When I was a kid, I........

[DrRoy]

Climbed a tree about 40 ft off the ground. Rode my bike down a big hill at 50 mph.

 

[Gunny]

Always outside; playing ball, building forts, riding bikes, hunting and fishing. Hated to be inside. We settled our issues by fighting and the coaches at school would put boxing gloves on you and make you fight it out if caught fighting at school. I had my fist gun at 12 and first dirt bike at 14. I always had a little money in my pocket from odd jobs. Kids are being raised to be too soft (physically and emotionally) these days. As a highschool football coach, I see it all the time.

 

[iloveyoga]

I was the oldest of seven kids, so I grew up helping with everything. We had to be home at 5 for dinner and then again before dark. We just ran all over the neighborhood, our parents did not know where we were, but it worked. I got my first outside babysitting job when I was 11, I think I got 35 cents an hour. I always had some kind of job after that, Mom and Dad did not have spare cash for our spending money, but we had everything we needed. I walked and rode my bike wherever I needed to go. I never did have a car to drive, until I lived on my own.

My Mom's sister lived on a farm and we visited often. There were a lot of kids on the farm too. We really ran wild, nobody worried what we were doing, and we came back to the house at meal time. Great times, some of my best memories.

 

[target2019]

When I was a kid, would stay out of house for many hours, walking to distant shopping malls, or building forts in the woods. We found a flare by the railroad tracks, and foolishly lit it. Dripped some on my foot and got a pretty bad wound as it burned through my sneaks. Mom never found out, but will kick my arse if I get to heaven, I'm sure

 

[Taxman59]

We lived in suburban Cleveland. In the summer after dinner, we would ride our bikes through the neighborhood yelling "games at the Poulus house". By 7:30, 20 - 50 kids from 6 to 15 would have gathered at the Poulus house (they had a huge back yard) and we would decide what game(s) to play. Sometimes we would pla capture the flag over the entire neighborhood! The games would break up well after the streetlights came on when you would here a parent yell from their back porch "XXX kids, time to come home" . It seemed that within 30 minutes after the first call, most of the kids were called home.

On Sundays, a small group of us would walk about 1/2 mile to the Rapid Transit stop, pay 50 cents ride the train downtown, walk about a mile with the crowd to the stadium, pay a buck for bleacher seats, and watch a double header baseball game. another walk with a much smaller crowd to the Terminal Tower and ride the train back home. The return trip was usually at about 6pm, and my Mother loved it since it got all of the noisy boys away for the house for an entire Sunday afternoon!

 

[Taxman59]

Another thing, neighbors always seemed to have cherry bombs and firecrackers. We used to sneak up to houses with open windows and plant a lit "punk" (incense sticks, which were an effective timed delay) with a firecracker attached. Then we would ride our bicycles past the houses as the firecrackers were going off The people would come out of the house trying to catch the kids throwing the firecrackers and ask us if we saw them!

 

[Nick12]

When I was a kid the largest soft drink was 12 oz. Nowadays with unlimited refills, all you can eat fast food artery clogging places, fast food open 24\7 and people texting driving and walking no surprise most of America is obese and lack any type of real exercise. That includes the younger generation which is the future. Mayor Mike Bloomberg of NYC several years ago suggested limiting the large soft drink in NYC. He got no support. He is worth approx 20 billion and he said he owns 2 pair of dress shoes, took the subway to work and orders a small coffee so he does not waste $$ ordering the large size.

 

[imoldernu]

It was 1948... the whole family was there on the third floor of Aunt Alice's house in Berkley R.I. The whole family:
Gramma and Grampa Miller, Aunt Alice and Otto, Aunt Winnie and Buddy, Aunt Lillian and Dean, My mom and dad, uncle Tommy, and my cousins Herbie and Margie, Charlie and Dean, Paul and Jack, and me and my baby brother Ricky.

There for the big show. Uncle Otto was an electronics kinda guy, and his tiny, tiny man cave 8' by 8' was filled to the brim with electric "stuff". On his workbench was a wiring board, on top of which were tubes and wires and a round funnel-like tube... about 6 inches around, and 12 inches long. Yeah... television.

