Things growing up have fallen by the wayside

[Koolau]

Each mom on our city street had her own personalized yodel, and they'd do that from their back porch at dinner time to summon us home. My Mom's was a very high pitched "Ooo-hoo.... ooohoo ooohoo ooohoo!" Our friends' mothers each had their own different yodel to call their kids in. One of them had a bell.

My mom had a three-tone whistle. My dad w*rked most nights until near dark on the "back 40" as we used to call it. It was actually an acre, but he raised vegetables for us and ornamentals for the local markets. When dinner was ready, mom would give her whistle though a make-shift PA system on the back porch. When I was playing (and she wanted me to come home) I could hear her amplified whistle a block and a half away. Hadn't thought about that whistle in many years. Thanks W2R and Thanks street!

 

[6miths]

We still have a bell on the at our back door which theoretically is for dinner although much more often we just yelled. Much less elegant.

Had a 20" bike with a banana seat which used to come in handy on my morning paper route. I used to fill my paper bag then put the strap over my forehead with the pack at my butt and then let the seat support it as I rode around the neighborhood.

I can remember playing Jarts (just lawn darts in these parts). Vaguely recall a friend taking one in the foot. I have a stronger recollection of playing 'cowboys and indians'. Sometimes with pellet guns and real bows and arrows (practice tips). I occasionally tell my children what a idyllic childhood we had. This sometimes includes showing them the scar on my chin from an arrow a friend shot at me. I never saw it coming and it knocked me down. I always think - an inch higher or lower! Those were the days!!

 

[Walt34]

My mother was very good at getting blood out of my clothes. For some reason I had a talent for getting minor cuts that bled out a lot and making a mess, but just short of needing stitches. The trick is to soak said clothes in a bucket of cold water overnight and then just wash normally the next day.

And I have a scar on the cornea of my left eye that fortunately does not affect vision. A group of us were playing with balsa model airplanes and throwing them at each other such that they would bank away right in front of your face. Well, one guy misjudged just a bit and... oh well. That one required a visit to the eye doctor the next day for a checkup. No one gave a thought to suing anyone for damages, it was just part of the normal repertoire of injuries that kids accumulated.

 

[brucethebroker]

- Big floppy "Dan Mathews" fedoras on men and white buck shoes on little boys.
- Obvious bifocal looking bifocals
- Fins on cars.
- Houses of perfectly prosperous, wage earning 30-ish and 40-ish year old people with 3-5 kids, and no air conditioner. How did they LIVE?!

- One telephone in the house and it hung from the kitchen wall
- Christmas lights on the outside of people's houses as Seasonally de rigueur

- All the stores closed because it's Sunday. Except drug stores so you could get a Sunday paper

- The big, huge, thick, Sunday paper or, in my town, BOTH Major Sunday newspapers

Would you happen to have a name for that flat cap you speak of? Or an online pic of one?

How about the "big, huge, thick phone book and yellow pages? How about telephone party lines? Or, phone numbers that started with letters "My number is Orlando (OR) -37651

 

[brucethebroker]

My elementary school had a very small playground with 3 swings, a slide, and what is apparently now called a "Roundabout". (We didn't know what to call it, so we called it a "Roundy-round".) Ours was completely gray, instead of bright colors like the attached internet photo.

On the weekends, we would climb over the 9-10 ft tall chain link fence and play on the play equipment, especially the roundy-round. Never got caught, or chastised! That was such fun.

I loved that doggone roundy-round! Here's a random photo of one that I got off of the Wikipedia entry:

Older kids would stand along side, grabbing and pushing the standing bars, spinning the roundy-round (carousel in my neck of the woods), faster, and faster. Then laugh at the "drunken" smaller kids as they walked away.

 

[W2R]

Older kids would stand along side, grabbing and pushing the standing bars, spinning the roundy-round (carousel in my neck of the woods), faster, and faster. Then laugh at the "drunken" smaller kids as they walked away.

Yes!!! I had forgotten about that. It was so much fun.

 

[corn18]

The Sears catalogue. Especially the Christmas one. That was awesome.

 

[razztazz]

How about the "big, huge, thick phone book and yellow pages? How about telephone party lines? Or, phone numbers that started with letters "My number is Orlando (OR) -37651

I Remember the letter-Telephone numbers. I even remember some jingles from local business.

I remember the thousand+ page phone books. Came in handy when I was too big for the booster chair but not quite big enough to sit at the big people's table for dinner without some help

I was later surprised to find out those huge phone books were a "big city" thing and that there were places in this world with skinny little phone books or had white and yellow pages in one book instead of 2 separate ones.

 

[GenXguy]

How about the "big, huge, thick phone book and yellow pages? How about telephone party lines? Or, phone numbers that started with letters "My number is Orlando (OR) -37651

That party lines were mentioned in several earlier posts. We had a party line with one neighbor back in the 70's.

