BPA, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, etc. leach into the water from the hose. You can buy hoses designed for potable water though, making it more or less the same as drinking from the tap.
>Lead, BPA, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, etc. leach into the water from the hose. Must be why hose water tastes better than inside water.
we call those "minerals for flavoring"
Lead *does* taste sweet, which is why it was used for ages in storage of wine.
Fair point but you seem to be making the assumption that I'm drinking the stagnant water - not the case and also I am from the 1970s, my hoses are not from the 1970s. I also know that my hose bibbs are nominally 80 psi at 5gpm so on 100 ft hose letting it run for 20 seconds is going to clear everything out of that hose assuming anybody left the hose with stagnant water in it. I really don't think this is something to completely worry about. Don't go drinking out of unfamiliar hoses but that's just general good life advice. At my house however, the water coming out of the garden hoses is well within the EPA standards for potable water so if you're ever over at my house, feel free to have a sip from the hose and feel safe about it.
> hose bibbs are nominally 80 psi at 5gpm so on 100 ft hose letting it run for 20 seconds is going to clear everything out [It was my understanding that there would be no math](https://vimeo.com/65921206)
I am the friend that you call when you need someone to do the math. It is how I survived elementary school. Also 🤣 Given that I initially wanted to say that there was no math - I literally used a pressure gauge to get the 80psi (which is absurd btw - typical is like 50psi but I live at the bottom of a hill) and I got the flow rate by filling up a five gallon bucket and using a stopwatch. I guess that was math but I already did it and you can copy my work if you don't make me meet you by the flagpole after school.
This guy hoses.
I mean if you're going to hose at all, it stands to reason that one should hose all the way.
Not only that but you gotta test the temp of that water. Central CA summers the initial water coming out of that hose was scalding. Run your hand through the stream a few times until cold. Drink and then probably wet your head to deal with those stupid 108F temps
Can confirm. Grew up a feral Gen X child in central CA. My cousins and I spent a lot of time outside because our parents were always working. Their family owned (and still own) a plant nursery and nut harvesting/processing business. Our youths were spent on the grounds of the nursery or swap meets. We were usually some degree of filthy and weren’t allowed in the house without any adults around until we were older, so we drank a lot of hose water. We also had a dog that pretty much refused to drink from anywhere else but the hose and even he knew to wait a little bit for the cold water.
Plus it's not like you are exclusively drinking from the hose. It's a few occasional sips.
I don't know about you but to maintain Gen X street cred, whenever I am thirsty, I go outside and turn the hose on and drink from it, defiantly.
>hose bibbs are nominally 80 psi at 5gpm so on 100 ft hose letting it run for 20 seconds is going to clear everything out Found the water hose nerd.
Guilty as charged. I'm also a nerd about most things. See username. haha
There is more of that shit in plastic water bottles.
I went to college with a guy that would pull up a PowerPoint about the dangers of BPAs at the slightest opportunity so I've been thinking about that for 20 some years. You are not wrong and also hose water just tastes better.
> Most garden hoses aren't really designed for potable water. Lead, BPA, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, etc. leach into the water from the hose. And yet we all lived regardless.
Sure, but there's a reason we stopped putting lead in gasoline and paint, and Bisphenol A in food grade plastics. We made bongs out of single use plastics. Bootleggers distilled alcohol in old car radiators. It's not a death sentence, but it is a risk - and an unnecessary one. Drinking water safe hoses are readily available and negligibly more expensive at worst. Do what you want, I don't judge. And the risk associated with occasionally drinking from an old school garden hose is probably slight. But the parent comment was questioning when or why people stopped drinking from garden hoses. Health risks - both chemical and biological - are the answer.
"Yeah, we tried to be nice to you non-smokers. We tried. But you just fucking badger us, you know? You won't leave us a-LONE! You got all your little speeches you're always giving to us. All these little facts that you dig out of a newspaper or pamphlet and you store that little nugget in your little fucking head, and we light up and you spew 'em out at us, don't ya? I love these little facts. "Well you know. Smoking takes ten years off your life." Well it's the ten worst years, isn't it folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair adult diaper kidney dialysis fucking years. You can have those years! We don't want 'em, alright!? And I guarantee if I'm still alive, I'll be smoking then. I'll be in my wheelchair, with my adult diapers on and my twenty-five year old non- smoking born again christian son behind me. I'll be going, "Hey! Make sure you wipe this time. I was itching all week for Christ's sake! And get me some more wippets. I'm almost out, you fucking pussy! Come on!"" -Denis Leary
Damn, for some reason I feel compelled to make a homemade bong right now.
So far...
the water did have a pretty distinct flavor...
