What were you really into when you were a child?

Reading, playing outdoors. Thank God for local libraries. I read all the fiction and a lot of nonfiction in ours by Jr High. Thankfully, the librarians didn't censor what I read. My growing up environment was very limited in terms of diversity and didn't offer much opportunity to intellectually develop beyond the Three Rs ...but the books in the library did!
 

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I was a reader-would read anything I could get my hands on. Spent many hours at our local library,in spite of it being a long walk from our house. Then,because we had a summer/weekend cabin where we spent all weekends,I was very into swimming and waterskiing. At home,I was also very into rollerskating. We didn`t ride bikes that much because I grew up in the hills overlooking San Francisco International Airport. My mom was always a little nervous about letting us ride bikes with all the steep hills. I think my brother ruined that for us after crashing a few times lol.
 
Bretrick said:
At every opportunity I would go up into the hills surrounding my home town.
Away from people, catching snakes and frogs, trying to pick up echidnas, going out onto the dam on my homemade raft, built with boy scout skills. Loved my childhood in the thickly wooded West Coast of Tasmania.
It is a delight that has stayed with me my whole life.
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That's very interesting because I did the same things (except for the echidnas) as a young boy: snakes, frogs, salamanders, turtles, etc. and I also built a homemade raft that sunk as soon as I left the shore. And it's funny that you also mention the boy scouts because I was always getting into trouble for catching animals instead of learning to tie knots and earning merit badges. :)
 

Pappy said:
Building WW2 model airplanes was a big part of my young life. Exploring our big patch of woods behind our house was a part too. Going berry picking on Sunday was a fun pastime. I was heavy into magic tricks, some I built myself, and would put on shows for the family.
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Did you also have a shaved deck of marked cards? Those were great for pulling a card out of the pack like ... whooooosh!
 
Smiley Holly said:
As a young child I played with all types of toys. I was born as a boy, but I still played with dolls and barbies growing up. I also played with Army Men, Trucks, Dinosaurs and things like that as well. Once I became older I started realizing I was a female trapped in a males body. I was attracted to males, but never acted on it or ever dated because I saw myself as a female and not with another boy as a boy myself. When I came out and told my parents I wanted to transition they were obviously asking a lot of questions , but were also supportive. Once I fully transitioned in 1991 that is when I started dated men as a full women. I am now happily married to a wonderful man and have a beautiful and intelligent step daughter.
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There are many traumatic situations people go through. I went to war at 19 years of age and I reckon your experience was equally (or even more) traumatic than what I went through.
 
Growing up we played a lot. Hide n seek, kick the can. Rode our bikes around the neighborhood.
Made mud pies, played jacks next to our front porch.

Both of my parents worked, and my brother and sister were older.....so I had to spend many days at my grandmother's.
Which I loved. My cousin was there w/me at times.

In the summers we would go to Santa Cruz for a couple of weeks. My mother had this red and white umbrella, so us kids could find her easily on the beach. We'd hang out there for a few hours.

Life was good. I had a happy childhood. And, many fond memories.
Gas (ethel) was only 39c a gallon!!
 
dseag2 said:
I was really into art and music. I played outside, but while most of my friends were playing "army" I was listening to 45's in my room or building houses out of American Building Bricks.

I later studied Architecture in college and became an amateur DJ in the 80's and 90's, so it stuck.
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I had an American Building Bricks set too!. Also Lincoln logs.
 
Man, I was into a whole lot of things, but for a short list I'll say baseball and microscopic animals.

My oldest brother got an old used microscope for Christmas when he was like 8 or 9 - it had belonged to a doctor - and he and I would scoop up pond scum and cow pee from out in the pastures and look at it under the microscope. He kept paramecium and hydras, water bears and water fleas in jars, and we watched them proliferate, and he'd take a dropperful of them and put it on a slide so we could watch their antics under the microscope.

Good times!
 
Murrmurr said:
Man, I was into a whole lot of things, but for a short list I'll say baseball and microscopic animals.

My oldest brother got an old used microscope for Christmas when he was like 8 or 9 - it had belonged to a doctor - and he and I would scoop up pond scum and cow pee from out in the pastures and look at it under the microscope. He kept paramecium and hydras, water bears and water fleas in jars, and we watched them proliferate, and he'd take a dropperful of them and put it on a slide so we could watch their antics under the microscope.

Good times!
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I kept mosquito larvae and watched them grow.
 
In my early years my dog was my best friend. I couldn't wait to get home from school, change clothes and go out in the woods with him.
Later on I enjoyed painting, drawing, and doing crafts.
I remember begging my mom to let me have a box of macaroni so I paint and string them for necklaces and bracelets. She wasn't to thrilled about wasting a box of macaroni on my jewelry making but she finally gave in.
I had friends but was just as happy being alone and I was never bored.
 
Ruth n Jersey said:
In my early years my dog was my best friend. I couldn't wait to get home from school, change clothes and go out in the woods with him.
Later on I enjoyed painting, drawing, and doing crafts.
I remember begging my mom to let me have a box of macaroni so I paint and string them for necklaces and bracelets. She wasn't to thrilled about wasting a box of macaroni on my jewelry making but she finally gave in.
I had friends but was just as happy being alone and I was never bored.
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Art was a big part of my life, too. Especially from about age 15 on up. Mostly I drew. First pencils, then pen and ink. I didn't start painting until a few years later, and (in my opinion) I wasn't really good at it until my early 30s. The more I painted, the better I got, of course, but the older I got, the less I painted. Just too much crap going on in my life at the time. C'est la guerre, right?
 
Before age 10, swimming and acrobatics; around adolescence developed interest in buildings, designing houses. From first early exposure (preschool) reading and being in nature have stayed with me as passions and comforts.
 

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