 

[mbooth]

Davey Crockett was a favorite tv show and everyone wanted a coonskin cap and fringed jacket.

This has been a fun thread. Thanks Street

Hooo boy, this rang a bell for me! Born in 1954, at around age four or five, I was at a family wedding for an 'elderly' aunt, aged 24 if memory serves. It was conducted in a quaint old English country church, the sort of thing you'd see in say, Midsommer Murders At a particularly quiet and solemn part of the proceedings, came this perfectly out-of-tune, but delivered with youthful gusto, chorus-opening "Daavvy...Daavvy Crockett...king of the wild frontier!!"

My parents, bright-red faced, rushed me outside to the assembled multitude's uproarious laughter This anecdote has naturally passed into family-lore

Cheers - Mick

 

[travelover]

That party lines were mentioned in several earlier posts. We had a party line with one neighbor back in the 70's.

We did, too. As a teenager, I bought a handset at Radioshack and hooked it up as a second phone, which was against the rules back then. I got caught when my long distance calls got billed to the neighbor.

 

[pjigar]

We called it bumper skiing.

We did bumper cycling holding on to buses and like!

 

[Dtail]

My elementary school had a very small playground with 3 swings, a slide, and what is apparently now called a "Roundabout". (We didn't know what to call it, so we called it a "Roundy-round".) Ours was completely gray, instead of bright colors like the attached internet photo.

On the weekends, we would climb over the 9-10 ft tall chain link fence and play on the play equipment, especially the roundy-round. Never got caught, or chastised! That was such fun.

I loved that doggone roundy-round! Here's a random photo of one that I got off of the Wikipedia entry:

I also loved the roundy round, although could feel a little sick if going on it for too long and too fast.
Safer than the monkey bars.

 

[travelover]

I also loved the roundy round, although could feel a little sick if going on it for too long and too fast.
Safer than the monkey bars.

A little different now.

 

[JoeWras]

Everything was dangerous in the playgrounds I played at. Everything. Even saw-saws. Especially see-saws. And it was all a lot of fun and great learning experience!

It is all banned now, except in Europe, apparently.

Accidents I remember, and today's solution:

• Metal slide without cover. Accident: burned the daylights out of our thighs. Solution: covered and plastic
• Metal slide without cover. Accident: when older, you run up the slide as a show of prowess. You fall off and break arm. Solution: covered and plastic.
• Metal slide with metal step ladder. Accident: slip on step, face falls on step, front tooth jammed up into gums. Solution: no metal steps. Really, no traditional steps or ladders at all.
• Baby swing, complete with safety bar! Accident: us kids just trying to push it so fast (empty!) it loops over the top, and someone got beaned in the head by the metal and wood seat. Solution: banned
• Monkey bars, jungle bars. Accident: multiple falls and broken bones. Solution: banned
• Gymnast style rings for the old kids. Accident: take a guess. Solution: banned
• Roundy-round. Accident: let's get the big kids to spin us wildly (no motorcycles required). We flew off and got skinned everything. Solution: banned
• See-saw. Accident: ride that thing like a crazy man! Young brother comes over and gets under and beaned on head, needs stitches. Solution: banned
• Springy horses. Accident: young siblings come over and stick hand in spring while in action. Solution: banned

We also had a HUGE sandbox where I believe every kid, cat and rat played, excreted or lived at one time. This was an excellent way to train our immune system.

 

[pacergal]

[/LIST]
We also had a HUGE sandbox where I believe every kid, cat and rat played, excreted or lived at one time. This was an excellent way to train our immune system.

Oh yes, the public sand box! It was a great way to build immunity.

 

[Turbo29]

Everything was dangerous in the playgrounds I played at. Everything. Even saw-saws. Especially see-saws. And it was all a lot of fun and great learning experience!

It is all banned now, except in Europe, apparently.

Accidents I remember, and today's solution:

• Metal slide without cover. Accident: burned the daylights out of our thighs. Solution: covered and plastic
• Metal slide without cover. Accident: when older, you run up the slide as a show of prowess. You fall off and break arm. Solution: covered and plastic.
• Metal slide with metal step ladder. Accident: slip on step, face falls on step, front tooth jammed up into gums. Solution: no metal steps. Really, no traditional steps or ladders at all.
• Baby swing, complete with safety bar! Accident: us kids just trying to push it so fast (empty!) it loops over the top, and someone got beaned in the head by the metal and wood seat. Solution: banned
• Monkey bars, jungle bars. Accident: multiple falls and broken bones. Solution: banned
• Gymnast style rings for the old kids. Accident: take a guess. Solution: banned
• Roundy-round. Accident: let's get the big kids to spin us wildly (no motorcycles required). We flew off and got skinned everything. Solution: banned
• See-saw. Accident: ride that thing like a crazy man! Young brother comes over and gets under and beaned on head, needs stitches. Solution: banned
• Springy horses. Accident: young siblings come over and stick hand in spring while in action. Solution: banned

We also had a HUGE sandbox where I believe every kid, cat and rat played, excreted or lived at one time. This was an excellent way to train our immune system.

