What’s your “Back in my day, we…

[Bretrick]

Back in my day, we played outside on days off. We once went to a vacant lot in the neighborhood, dug up a ton of dirt and put a box over the hole with a "door" cut into it to make a "fort". I grew up on a canal and we swam in it. We also climbed trees.

I was a heavy, clumsy kid. When we ran I always fell and got holes in the knees of my pants, so my mother would make shorts out of them. I was so frustrated that I couldn't wear bellbottoms because I would have to buy Huskies and the bell would need to be cut off. Then I went through puberty and a diet and graduated high school at 135 pounds. Wore all the bellbottoms I wanted!

My only real indoor activity was watching TV and playing 45's on my record player. I used to buy the latest songs at the Singer store in the mall. Why a sewing store would sell records was beyond me, but they had a good selection. I never missed an episode of Dark Shadows in the afternoon. I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, The Beverly Hillbillies and Laugh In were also staples.

I did have some "hooligan" friends, and in Junior High we skipped school and hung out all day at a 7/11. There was no fun in it, but kids do stupid things.

We built "Cubby Houses" and we built rafts to go out on the dam high up in the hills

 

[dobielvr]

..we had half a pint of free milk at morning break in Primary School.

With graham crackers.

 

[hollydolly]

We also had milk and a cookie in kindergarten. The milk was 3 cents a bottle and I would be very careful not to shake it so that I could drink the cream at the top of the bottle. Also had mats for naps.

you had to pay for your milk at school ?

 

[jerry old]

Gaer says:
'Cowboys would stand outside the bars on the sidewalk in bunches.
Just stand. They hardly ever talked. Just stand there.

They still do, you want to hear talking cowboys go to a beer joint.

 

[hollydolly]

Gaer says:
'Cowboys would stand outside the bars on the sidewalk in bunches.
Just stand. They hardly ever talked. Just stand there.

They still do, you want to hear talking cowboys go to a beer joint.

see,I knew there had to be the America of my childhood ( from movies and comics)..somewhere

 

[horseless carriage]

Back in my day we had regular visits at school from the district nurse. She examined every child's hair, presumably for lice. What a harridan that woman was. The kids all dubbed her: "Nitty Nora, the bug explorer."

 

[Pappy]

you had to pay for your milk at school ?

Yes Holly. It was 15 cents a week and hot meals were, memory fades me here, something like 25 cents or we could brown bag it, which I did a lot.

 

[hollydolly]

Back in the day we lived near a chalk hill , and we kids would dare each other to run up as far as we dare before the Giant who lived under it came out and ate us... !! We never got further than a few feet up the hill before we lost our nerve, and instead we'd sit in the next field filling our bellies with the fresh peas we'd just picked... and picking buttercups to test who loved butter by shining them under each others' chins...

 

[hollydolly]

Yes Holly. It was 15 cents a week and hot meals were, memory fades me here, something like 25 cents or we could brown bag it, which I did a lot.

We had to pay for our lunches.. but our milk was free...which is why when Margaret Thatcher became prime Minister she was hated so much because she stopped all the free milk for children in schools .. decades after we'd all been having it. She was forever known as 'Thatcher school milk snatcher.'!!

 

[Della]

In grade school, I remember standing up, placing my hand over my heart, and reciting "The Pledge of Allegiance" in class with the other students. I think there was a flag in the front of class that we would look at.

We said the pledge, then we would sing songs like, "This Old Man" and "I'm a Little Teapot," always led by one of the kids chosen by the teacher. I was never chosen to lead the songs and I'm still bitter about it.

Our story like Holly's was that a house way back in the woods was where a witch lived. When I got to be a teenager a friend of my parents came to pick me up to babysit -- and took me to that house! My enterprising brother heard where I was babysitting and came late that night to scratch on the window screens and scare me to death. (Scaring me to death was his favorite hobby.)

 

[OneEyedDiva]

When I was in grammar school, before the lessons started we had to sit with our hands folded on top of the desk.

During the warmer weather, when walking home from the first grammar school I attended, we'd pass this little shack (literally) that sold Italian ices. They were just the consistency I like. My favorites were chocolate/vanilla and cherry banana.

 

[palides2021]

.

Back in the day we lived near a chalk hill , and we kids would dare each other to run up as far as we dare before the Giant who lived under it came out and ate us... !! We never got further than a few feet up the hill before we lost our nerve, and instead we'd sit in the next field filling our bellies with the fresh peas we'd just picked... and picking buttercups to test who loved butter by shining them under each others' chins...