All of us waiting around until 4PM, when WBZ TV, Boston, would come on, and broadcast a test pattern until 8 o'clock that night. You have to imagine... a small house, a tiny room, and a dozen or more people sitting, standing an peeking thru a doorway to look at their first TV picture.

At 4PM... this tiny screen full of snow, and Otto, frantically turning dials until... there... in front of God and everyone... the magic TEST PATTERN. The next week, WBZ broadcast their first TV show. "Community Auditions"

 

[Bir48die]

Had a 14' aluminum boat with a 3hp motor at our lake place. In the summer mom would let us take it out all day to explore the area. Sometime we'd be gone all day, back for dinner.

 

[CRLLS]

Under 10, I played stoop ball. Also, baseball, football and tennis in the street between the parked cars. We took the Plaid Stamp booklets (maybe they were S&H Green Stamps?) from the local grocery store. You know the ones with witty sayings on each page? We book-wrapped them with paper towels taken from the local Church bathroom. Then tried to sell them as joke books. Fished in a local private pond and was often run off by the caretaker.
Later moved to the Midwest and had free run of lots of open area. At McDonalds you could get a burger and fries for 25 cents. We had dinner bells, each family had a different ring pattern. When you heard your ring, it was time to go home for dinner or for the night. We made sack lunches and took off for the day with our bows and arrows or BB guns. Sometimes shooting the BB guns straight up in the air, trying to hit a frog in the pond water on the way down. A few times got hit in the head. Like others, we rode our bikes behind the mosquito abatement trucks taking all that “stuff” in our lungs. I tried smoking cat tails and dried catalpa pods. At 14, a friend and I would walk the RR tracks with a shotgun shooting at anything we felt needed to be shot at. Spent most of my teen summer’s on the lake across the street. My brother and I had an outboard motorboat when I was about 13-14, then an old inboard at 15 which got caught in the ice and left. We had a 2-1/2HP Briggs engine that we put on everything, an English racer or a hollow core door, to make a vehicle. anything that we could find. Had to catch the school bus to get to HS. The bus stop was about ¼ mile away and I had to walk a 2x12 plank across a creek to get to it. I never fell off, even in the icy winter months.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

I was driving a John Deere tractor on our farm at age 8. A "B" with a hand clutch since I couldn't reach the foot clutch on our other tractors. My dad told me John Deere made those tractors so kid's could drive them. Keep your shoes tied or you'll get caught in the fly wheel or live PTO....


Had a BB gun at 6 and a .22 at 10. Living on the farm was like a year around camping trip. The house was only needed for eating & sleeping.

 

[folivier]

Anybody else used to undo the speedometer cable when you took out your dad's car?

 

[MRG]

I was driving a John Deere tractor on our farm at age 8. A "B" with a hand clutch since I couldn't reach the foot clutch on our other tractors. My dad told me John Deere made those tractors so kid's could drive them. Keep your shoes tied or you'll get caught in the fly wheel or live PTO....


Had a BB gun at 6 and a .22 at 10. Living on the farm was like a year around camping trip. The house was only needed for eating & sleeping.

Those fly wheels and PTOs killed a lot of people.

I've told this story before. When I was 17, my buddy and I were working on my brother's sawmill. He accidentally got his pant leg caught in the arbor spinning at 600 RPM. I saw him fall into the power unit and a blue cloud appeared behind him. When he stood up he was just in his tidy whities. Luckily his jeans ripped off, otherwise the cloud would have been red.

 

[pacergal]

Oh, my goodness, so much fun... walking to school, riding bikes, playing ball in the field, all the neighborhood kids of all ages playing together after dinner until dark--hide and seek, kick the can, etc. Few shows on TV we were allowed to watch, remember getting our first color television--exciting times!
No breaking rules or getting into trouble, and you obeyed all adults--all parents were free to discipline any kid! They all knew each other and partied together!
Neighborhood picnics, long family trips driving across country to family reunions.

