Friday, December 29, 2017

Lies told to children of the 1960s.


This past weekend, WTBS again indulged us in a 24 hours of a Christmas Story, the movie that reminds us that if you desire the wrong thing, "you'll shoot your eye out."

So at a dinner last night a group of us, all ranging from 59 to 50 started chatting about the lies that we were told by adults in 1960s to keep us from doing things that children like to do, or attempt to do.  Some of the lies included the following:


  1. Sitting too near the color TV set will make you sterile.  
  2. Make that face and it'll freeze that way. 
  3. You have to sit while eat a piece of hard candy or it will lodge in your throat and your choke to death.
  4. Wonder Bread helps you grow 12 ways.
  5. If you keep doing no one will like you.  
  6. If he/she is bothering you, just ignore them. 
  7. So help me God, but if you two don't stop it, I will turn this car around and we'll go home.
  8. That dime is from the tooth fairy. 
  9. Santa Claus is coming to town. 
  10. If you can play the piano well, you'll always be invited to parties.
  11. Everyone loves watching Lawrence Welk. 
  12. There are children starving in India (or any other foreign land) who would just love to eat that beef liver. 
  13. You need to take this cod liver oil. 
  14. There is nothing under your bed. (Yes, there is - hundreds of dollars of toys you don't play with.)
  15. Winky Dink needs your help to get across the valley.  Draw him a bridge to walk across. 
  16. You don't like that. 
  17. That man is light in his loafers. 
  18. Why doesn't Aunt _____ get married?  She hasn't met the right man.
  19. Well, Aunt Sally and her friend Mary live together to share expenses. 
  20. Don't run with those scissors.  The little boy down the street ran with scissors and he tripped and fell on them and now he's dead and he feels just terrible about what he did. 


Then there were the "Do as I say, not as I do" moments:

  1. Smoking is bad for your health, it'll stunt your growth. (Says your 6 foot tall father with a cough.)
  2. Drinking is bad for you. (Says your parent, aunt/uncle or grandparent on their fifth rye whiskey.)
  3. Lobster?  You won't like it all. (Says your parent as they order it in a restaurant.)
  4. Playboy? Well I read it for the articles. (Says your older brother.)
  5. Let's not tell Mommy about meeting cousin Taffy.  They don't get along like "cousin" Taffy and Daddy get along.  
  6. Mommy will be very mad at you if you tell her that we had lunch with "cousin" Taffy.
  7. Don't stick your arm out of the car.  Says the driver resting his elbow on the sill and fingers on the window frame.  
There may very well be other little lies and tales.  What do you remember being fed a load of?

4 comments:

  1. Santa Claus IS real. Didn't you see the animated film Frannie's Christmas, which spells the whole thing out clearly?
    --Jim

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  2. "You can't swim for an hour after eating." Lies all lies!

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  3. catholic church religious bullshit! one fucking lie after another!

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  4. Cousin Taffy sounds like a shiksa name. You covered most of them. I got a lot of "we'll get there when we get there!" But the color tv would make me blind, not sterile.

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