Posted on 06/17/2015 4:35:26 AM PDT by HomerBohn
After that I never so much as took a pencil laying on the floor at school.
Did pretty much all of that as a kid.
My kids did too, except for the staying out all day. (I would even go down to the suburban creek about two miles from our house and have an overnight camp - by myself. I suppose that would have been around 6th grade!
When I was almost 16 I spent two weeks in the Tetons hiking by myself - with my parents approval. (Although mom DID get mad when she got a call from the sheriff as I had been picked up for hitch-hiking and they were calling to make sure I wasn't a runaway). I had promised not to hitchhike. Oh well.
Next to my house was a vacant lot...baseball, football or capture the flag. Yes football tackle without helmets or pads.
My dad was a chemical engineer so he told me what to do with the chemicals.. Mercury? I played with it...and lead, too.
Just scanning the list quickly, pretty much all those things are still done here. But then, we don’t live in a liberal-infested PC rat area.
Lawn Darts...? My brother threw one and it landed in my head. My mom yelled at my brother for not looking at me.I did get back when I did a ‘I shot an arrow into the air’ I did. The arrow landed in my brother’s head.
Or Smear the queer...
(GASP!) I miss the 80's.
True... I picked tobacco...Shade Grown under cheesecloth...it was hot...now immigrants do the work not pre teens.
My Pinto took on all comers...won a race against a RoadRunner and a AMX...(the Road Runner flipped the AMX driver got scared.)
My town had a soap box derby track we used it for races of go karts, bikes or motorcycles...
My dad, his friend and son (my best friend) used to go on fishing trips in dad’s 51 Chevy pickup. We boys rode in the open pickup bed, usually standing up on the rim of the bed leaning over the top of the cab with the wind blasting us in the face.
Imagine trying that today.
I didn’t see blowing things up on that list...
Dude, I completely forgot about the dry cleaning plastic bags with a little payload of Sterno in a metal bottle cap of some sort. Even back then those scared me. It was great seeing them go up, then you thought about the shit you’d be in if they came down in the wrong place.
When I was a kid I buggered up my knee falling off a bicycle in the street. Landed on a nice pebble just under my knee. The guy next door put in a couple stitches in his kitchen. He was an oral surgeon. Years later he took out my wisdom teeth (at his office). I think it cost my parents a bottle of nice Scotch.
Years after that, I found out he studied under the same Taeqwondo master as I had in college. And had a higher belt.
Unfortunately you’re right.
At one time I could hire as much help as I needed to bale hay for a nickel a bale plus lunch. And for that they worked as hard as I did.
Now days they want $10/hr and only work as hard as *they* want to.
I remember coating silver coins with mercury, they got really slippery after you did that.
As long as they don’t stay angry, I don’t see a problem.
I did all 25 things listed. I was 10 years old in 1969. I lived near Ojai, CA from 1968-1970 and in the summer we kids would grab out gear and head out to the river bottom near our house and camp out for days.
Next to the river bottom was a national forest. We’d explore like crazy. We took food and fished and made fires, etc.
Parent’s never worried. We’d show up back at home with cuts, bruises, needing tetanus shots, etc. And we’d catch snakes and sell them. Shot lizards with our Daisy BB guns to feed the snakes.
Me too!
We used to file down pennies to make them work as dimes in vending machines.
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