 

[skipro33]

My first girlfriend was in the 3rd grade. (Don't worry, so was I...) She was a Brownie. On the days she'd wear her uniform to school, I'd snatch her beanie away from her. That's how she knew I liked her.

 

[MarieIG]

My first girlfriend was in the 3rd grade. (Don't worry, so was I...) She was a Brownie. On the days she'd wear her uniform to school, I'd snatch her beanie away from her. That's how she knew I liked her.

LOL, that was you. In grade school, I remember being chased by the boys during recess after lunch, and on the way home from school. (There was a lot of chasing, but I don't remember ever getting hurt.)

I remember playing outside, reading at night by the nightlight or under the covers, going to the beach in the summer and coming home covered in sand. I would ride my bike for hours. I was horse crazy, read about them, drew them, rode them, dreamed about them. In high school, I would go to Eisenhower park and play tennis with my friends. Played some basketball as well - poorly. Not allowed to date until age 15.

 

[mystang52]

Great thread. Like so many others, I recall going out to play and not having to come home until dark. But here's one I haven't seen anyone else post:
I was no older than 10. My mother often sent me to the supermarket to pick up a few things. No problem, except I had to cross a major thoroughfare to get there. No problem, I did as I was told -- asked any adult to help me cross the street. I have several memories of adults doing so while holding my hand, of course. I'm still here to talk about it, but it's still scary to think about, now.

 

[skipro33]

Take all the tubes out of the TV, go to the supermarket and test them on the tube tester. Buy right there any tube that failed.

For entertainment, we would see a huge spotlight in the night sky and the whole family load up in the car and drive to find it. Usually it was a car dealership.

 

[MissMolly]

We called the spotlight in the sky "Speedy". We would get so excited when we saw Speedy.

 

[MRG]

At age 8 they rebuilt the road we lived on, the cable that brought TV channels was destroyed. No TV for the next 5 years.

 

[Ronstar]

Anybody else used to undo the speedometer cable when you took out your dad's car?

Luckily the speedometer/odometer stopped working before I reached driving age. And the car would start without the key in it. It was great. Everything would have been fine if my sister hadn’t tattled on me when I took the car (prelicense) for a ride.

 

[MRG]

Anybody else used to undo the speedometer cable when you took out your dad's car?

My brother did. Unfortunately for him the gas gauge didn't work, DF used the milage to know when to fill up. DF was double ticked when he ran out early and DB got busted.

 

[Rdub]

Rode my bicycle 10 miles to a friends house out in the country. Ditch skied (water skiing in an irrigation canal behind a friend's pickup. Outran the cops in my hot rod, pulled into a parking lot in town. When the cop pulled up, we gave him the description of our friend's mustang... that flew by just moments ago. Good times.

 

[skipro33]

Clothing was fun. Middle school I wore nehru jacket and large peace symbol medallion. Back then, you would be sent home for not tucking in your shirt tails and no T-shirts allowed. Had to be button-down front with collar. Long sleeve in winter and short sleeves after spring break.

Principle had a paddle and he used it, but still better than telling my dad what for...

 

[gretah]

Lots of hide and seek in my neighborhood when I was little. Buckets of great little hidey holes.

Lots of bike riding for miles and miles around in a suburb in Southern California starting around age 9 for me. No one worried about anything beyond a skinned knee.

I remember the government bug sprayers, too. The poison was distributed by plane. The radios did tell us to stay indoors on those days and not play outside. As another poster wrote, it's amazing we are all here to tell the tales.

The public schools were terrific, especially the wonderful summer programs with lots classes in art, music, theatre, math camps, etc. Every kid I knew went to college.

The best part: Disneyland opened soon after I was born. We kids went 2 -3 times a year on discount group tickets. With the girl scouts, with a school group, with parents buying D and E tickets at work for cheap. I thought I was living in the luckiest place for kids in the world.

"E Ticket" was a saying. If we thought a movie was really great, it was an E Ticket movie. If a kid wrote a great short story at school, it was an E Ticket job.