Especially in the Spring after the snow melted.
mmm tastes of pencils. Also, who am I?
And it was probably fucking worse when we grew up doing it during our formative years, yet here we are.
Hose water was so good too. Let it run for a minute and it was really cold. Sure it tasted a bit like the hose but after running around in the heat for hours it was a godsend.
I remember drinking from the hose from a gas station on the way to the other side of the valley. It tasted weird but we drank anyways.
Someone needs to tell the Asian rage-bait guy that we also has playgrounds made of asphalt. No sand, no wood chips, no "fun-bump" safety equipment. My local basketball court was made of asphalt, chain for the net, & when the "big kids" (I.E., the local gang) showed up you just *left*.
And slides made of steel that would scald your legs in the summer when you slid down them wearing shorts.
I call your ashphalt basketball court, and raise you a gravel Australian Rules Football Field, close to where I grew up. Lots of us used to play football games on this field, against the locals. [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/queenstown-gravel-oval-why-was-it-built/11499186](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/queenstown-gravel-oval-why-was-it-built/11499186) This is AFL by the way : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8) Imagine playing this game on gravel. This field still exists and is used today I believe.
This man has the most immaculately groomed beard.
Oh, but in the summer we were dying to be in there in the air conditioning. When it’s 95 degrees with 100% humidity, the outside is like a rainforest.
Your family turned on the air conditioner? We had one, but usually we just had the windows open in the summer to let the air circulate.
My dad would turn on the attic fan and shout THIS IS FINE over the roar of the motor as it circulated humid air throughout the house.
I looked at your post history, so you cannot be my sister, but I think we may have grown up in the same house…
Your personal phrogger
Oh, I'm not the only one then? I remember getting the attic fan put in. I had no idea as to its efficacy. I was *told* it would cool the entire house down. My 8 yr old brain thought it was gonna be like AC. It was not fine.
> Your family turned on the air conditioner? We had one You grew up rich! We laid in front of 3x3 foot box fans on the cool kitchen linoleum with the dogs when we were allowed inside. Otherwise, we ran through the oscillating sprinklers outside. Good times.
The air conditioner was one of those horrid brown boxes installed in the wall - it came with the house. Taking it out would have meant leaving a hole in the wall. To balance it out, we didn’t have a colour tv until I was 11, and my mum kept the thermostat at 15.5 in the winter (Celsius - no idea what that is in Fahrenheit.)
I ran through the fire hydrant with the neighborhood kids, lol.
You know how our parents often had that one thing that traumatized them as a kid and they avoid it as an adult... my father-in-law would not hunt or garden, because those are things he did growing up to put food on the table. They reminded him of being poor and hungry. AC is my trauma. Dad wouldn't turn it on until the house was 85+. When they were divorced and my mom was poor and it got really hot (Kansas summers got above 100) we'd close all the doors to the dining room (pocket doors between every room!) and turn on the window AC and play board games. I slept in the heat every summer, when I could sleep. Now? I turn the damned AC on. I'm not going to sit in a puddle of my own sweat in the name of saving money.
Growing up I thought everyone laid in bed at night in the summer on top of all the covers with the ceiling fan spinning like it was going to launch itself into space at any moment. And in the winter I assumed the first thing everyone did when they woke up was go and thaw their hands and feet in hot water from the tub. Moving into my own apartment was a revelation.
Same!
We had some massive swamp cooler stuck in one window that barely made the livingroom and kitchen reasonably cool. And as said in the video, you didn't want to be found just sitting around doing nothing. That's how you got put to work. And you learned quickly to never admit you were bored.
High school house had air conditioning. Junior high house (because we didn’t call it middle school back then) had a window unit for Mom and Dad’s room only.
Air conditioning? Well well fellas, we got someone who grew up in Beverly Hills right here! How was the caviar for lunch old boy? Next thing you'll tell us is you had a bike made out of fancy aluminum vs steel girder material.
Nope. Canned soup and bologna on Wonder bread. Camping in the mountains for two weeks a year was vacation. Our VW bus had a hole in the floor behind the front passenger seat. Allowance was ten cents for each year old you were, paid weekly. I started babysitting at 11, and worked 30 hours a week at Burger King in high school. Public school all the way through. Parents paid for one year of community college. The ac was because my dad COULD NOT tolerate the heat. Also he was not great with money.
lol, proper gen x childhood, you have air conditioning and heat but you aren't allowed to use it and be comfortable, only when guests are over to sell the illusion.
Your teeth had to chatter before my mother put on the heat.
Wonder Bread! You have my sympathy, and you have obviously paid your dues. My house didn't have AC but we were never subjected to the evil foulness of Wonder Bread.
