All of the above except mercurochrome
No hydrants. We were lucky to live near tge beach
I would like to see statistics on how many kids of various ages died in, let’s say, 1964 compared with 2023 or 2014 or what not.
Have the death rates changed? And if they have, is it almost entirely because of car safety issues? I feel that we have made a million changes to make people safer without really making anyone safer. Except, I suppose, seatbelts and similar items.
I feel that we have sacrificed freedom in a million ways all in return for a negligible improvement in security.
I do too.
Once school was out we disappeared into the woods and nobody knew where we were or what we were doing until dinnertime. At 13 I rode my bicycle about 6 miles to the hobby shop to buy fuel (alcohol/castor oil/nitromethane) for my Cox Baby Bee. Mother wouldn’t allow me to go shooting by myself or I’d have done that, too. As it was we made our own bazooka rockets until a neighbor kid blew his hand apart with one.
Younger folks today just gape at me when I explain that I walked to school every day, rain or shine, hot or cold, from kindergarten on, until driving age, when I rode with a friend sometimes. Jr. high was just a block, but elementary and high school were over a mile, all on roads with no sidewalks. We had a whole group of us that walked together, and everywhere we went there were watchful eyes in the windows.
Never got on a school bus until I went to a field trip on one with my daughter.
These were the days when toddlers didn’t know more about sex than their doctors did.
We used to play cowboys and Indians with bebe guns. Everyone survived with their full eyesight.
Today’s kids die from taking selfies at a cliff edge.
They die from boredom(suicide) and drugs.
They also develop few useful skills unless you consider texting a useful skill.
I can remember riding a bicycle behind the DDT truck. The pump was loud and it was like a siren call for kids to come “ride in the smoke.”
If we really had "hands-on" style of parenting today we wouldn't have the incredible youth crime rate and associated violence. The real issue today is no one is willing to "sacrifice" in raising their children.
Mercurochrome stung. I hated that. We had candy and chocolate cigarettes, just like mom and dad! Playing with the thermometer mercury when it broke. Laying out in the back window watching the cars behind us and bridges go overhead. Playpen set up in the back seat of the car and standing up to look out the window. How am I alive?
My mom locked us out of the house in summer. I guess we were pretty much wild animals. A neighbor lady always called us that, and I thought it was so cool. We’d all snarl and growl back at her...Great fun
Practically a wunderkind, Hahn began studying chemistry at age 10 and had fabricated nitroglycerin by 14. Before attempting to build his reactor, Hahn tarnished his bedroom with his experiments, so his parents moved his work to their basement, before settling on the shed. Hahn gathered information by contacting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, hoping to gain insight into the steps of building a breeder reactor. In most cases, Hahn was able to gather the info he needed with the help of aliases and cover stories...
utilizing household items and a lead block as a stand-in reactor, Hahn got to work. He collected thorium from lanterns, radium from clocks, tritium from gunsights, and lithium from $1,000 worth of batteries he bought himself. Hahn also employed coffee filters and pickle jars to handle dangerous and potentially deadly chemicals. The lack of protection, save for his gas mask, tragically, was later said to have affected Hahn’s life expectancy...
When the experiment met its threshold, Hahn had created a crude neutron source. While unable to produce fissionable fuel at the rate of other reactors, the the Boy Scout’s experiment was already spreading detectable radiation several houses away...
Hahn served in both the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps, but only found new complications with mental health as he grew older.
Rode bikes all summer, got spanked with belt, hair brush or whatever was in reach, went to the beach, went camping to the beach, or mountains. The 60’s to the 80’s were great to be a kid or raise a kid
My friend Pinky and I were 12, and his brother Sammy was 16 and had a driver’s license.
We would load up their Dad’s shotguns, rifles and pistols into the trunk of their car, and Sammy would drive us to an empty field on the edge of town. We’d set up a range of cans and bottles on fence posts, and start blasting away.
Once a cop came by. He walked up, surveyed the scene. He asked, “who owns these guns?” Our reply: “Sammy’s Dad, sir”
“Does he know you’re here with them?”
“Yes, sir. He lets us use them.”
He simply said: “OK boys, just be careful” and got back in his patrol car and left.
I just went through the slideshow. We did most of that stuff well into the 80’s.
If I commented on my childhood,
Well I won’t.
It was good fun! I miss those days.
OK one more.
My friend saved up $300.
His mom let him buy a ‘64 Belvedere. V8, I recall.
We were about 13 years old.
His family lived on a dead end street.
We would drive it after school, up and down the street.
It’s the best memory of my childhood.