I remember the butter test with the flowers! What a small world!

 

[oldiebutgoody]

Back in my day you might find a beat up old baseball that somebody left on a field such as this:

One time somebody left such a ball and we took it home. I washed it and my brother who knew how to sew used sailor's red string to patch it back up. I told my brother to make an extra set of stiches on one corner to unbalance the weight. Then I proceeded to add a touch of dirt and a touch of saliva so that I could throw a spitter in our pick up baseball games. We won quite a few games that summer. It was the only ball we had because we couldn't afford to buy one on our own. Back in my day that's the way it was.

Nowadays whenever I watch neighborhood baseball you find used balls all over the place. Nobody bothers to pick them up anymore as new ones are readily available and affordable. It is quite a different time today.

 

[Feelslikefar]

I'd walk to the main Swimming Pool on base every chance I could during the summer school break.
Make a P and J sandwich, grab my towel, I.D. Card and head out. Always by myself.

When I could, I'd walk over to the outdoor theater on base and watch a movie.
Pretty much did things by myself.

Sometimes I'd just catch one of the launches ( small boats ) over to Ford Island and just
sit and watch the Ships go in and out of the Harbor or wander around and look for the old
ships that sank on that day in 1941.

 

[JBR]

Back when I was a kid, many of us boys were given semi-toy tool kits like the one pictured… maybe at age seven, eight. They went by the brand "Handy Andy".

I have a friend who collects odd things, a kit of these small tools being one. (The vintage of the one pictured is more recent than the one I had.) With these sets, the little saw would actually cut — fairly soft wood, anyway. The tools were scaled down so as not to be too unwieldy or heavy for a kid. The square was accurate enough, the pliers worked, the screwdriver could actually drive screws, etc. Usually, I think, the kids were given some careful supervision when first using the tools.

Is this intro to hand tools a lost pursuit? Digital toys & tools are not by any means the only useful tools, even today. I do think kids by a certain age can be introduced to tools with adult-scaled tools, but for young kids consideration has to be given to size & weight and degree of hazard. Guidance can extend to power tools like drills & cordless screwdrivers, and there, of course, instruction & supervision are crucial.

 

[Sassycakes]

I just thought of another thing back in my youth. I went to Catholic school and besides the Nuns scaring the crap out of us they told us to get under our wooden desks to protect us from an atomic bomb.

 

[Fyrefox]

…and we liked it!

 

[hollydolly]

Back in the day I lived in the city ... we were pretty much feral..in that when we left the house to play we went wherever we felt like going.

We'd walk miles to the park with the lake, we'd cycle ( I never had a bike but my friend had 2) all over the city, on dangerous roads, roads we had no business being on, and cars tooting their horns at us

... we'd climb walls, and investigate abandoned mansions.. ( never see abandoned houses today much less mansions )... we'd scrump for apples.. we'd jump rope, swing across rivers on a home made swings.. we'd strip the blackberry bush of it's fruit..and give ourselves stomach aches... ..but most of all we climbed.. we climbed on everything..walls trees, anything that was higher than our heads...

Thank goodness I never allowed my child to roam free like that, I'd have been worried sick ...but all my parents cared about was that we got home for tea... or else we got a hiding.. and we did very often..

 

[JBR]

Back in the day I lived in the city ... we were pretty much feral..in that when we left the house to play we went wherever we felt like going.

We'd walk miles to the park with the lake, we'd cycle ( I never had a bike but my friend had 2) all over the city, on dangerous roads, roads we had no business being on, and cars tooting their horns at us

... we'd climb walls, and investigate abandoned mansions.. ( never see abandoned houses today much less mansions )... we'd scrump for apples.. we'd jump rope, swing across rivers on a home made swings.. we'd strip the blackberry bush of it's fruit..and give ourselves stomach aches... ..but most of all we climbed.. we climbed on everything..walls trees, anything that was higher than our heads...

Thank goodness I never allowed my child to roam free like that, I'd have been worried sick ...but all my parents cared about was that we got home for tea... or else we got a hiding.. and we did very often..

That's a wonderful little vignette.

 

[Sassycakes]

Back in my day, we would get on our boyfriend's bike and he would ride to a place we called Suicide Hill. Then we would get off the bike and then we had to kiss the boy that came down first. Thinking about it now I realized each boy got his turn to come down first and kiss the girls.DUH!