[reagan_fanatic]

My Dad had a Chevy station wagon that we went on vacations in. We never wore seat belts, and Dad would let us kids sit on top of all the stuff that was piled up in the back. Somehow we survived.

I also remember the playground about a block away from where we lived. There were monkey bars, tether balls, angled metal slides and teeter-totters, and it was dirt and grass we played on top of, not rubber or wood chips. Playgrounds nowdays are a mere ghost of what they used to be.

I feel sad for the kids today - our zeal to keep them from so much as a scraped knuckle has taken all the fun out of childhood.

[SledgeCS]

When I was growing up the family had a Plymouth station wagon that 2 of the 3 kids would fight over who got to sit in the back with the rear window down. That was the spot to be in. The only problem was when we went camping towing the Apache pop up trailer. It seems that whoever was in the back would just about pass out. That problem was fixed when the old man re-routed the exhaust to the side of the car instead of out the back.

[Think free or die]

"There were monkey bars, tether balls, angled metal slides and teeter-totters, and it was dirt and grass we played on top of, not rubber or wood chips."

Every summer I take my kids to visit their grandparents in Michigan. We enjoy going over to the playground at my old elementary school and climbing around on the equipment. I remember fondly two sets of monkey bars from when I was a kid in the early 60's. They were metal, and had been painted over dozens of times. They had a very distinctive smell in the summer heat - a mix of metallic smell, paint, and sweaty handprints from generations of kids. This past summer I was dismayed to see that the monkey bars had been removed. One more loss of innocent childhood fun. I'm sure it was some over-protective idiot who decided they were too risky, because I guarantee you, they didn't "break".

[NativeSon]

angled metal slides

...man those things would get hot in summer, I suffered many a burn and then damaged knees from jumping off

[GourmetDan]

When I was a kid playing little-league baseball, the coach drove a red Ford pickup and would pile about half the team in the back to take them home after practice.

He was kind of a hot rodder and I remember doing 100 mph in the back of a pickup a time or two. Absolutely crazy now that I look back on it. We thought it was absolutely wonderful at the time though. :-)

[HungarianGypsy]

When my little boys come in crying over a scraped knee or something, I say, “Now you’re a real boy!”