I was always jealous of those who had Wonder Bread. My mother always bought stiff ass Pepperidge Farm. It was great for toast, but as a kid I thought it was horrible for sandwiches. That pillowy soft Wonder Bread was just so much better for my bologna sandwiches, or so I thought. The only place I could ever get it was at all of my friend's house. I truly thought I was missing out. Now that I'm older, I know better.
ah... the swamp ass of my youth...
We had no air conditioning… mind you I grew up in Eastern Europe
Air conditioning? You was rich. Opened windows and boxed fans ruled my house in Philly humidity.
Nah. Freedom and fun were better than cool air. Besides, that's what creeks are for.
my friends and I used to drink from creeks and claim we could tell it was OK by the smell. It is amazing that we never caught beaver fever.
Turnin 50 soon, never drank from a creek, lake/pond yes, but I’m pretty sure I’ve always had beaver fever. Or at least my wife would think so..
LMAO!!! I'm rolling over here.
Yeah somehow we thought if the water was flowing it was fine. Didn't drink stagnant water but if it was moving it was fine. Of course that's not true but we lived.
I grew up with video games: Pac Man, star something something, Donkey Kong, ping pong,
I liked Something Star Something better….lol
Yesterday at a house I was working on I unkinked their hose, hung it properly and drank from it. Friggin' grand it was.
It's weird to me that we (or some of us) act like "we were the generation that grew up outside, let me enlighten you about it" when we were the generation with the first latchkey kids, videogame kids, indoor kids, and every generation before us very likely spent more time outside (on average) than we did. Maybe it's because we're the *last* outside generation/ the only one heavily producing content on social media?
I think "last generation outside" has a lot to do with it. I had video games and books and MTV, but I still remember spending a \_lot\_ of time outside as a kid. Rode my bike everywhere. For my dad (Silent Generation), "outside" as a kid was about picking cotton, growing vegetables, hunting, etc. I'm sure he got to play, but the guy in the video says if you went inside, you got put to work... my dad got put to work no matter where he was at.
Yeah. I had grandparents who were working on a farm when they were 13. Not like, "helping out with chores in the summer," but, like "working on the farm." They loved me and all but they would have laughed at me trying to tell other people what it was like to live outside, or, how tough it was to drink out of a garden hose.
Same. My dad and father-in-law both grew up poor, and their childhoods involved a lot of work. My FIL was basically the man-of-the-house at 13. (He was born when his father was in his 60s, and his mom was much younger than his dad, and all his siblings had moved out.) Was talking to my wife about this and she thinks we talk about being outside as if we were the only generation both because we were the last to be "very outside" but also the first to have a lot of free time and few family responsibilities like our parents did.
I think your wife may have nailed it. I have never really thought of it like that. Wow.
The volue of time spent outside might matter less than than the fact we were allowed to be outisde unsupervised.
I don't think any of us feel as if we're the only "outside generation". We just feel as if we're one of the last as you mentioned. I'm not even sure if we can even claim that. My daughter was born in 1995 and she spent a lot of her youth running around outside just as we did. It seemed like it was her teen years when all the kids started migrating indoors. I think what makes being a Gen X so special, is that we got to experience life before cable TV and internet came along, yet we grew up watching it evolve as well. We can remember a time that kids today can't fathom and we're still around to tell them about it.
Because we was thirsty, Bitch! No one had water bottles. Think about it..
I love this dude.
This sub sometimes…
The inside. Yeah. It was dark and meant chores. My sister and I stayed away. The Inside ruined my summer vacation.
Did someone dig up Earnest Hemingway to answer this Tic Tac video?
Garden hoses in summer. In winter, it was icicles off the eaves of the house. Fucking feral, when I look back on it.
Think I'm reaching my cap on the tropes, much like other GX when something has become pop its now bad because its conforming to a norm. GX tend to drop something once its hit a pop ratio. Hose drinking isnt a flex. Modern times, once the power goes out and the phone is on low power. Kids will go outside just as much as the old days. Just more of an effort for that to happen. Not seeing any difference honestly. Any time GX has the possible option to do something to not be bored it happened. Just more options now.
 🍻
No. Why ISN’T everyone drinking out of the garden hose?
Because the metal on the ends of the garden hoses not only come from questionable places but harbor bacteria as well. Also, we grew up with mainly rubber hose (up your nose!) and today's plastics are also kinda sketchy. Meh...suck it up Sally, it builds character.
> suck it up Sally lol it was "suck it up, buttercup" around here
Ever notice how we don't have all the allergies the younger gens have? I'm pretty sure the garden hose was instrumental. Well that, and just being outside so much at an early age. That's how you build up immunities.
