We use to get big refrigerator and mattress box's at the appliance store and slide down the neighborhood hill, though everyone had sleds and flying-saucers! Ha! We'd stay out til our gloves were full of snow-buttons and feet red once we got our boots off! My mom use to get so annoyed with us not knowing to come in when we got so cold! Ha! Just too much fun! Kids today don't know what fun is!
The spring was different then too. In late May and early June we would have long drenching rains that would flood the streets. We would ride our bikes through the water crashing into the deep pools at intersections or ride inner tubes down a nearby ditch filled with runoff.
By the early '70s such hours long straight down rains ceased to happen and gave way to less frequent and more violent thunderstorms that usually didn't drop as much water in total. That ditch never filled enough to float down after some point in the late '60s.
Joe Bastardi has frequently referred to patterns in the '50s and '60s to describe what has been occurring recently.