Things we did when we were young

I grew up in a small mountain town. We would ask the local butcher for some of his paper they used to wrap meat up in. He was always really nice to let us have enough for a kite, but only once per season. The paper was a bit heavy but held up well in strong winds. We would fly our kites in hay fields, providing the hay had already been cut and put into haystacks. Those were good times...
 

My fondest memory was simply the freedom of life back then. In the summer my friends and I would leave our houses, maybe with ONE sandwich for lunch, and we had the entire day to ourselves returning only when the streetlights came on at 8pm. Whatever we did, we had such fun. It was a learning experience for three months each summer. With each day I came away richer than I was the day before. It was halcyon. :giggle:
 
Yes, such freedom back in the day @chic

Summer days back in my country town were fun too …. guess you don’t realize much about life as a kid ... talking about 12-13 yrs. old. …Never worried about a thing.
Used to go bike riding for hours on back roads with a friend or two often.
No one knew where we were while we were gone.
 

JustBonee said:
Yes, such freedom back in the day @chic

Summer days back in my country town were fun too …. guess you don’t realize much about life as a kid ... talking about 12-13 yrs. old. …Never worried about a thing.
Used to go bike riding for hours on back roads with a friend or two often.
No one knew where we were while we were gone.
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It was a different way of life 70 years ago. Steel wheel farm wagons. Lots of Cast Iron about. Afternoons spent exploring the length of a Creek.
Trapping Muskrats. Fishing for them lil fishes. Frog hunting.
 
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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Interesting. Maybe there is value to allowing people to be stupid. Being ruled by man-made laws may weaken our sense of responsibility by making us complacent and obedient without thinking through the consequences of our choices but rather relying on a higher power.
 
JustBonee said:
It was so different.
I lived on a large dairy farm when I was young. Life was never boring.

We grew up without all the social issues that cause kids anxiety and unhappiness today. It’s sad.
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And did you have chores? I think that is important to self esteem.
 
Mom would take me and my bro to her parents house in the mountains every summer (dad stayed home and worked..... we were poor). My aunts, uncles, amd their kids all joined us.

All us kids would usually walk down to the little 5 acre lake. Such fun!

Alas when I returned as a 40 yr old to attend gramps funeral I discovered to my dismay the dam had been removed for safety reasons ... lesson learned YOU CAN'T GO BACK!
 
papa tiger said:
It was a different way of life 70 years ago. Steel wheel farm wagons. Lots of Cast Iron about. Afternoons spent exploring the length of a Creek.
Trapping Muskrats. Fishing for them lil fishes. Frog hunting.
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I have cookbooks with recipes for all that food. Remember to remove the scent glands before cooking and I have found that onions can decrease some foods' gamey taste.

My mother was a single mother who worked in the city, so all our vegetables came from a can, and of course, all our food came from a grocery store. I was a young mother when I came to Oregon, and I was amazed by all the food nature provides. The Mother Goddess was central to my life.

I learned to garden and preserve the produce. The first time I ate a green bean from a field, I thought I had poisoned myself because it tasted nothing like canned green beans from the grocery store.

My children had plenty of areas to explore, and we entered our produce and crafts at the local fair. I think life was much better back in the day and I feel sad that today's young live in a very different world.
 
jujube said:
I absolutely cringe when I think of some of the things I did when I was younger. It's a wonder I ever lived to get older.
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Roger That!
05


jujube said:
Oh, we had the Mommy Mafia back then. Whenever you misbehaved, somebody's mother saw you do it and felt that it was her particular obligation to call your mother to report it. AND, your mother thanked her for ratting on you.
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We called it The Mom Network. Mommy Mafia is more like it, lol!
 
Vida May said:
And did you have chores? I think that is important to self esteem.
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Nothing was a chore to me. I loved all the animals that surrounded my life.
Feeding and taking care of animals was something I always looked forward to everyday … well, all except the big mean-lookig bull that scared me to death!
 
I was into trains as a kid. I had 3 train sets and my dad and I made a layout on a sheet of 4’x8’ piece of plywood. Dad bought a mountain with a tunnel for the train to go under and we had a small village with houses we bought from a model railroad magazine. All the street lights and the lights in the houses were lit. We also had an ice skating pond with ice skaters, but they did not move.

It was a very nice setup. My dad was a master cabinetmaker, so he had the skills to build a nice layout. The 3 trains I had were 2 Lionel’s and 1 American Flyer. Two of the engines blew smoke that we had to put a liquid in the engines with an eye dropper. I also had a train called Marx that probably not many people ever heard of. That train ran on it’s own platform with just a grass mat under the tracks.

Up until I went to high school, I rode my bike all over our town and sometimes, I would ride farther with a friend of mine. We had a lot of fun growing up. Most of our parents gave us a lot of freedom.
 
JustBonee said:
Nothing was a chore to me. I loved all the animals that surrounded my life.
Feeding and taking care of animals was something I always looked forward to everyday … well, all except the big mean-lookig bull that scared me to death!
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My sister and I had some run-ins with bulls. We were city girls and a stepfather took us to a place with a bull. We got inside that fence and learned quickly to run and never go inside that fence again. Then on his brother's farm, we were told not to play with a bull that was friendly enough but it didn't know its strength and he had been raised by men who played with him until he got too big.

I got to feed calves with a bucket that had a large tit. I shoveled manure out of the milking room. I get how wonderful it can be to grow up on a farm. A city life as far from nature as L.A., is not mentally healthy for human beings. I think our connection with nature is very important.
 
911 said:
I was into trains as a kid. I had 3 train sets and my dad and I made a layout on a sheet of 4’x8’ piece of plywood. Dad bought a mountain with a tunnel for the train to go under and we had a small village with houses we bought from a model railroad magazine. All the street lights and the lights in the houses were lit. We also had an ice skating pond with ice skaters, but they did not move.

It was a very nice setup. My dad was a master cabinetmaker, so he had the skills to build a nice layout. The 3 trains I had were 2 Lionel’s and 1 American Flyer. Two of the engines blew smoke that we had to put a liquid in the engines with an eye dropper. I also had a train called Marx that probably not many people ever heard of. That train ran on it’s own platform with just a grass mat under the tracks.

Up until I went to high school, I rode my bike all over our town and sometimes, I would ride farther with a friend of mine. We had a lot of fun growing up. Most of our parents gave us a lot of freedom.
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I enjoyed reading about your trains. Thank you.

And yes to the freedom we had which was better when we moved to the ticky tacket suburbs for those who had the GI bill. We had freedom but I remember feeling we also had rules that everyone maintained and the parents down the street would tell your parents if they saw you doing something wrong so it wasn't just our parents making the rules. That made raising children a whole lot easier than it is today.
 
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jujube said:
Oh, we had the Mommy Mafia back then. Whenever you misbehaved, somebody's mother saw you do it and felt that it was her particular obligation to call your mother to report it. AND, your mother thanked her for ratting on you.
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I am so glad you said that! ❤️
 

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