The good times

Good thread Charry, I was reading yesterday how parents are stressed trying to think of ways to keep their kids entertained during the school holidays ! God forbid they should just ‘play’ I know they cant have the freedom we had but surely they can use their imaginations to entertain themselves

We were big on Hopscotch in our street !
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I can remember some great times I had growing up. We played hide and seek but a little different than others played it. A boy that liked you would tell you where to hide because whatever boy found the girl she had to kiss him. Another was suicide hill. A boy would ride a girl to the hill. Then the
boy would leave her on the bottom of the hill then he would ride down and the boy that got down first would kiss the girl he took to the hill. They were the good old days.
 
All my best girlfriend and I needed was a box of crayons, some paper, scissors, and glue. and we could entertain ourselves all day. . Around Christmas we would ask for paint by number kits and anything art related. We spent hours at the kitchen table sharing our art supplies.
In the summer we would play outside ,riding bikes, running under the sprinkler on hot days.
We played hop scotch, Giant step, and jumped rope.

We played make believe. One day we were cowgirls, another we would be explorers. Sometimes we played house. Our imagination had no limits.

I don't think kids today would be content to play make believe the way we did.
 
The kids no longer have "recess" in the elementary schools.....it's "organized play" now, all carefully supervised by a teacher to make sure nobody gets butt-hurt by not getting to be "it".

Remember recess in our day? The girls ran around screaming, playing tag or some other definitely UN-organized play. The boys mostly punched each other or chased the girls. If any "organized games" were in order, they were calculated to release the Inner Attila the Hun and inflict maximum physical damage within the accepted limits (the occasional black eye, sprained finger, kickball to the head, scraped body parts, etc.....) The teacher watched out for a chance to duck behind a tree and have a few surreptitious puffs on a cancer-stick.

Lots of tension was relieved. We went back to class too tired to misbehave, at least for a while.
 
Sassycakes said:
I can remember some great times I had growing up. We played hide and seek but a little different than others played it. A boy that liked you would tell you where to hide because whatever boy found the girl she had to kiss him. Another was suicide hill. A boy would ride a girl to the hill. Then the
boy would leave her on the bottom of the hill then he would ride down and the boy that got down first would kiss the girl he took to the hill. They were the good old days.
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Makes me wish that I’d grown up in your neighborhood! 😊
 
A little independence and a big imagination were the best things we had to work with when I was a kid.

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Getting my first bicycle was a real game-changer!
 
We played in the woods a lot since it was only 3 blocks away with a bridge going over the river. We built "bunks" out of any available material. Rival kids would find them and destroy them. We hiked to "frog pond" and stuck firecrackers in frogs' mouth and set them off. We swam buck-naked in an old stripping hole. We walked several miles down a dusty road to swim in a different river getting dust covered by passing cars; got cleaned off in the river only to get sweaty and dusty again going back.

Evenings we played baseball in the street. Someone once put a ball through a neighbor's window and we disappeared in seconds. We played games like kick the can. Many, many others.

Winters we would sleigh ride down "soldier hill" and suicide hill. I once got airborne and landed in a bush.
 
Chet said:
We played in the woods a lot since it was only 3 blocks away with a bridge going over the river. We built "bunks" out of any available material. Rival kids would find them and destroy them. We hiked to "frog pond" and stuck firecrackers in frogs' mouth and set them off. We swam buck-naked in an old stripping hole. We walked several miles down a dusty road to swim in a different river getting dust covered by passing cars; got cleaned off in the river only to get sweaty and dusty again going back.

Evenings we played baseball in the street. Someone once put a ball through a neighbor's window and we disappeared in seconds. We played games like kick the can. Many, many others.

Winters we would sleigh ride down "soldier hill" and suicide hill. I once got airborne and landed in a bush.
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I wonder if you were on the same suicide hill I played on?
 
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Wherever there were steam trains, there were schoolboys, "spotting" them.

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A common scene when the horse chestnut dropped it's fruit. Known to Brits as: "conkers."
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Many a game of football was played in the street, imagine trying to do that today.
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In almost every public park would be a recreational playground with swings & seesaws.
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Slides were great fun. Back then sliced bread was sold in a waxy sort of paper. We kids used that waxed paper to polish the slide. One kid would go down on waxed paper, the next kid went without the paper, he was the polisher. We would do that until the slide shone. I remember a mother bring her little one to the playground. The small child climbed the steps, then waved at mother, sat on the slide and came down so fast he went flying off the end and into the shrubbery. Mother retrieved her boy, looked round to remonstrate with the little horrors only to find the playground suddenly empty.
 
Chet said:
We played in the woods a lot since it was only 3 blocks away with a bridge going over the river. We built "bunks" out of any available material. Rival kids would find them and destroy them. We hiked to "frog pond" and stuck firecrackers in frogs' mouth and set them off. We swam buck-naked in an old stripping hole. We walked several miles down a dusty road to swim in a different river getting dust covered by passing cars; got cleaned off in the river only to get sweaty and dusty again going back.

Evenings we played baseball in the street. Someone once put a ball through a neighbor's window and we disappeared in seconds. We played games like kick the can. Many, many others.

Winters we would sleigh ride down "soldier hill" and suicide hill. I once got airborne and landed in a bush.
Click to expand...
I remember riding my new bike , Mum was watching ,
Me........
Look mum.....no hands .......straight into a wall.....🙁
Look mum no teeth .....!,!!! 😢😳😏
 
I’d pitch a small tent in the back yard under a shade tree in the summer, and invite a friend over to play “Monopoly.” Cold drinks would be supplied by house management. A full game usually lasted several hours...
 
jujube said:
The kids no longer have "recess" in the elementary schools.....it's "organized play" now, all carefully supervised by a teacher to make sure nobody gets butt-hurt by not getting to be "it".

Remember recess in our day? The girls ran around screaming, playing tag or some other definitely UN-organized play. The boys mostly punched each other or chased the girls. If any "organized games" were in order, they were calculated to release the Inner Attila the Hun and inflict maximum physical damage within the accepted limits (the occasional black eye, sprained finger, kickball to the head, scraped body parts, etc.....) The teacher watched out for a chance to duck behind a tree and have a few surreptitious puffs on a cancer-stick.

Lots of tension was relieved. We went back to class too tired to misbehave, at least for a while.
Click to expand...
In winter, you got to school early, so you could make snow balls. You'd hide them until recess when you hurled them at the other kids, who also had snowball "reserves". The problem was that sometimes the snowballs would melt and then freeze, making them "iceballs". Those hurt.
 
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