This one's about the America of my youth.

     I got the inspiration for this article from my friend who writes the blog, "Random Acts of Patriotism."  This is a list of things you used to be able to do in Old America, back when we were free-range children.

     You could drink a beer at 18.
     You could ride a bike without any safety equipment at all (and we all survived).
     You could ride in the back of a pickup truck--and even sit on the sides of the bed as it moved.
     You could also do this on the hood of a car in parades or your driveway or wherever.
     You could eat your Halloween candy without checking it.
     You could also go trick-or-treating without any adult supervision at all and without fear.
     You could get thrown out of the house all day by your folks and have no problem with it.
     You could smoke cigarettes in school (mine had two areas--one outside and another inside for when it rained).
     You could see a gun rack--with guns in it--in lots of trucks every day in your school parking lot.
     You could go to school and not get shot--even though we had loaded guns right there in the parking lot.
     You could live within your means--because nobody knew how not to like nowadays.
     You could actually get music on the radio in the mornings--instead of idiots that talk endlessly.
     You could find cartoons on TV every Saturday morning--and they were worth watching, too.
     You could drink the water--they only sold it in bottles in Europe and third world countries.
     You could live like a king for a day as a kid on just a dollar.
     You could drink sodas that came in large glass bottles.
     You could hunt down a bunch of those glass bottles and return them to any store for money if you needed some easy cash--like when you'd been thrown out of the house all day.

     There's a lot more, but I have to get off my butt and be responsible for awhile.  If anyone else has anything they would like to add, please feel free to reply to this post or message me through email or Facebook and who knows, I might do another one of these.

     Have a nice trip down Nostalgia Lane.