(JML should be back next week, but knowing him, there are no guarrantees. In the meantime, we dipped into the archive and pulled a column from October 12, 2005. It’s obviously a rip-off of a bit Dana Carvey used to do on Saturday Night Live, but JML don’t care. He lives by the credo, if stealing gags was good enough for Milton Berle it’s good enough for him.)

These kids today.What a bunch of spoiled rotten, mamby-pamby, ipod-toting, cellphone-talking sissies. They think they’ve got it soooo hard … bah! They don’t know what hard is! Why, when I was a kid ~ that was hard.

When I was a kid, we were raised on a diet of war, famine, pestilence and physical abuse and we liked it. When I was a kid our parents beat us bloody every morning just on general principle. Then we had to milk the cows, plow the back forty, paint the barn, re-shingle the roof, sew our own clothing and recite the Old Testament ~ all before breakfast. And we liked it. We loved it. Those were wonderful times and we didn’t care that life was hard.

Why, when I was a kid, I use to walk three thousand miles to school every day in the snow barefoot because I wanted to learn. I only lived two blocks from school but I intentionally walked in the opposite direction until I reached Poland, then I’d turn around and walk back because I was disciplined. I had moxie. Not like these spoiled brats today, always wanting somebody to do something for them, always complaining, always bored with their lives.

In my day we were never bored. We knew how to entertain ourselves. We didn’t have DVDs or computer games or big screen TV. No we didn’t and we didn’t miss them either because we had radios. Big old musty-smelling radios with the knobs falling off and we’d gather around them for hours listening to scratchy static and freezing to death because we also didn’t have any heat. And we didn’t care that we didn’t have any heat. It suited us fine. It suited us to a T. Heat was for sissies and we for sure weren’t no sissies.

Not like these sissies today with their bulimia and anorexia, worrying about being fat all the time. In my day we didn’t care if we were fat. Why, we wanted to be fat. The fatter the better. Big, bloated, cholesterol-choked slobs dying by the age of twelve with clogged arteries and we loved it. We weren’t afraid of death in those days. We welcomed it. Why, when I was a kid we tried to die, we wanted to die so our bodies could be left in the woods to be mauled and chewed by animals, and we took it like a man. Even the girls took it like a man.

Pets? Why, when I was a kid the only pet my parents could afford was a sack of hair. A little paper sack of hair and I named it Prince Hairy and it used to sleep with me in my little cardboard box. Yeah, I slept in a cardboard box and was grateful to have it. Did I say sleep? Why, when I was a kid we didn’t sleep, we just lay awake all night, rigid as little Supreme Court judges, because when I was a kid we had respect. Not like this bunch of little know-it-alls today, always talking back, always full’a sass.

When I was a kid if we spoke out of turn, our tongues were pulled from our mouths with old, rusty blacksmith tongs and we liked it. If we didn’t do our homework, we were covered in chicken gravy and thrown into the hog lot and we were glad to be there. It was no picnic when I was a kid, believe you me. We were beaten, slashed, eviscerated, flash-frozen, shot from canons  and eaten by hogs and we liked it. We loved it. We couldn’t get enough of it.

Yeah, we learned hard lessons in those days, lessons that lasted a lifetime and it never did us any harm. We never complained because we knew it was done out of love. Besides, complaining only got us 8,000 volts upside the head from a cattle prod. Back then, parents wanted what was best for their kids. Not like these girly man, SUV-driving, latte-drinking, soccer mom sissies today. So just quit your bellyaching why don’cha. You’ll get no sympathy from me. Bah!