When I was a kid there was a jungle gym type thing shaped like a submarine complete with a "periscope" that you could use as a pole to slide down into the interior of the "submarine." One day sliding down, I whacked the back of my head on entry hole to the submarine and got a nice trip to the emergency room.

I also remember being at the park and having my younger sister (~4 or 5yo at the most) climb up to the top of the slide and then start screaming, "Look, I'm a monkey, I'm a monkey." Then she fell off, fortunately into sand, and miraculously escaped unharmed.

 

[Marita40]

Hair rollers in a hair roller caddy, bobby pins, Aquanet hairspray, Tame cream rinse, pink tape to shape bangs and sideburns. The latter could be painful to peal off the next morning.

 

[Marita40]

Chatty Cathy. She speaks in one of those odd movie star of the 1950s accents:

 

[Pellice]

About those playgrounds ... ours were actually asphault! Sounds so stupid now, I wonder what people were thinking? I fell off of something or other and got a concussion at one point ... nobody ever thought of suing.

 

[Koolau]

Everything was dangerous in the playgrounds I played at. Everything. Even saw-saws. Especially see-saws. And it was all a lot of fun and great learning experience!

It is all banned now, except in Europe, apparently.

Accidents I remember, and today's solution:

• Metal slide without cover. Accident: burned the daylights out of our thighs. Solution: covered and plastic
• Metal slide without cover. Accident: when older, you run up the slide as a show of prowess. You fall off and break arm. Solution: covered and plastic.
• Metal slide with metal step ladder. Accident: slip on step, face falls on step, front tooth jammed up into gums. Solution: no metal steps. Really, no traditional steps or ladders at all.
• Baby swing, complete with safety bar! Accident: us kids just trying to push it so fast (empty!) it loops over the top, and someone got beaned in the head by the metal and wood seat. Solution: banned
• Monkey bars, jungle bars. Accident: multiple falls and broken bones. Solution: banned
• Gymnast style rings for the old kids. Accident: take a guess. Solution: banned
• Roundy-round. Accident: let's get the big kids to spin us wildly (no motorcycles required). We flew off and got skinned everything. Solution: banned
• See-saw. Accident: ride that thing like a crazy man! Young brother comes over and gets under and beaned on head, needs stitches. Solution: banned
• Springy horses. Accident: young siblings come over and stick hand in spring while in action. Solution: banned

We also had a HUGE sandbox where I believe every kid, cat and rat played, excreted or lived at one time. This was an excellent way to train our immune system.

We had a May Poll which was handles on chains suspended from a central hub. Those flying handles could (and did) cause serious injuries. What a rush!

 

[street]

I remember the drug store which we went down after baseball practice and had a 5¢ root beer which was a squirt of syrup and water. They had that tray of assorted nuts that turned and was incased by glass. Ten there was the 25¢ for 3 comic books if I remember right. Baseball cards and a stick of gum they sold there too.

Just lost an old friend that his dad owned and operated that drug store. He was 63 played golf with his buddies on the 15th and died on the 16th. His last round golf.

 

[Koolau]

I remember the drug store which we went down after baseball practice and had a 5¢ root beer which was a squirt of syrup and water. They had that tray of assorted nuts that turned and was incased by glass. Ten there was the 25¢ for 3 comic books if I remember right. Baseball cards and a stick of gum they sold there too.

Just lost an old friend that his dad owned and operated that drug store. He was 63 played golf with his buddies on the 15th and died on the 16th. His last round golf.

Ah, yes! I recall going 3 blocks to the local drug store, sitting at the counter, ordering a 5cent Coke or Green river and reading half a dozen 10cent comics - before returning them to the rack. Heady days indeed.

 

[street]

Ah, yes! I recall going 3 blocks to the local drug store, sitting at the counter, ordering a 5cent Coke or Green river and reading half a dozen 10cent comics - before returning them to the rack. Heady days indeed.

Sitting at the counter on that swivel round padded seat. Lol I believe there was maybe 6 seats at the most in that small drug store. Sad to see those days are gone and those stores.

 

[6miths]

To Boldly Go...

We had this at one of our local parks. Along with all of the other very dangerous things. Except for the spring horses for some reason. A park near our current home still has a couple of those though along with a sled like thing that seats about 8 and rocks back and forth. I'm not sure how it hasn't been removed as it looks like it could crush feet or knock a kid who got in front of it into next week.