First we survived being born to mothers who smoked and or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were painted with bright colored lead based paint. We never had child proof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes we never had helmets or shoes, not to mention the risks some of us took hitchhiking. As a child we would ride in cars without seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a ute on a warm day was a special treat. We drank from a garden hose not from a bottle. No pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Lobster. Even though shops closed at 6pm and did not open on weekends some how we didn't starve to death.

We shared one soft drink with four friends from one bottle and no one actually died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy fruit tinkles and some fire crackers to blow up frogs and lizards. We ate cup cakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we were not overweight because we were always outside playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day as long as we were back home when the street lights come on. No one was able to reach us all day and we were OK. We would spend hours building 'billy carts' out of scraps and then ride down the hill only to find out we forgot about the brakes. We built tree houses and played in creek beds with match box toy cars. No Playstations, Nintendo's, X Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no internet, we had friends and went outside and found them.

Plus I got to beat my wife and kids.