Things we did when we were young

We lived near a creek which we were forbidden to frequent. Right. Played down there all the time, where there were numerous venomous snakes. One time, we were standing at the edge of deep hole throwing rocks at the snakes as they poked their heads up out of the water. I fell in. Managed to get out without being bitten; went home, snuck into my bedroom through a window, changed out of the wet clothes so Mom wouldn't know I had been down there. When I got home, she confronted me. How did she know? I had left the wet clothes on the floor of the closet.
 

CooCooforCoCoPuffs said:
I played Jaxx (sp?) for hours with my sister.
We used a hard regular golf ball to play as that little cheap red ball in the package wasn't worth squat.

We also played Chinese jump rope with a Chinese jump rope made out of rubberbands!

Will teach both games to my 8 yo grand daughter when I see her next.
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Yeap, don't love to pass these treasures of days gone by on to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
 
chic said:
Ditto and I was a latchkey kid also so had more alone time than most. And, I've never worn a bicycle helmet in my entire life. o_O I'm fine. :giggle:
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I didn't even know there were helmets. Amazingly, many of us lived as long as we have. No seat belts in cars either. I would not go back to that! It was insane given today's perspective on protecting our bodies and our children.
 
GoodEnuff said:
We lived near a creek which we were forbidden to frequent. Right. Played down there all the time, where there were numerous venomous snakes. One time, we were standing at the edge of deep hole throwing rocks at the snakes as they poked their heads up out of the water. I fell in. Managed to get out without being bitten; went home, snuck into my bedroom through a window, changed out of the wet clothes so Mom wouldn't know I had been down there. When I got home, she confronted me. How did she know? I had left the wet clothes on the floor of the closet.
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Hum, my son and daughter, and their friends also visited a pond that was off-limits. They also played in the barn which was off-limits until Ruthy broke her arm. :mad: As I already said, it is amazing so many of us live to old age. The stories they tell now make me glad I didn't know what they were doing when we lived in the farm country.

But when my children were young, we enjoyed our local far and showing off things we made or grew. Winning ribbons gave us pride and being a part of the fair was being a part of the community.
 
Vida May said:
....It was insane given today's perspective on protecting our bodies and our children.
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My perspective today interprets it more as a: nanny state.
Agree with you: if it was so bad, it is amazing we survived riding bikes for hours and hours, years and lived to tell about it!

Sometimes lawmakers tend to make blanket laws: mandates for all when we all don't live in the same environment or are as stupid as others who need to be forced to do things to keep them safe.
 
My dad was a display man so he made us some fabulous kites. I remember one caterpillar kite about 20 feet long made from many circles of wire covered with crepe paper.

One time he made us a roller coaster down the hill behind our house. The track was about five feet off the ground at the start and then just followed the hill down at about a foot above the ground but we went fast on it, sitting on board seats with roller skate wheels.

Someone from the Charleston Gazette came out and took a picture of three year old me, starting at the top. It was on the front page of the paper. I told you all I used to be a model!
 
CooCooforCoCoPuffs said:
My perspective today interprets it more as a: nanny state.
Agree with you: if it was so bad, it is amazing we survived riding bikes for hours and hours, years and lived to tell about it!

Sometimes lawmakers tend to make blanket laws: mandates for all when we all don't live in the same environment or are as stupid as others who need to be forced to do things to keep them safe.
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I think what you said is a big social change from when a 14-year-old boy was given the responsibility of riding for the pony express into a wildness that could be hostile.

Have you seen this movie? It makes a cultural statement and is a delight to watch.

 
Della said:
My dad was a display man so he made us some fabulous kites. I remember one caterpillar kite about 20 feet long made from many circles of wire covered with crepe paper.

One time he made us a roller coaster down the hill behind our house. The track was about five feet off the ground at the start and then just followed the hill down at about a foot above the ground but we went fast on it, sitting on board seats with roller skate wheels.

Someone from the Charleston Gazette came out and took a picture of three year old me, starting at the top. It was on the front page of the paper. I told you all I used to be a model!
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What else did your Dad do with you? It appears your Dad was a lot of fun.

I didn't have a Dad for several years so my bachelor uncle was the man in the family. He taught me to bowl, play Cribbage and Chess, and use my thumb to take a man's eye if I had to defend myself. That was part of his war training. I think coming from his man's world, dealing with children was a bit awkward for him. But I have to love him for the effort.
 
Seldom see a kid on a bike in residential areas, they hit the mailboxes.
I remember the regular run on mine out the Lane to the mailbox for the
daily newspaper and the funny / sport pages. The parents around the
Table with coffee talking about the Obits and Hog / Cattle prices.
Seldom see the kids in the Park Playgrounds. Remember bailing out
of the Swings. Someone always getting caught up in the Monkey Bars.

I build a kite out of brown wrapping paper & balsa wood with a 6' tail.
It ran out 500' of cord. I used it one Windy March afternoon until the paper tore.
It flew much better than the plastic ones that mostly went around in a circle.
It was so high I could barely see the speck up there. Took forever to wind up the
cord.
 
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Something I did a lot of as a kid was trespassed, not to steal or cause vandalism but other reasons. Hunting, fishing, trapping, hiking, going into old barns or abandoned houses just to prowl around, etc. I rarely asked permission and if I did and you said no it was catch me if you could. lol
 
GoodEnuff said:
We used to play "Superman". A towel draped over our shoulders and then would climb up onto the roof and jump off -- we were flying!

We could only do that when the parents weren't home, though.
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Oh yeah, I remember wanting to fly and jumping off roofs. I am so thankful all went well.

Now one of my favorite meditation tapes suggests thoughts of flying.

However, as I have pondered the ability to fly quite a bit, I have decided having wings like an angel would make getting dressed and undressed difficult and swimming would not be pleasant because of having wet wings. I have decided I am good with walking and not having wings. :ROFLMAO:
 
bb gun fights...really... cannot believe we did not get blinded

had to write :silence is golden" 100 times Halloween night for acting out in class room
got spanked by the principal with my parents permission
yup I was a naughty little boy
 
C50 said:
Something I did a lot of as a kid was trespassed, not to steal or cause vandalism but other reasons. Hunting, fishing, trapping, hiking, going into old barns or abandoned houses just to prowl around, etc. I rarely asked permission and if I did and you said no it was catch me if you could. lol
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I had a few catch me if you can moments. I didn't mean to do any harm but enjoyed the excitement of getting away with something. I once cheated on a test in school and then told the teacher I cheated. She asked me why I cheated and I told her I wanted to see if I could get away with it, but then my conscience ruled.

Remember Jimmy Cricket in Pinocchio? He was with me all the time.
 
C50 said:
Something I did a lot of as a kid was trespassed, not to steal or cause vandalism but other reasons. Hunting, fishing, trapping, hiking, going into old barns or abandoned houses just to prowl around, etc. I rarely asked permission and if I did and you said no it was catch me if you could. lol
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Now that you mention it I realize we did that all the time. Anyone who had dogs would have me in their yard petting the dogs. One man had a whole pack of beagles named Tuck, Buck, Muck etc. Um hum. I didn't get it till much later. So I would walk into his back yard to pet the dogs though their pen and of course they would go wild with barking and baying. The owner must of hated me for that. LOL
 
We kids sloshed through a dirty green muddy stream when my dad was stationed in Taichung, Taiwan. Also ran around ringing doorbells. But my favorite was my pretty pink slingshot which l bought at a little Taiwanese shop and bought candy there too. We only shot our sling shots at trees. Still expecting a horrid disease from that dirty green stream. we also raced our bikes around all over the place.
 
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