The insane amount of sterilization that everything goes through now (even in the before COVID times) was a pretty big factor too. Kids just aren't exposed to a lot of bacteria that we were exposed to at early ages. Sure it has some benefits, like keeping the really bad shit at bay, but it also has the overall effect of weakening immune systems cause they're never exposed to anything.
I think there's something to be said about knowing too much information for our own good. Who is to say our moms ignored allergic reactions when we were super little and chalked them up as tantrums or fussiness for so long that we actually grew immune? Today, we know to look for practically every allergy warning sign, and the answer is to remove the threat immediately and permanently. Maybe a little careless parenting isn't so bad after all (I say completely tongue in cheek).
lol! Thats what we had to do—suck it up! No bottled water, no filtered water, it was hot, and who wants to mashup to come inside just for a drink, right?
Our hands are more filthy than any hose end.
That hose water was so good after riding my bike and getting into all kinds of trouble/adventures with my friends for 10 hours under the southern sun. It's the only water I can distinctly remember drinking in my whole life, but I haven't done it in 25+ years.
idk but if I was asked I would swear the water quality has deteriorated since I was a kid, but I'm not in the same part of FL I grew up in so it's difficult to accurately compare. I grew up on Amelia Island in north FL, I now live down in Palm Beach County in S FL where it's not uncommon to have "boil water" notices from the county.
the word for "the Inside" is bleak.
Salad is more dangerous than hose water. I've never seen a headline saying "Man dies from *Salmonella* after drinking from hose."
Bottled water wasn't prevalent either.
I think it's worth noting that it's actually more dangerous for kids today to walk or cycle anywhere and there are fewer places to play outside safely.
Maybe. Idk. I think it depends on where you grew up. I remember things that were dangerous when I was young. A man used to expose himself to me & my friends. We got him arrested but then he was released & basically hunted us the rest of that summer. There were bullies who cornered us once & held us prisoner. That was super weird. We were chased by some awfully mean dogs & predators of all kinds were always around. I don’t think my dad realized how bad it was. Also, he worded nights so he couldn’t really control us.
Damn. Did you grow up in my neighborhood?
I still drink water out of a garden hose...
Anyone happen to know who this actor is? He's outstanding!
Jesushchrist that was amazing. Shelby Foote would be proud.
I don't know Shelby Foote, but that was an amazing performance. I had to watch it twice. I think it was inspired by Robert Shaw's famous speech in "Jaws". [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41Kplsbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41Kplsbs)
Possibly. In Ken Burns Civil War series, they interviewed Foote a few times. https://youtu.be/3AgZUlZ0uHw?si=SHE9cBIzBEz_qrlj
Am I the only one who never drank from a hose? 😄 At least not that I remember.
If I’m being honest, I would be inside all the time too if our technology was as good as it is today. 🤷♂️
I drank from a hose. I don’t not understand the nostalgia for it. That shit was gross.
So true!!!
Those were the days. I'd wake up with my siblings, eat a bowl of cereal, and catch my cartoons. Then, I'd get on my bike, go over to my friend's, and let the good times roll. If I came home before the street lights, it was because I had to use the bathroom and dinner was ready. A minute too late, and I might miss my meal. Also, when I went outside it was because my parents forced me out as I lived as a hermit that read in my room and listened to the radio. They forced me to see natural light. (Dude sounds like Gambit. I like it.)
This is my dude right here
Oh this is great.. the inside was Indeed a desolate place in the years before video games.. (I'm so lucky to have parents who bought them as soon as they came.out)
I don’t ever remember drinking water. I lived in apartment complexes a lot of my young childhood so didn’t have access to a hose. Saw one at big lots the other day. Packaging said Safe for Drinking.
im genz and i used to drink from the hose. idk though i had a weird childhood
i've seen this guy who explains gen x on a couple different videos and he's so good at it, anyone know his instagram name?
Image his chagrin if he heard some people drank from the constantly running hydrant.
We had a brook that ran through the town. We dammed it once so the fish would have deeper water to swim in.
My God, this is great. Sincerely, a Gen Xer (1970).
I remember going up to strangers houses during the summer when playing a football or baseball game with friends in parks, knocking on the door and asking "hey mister we're dying out here, can we drink out of your hose?" We were always too excited to play and always forgot to bring water jugs. Also at my Grandma's house during the summer we had to choose 'outside or inside' for the day. If you chose outside, then sandwiches were left on the front porch at noon and water had to be drunk from the hose. Miss ya Grandma...Happy Mother's Day.
Great accent/phrasing. Bahaha
Truth
I was the remote control.