Posted on 06/17/2015 4:35:26 AM PDT by HomerBohn
I remember at a very young age squishing an ant. As a harbinger of things to come, a little girl who saw my barbarous act pointed out that "it had a life and you took it away".
I'm sure she's a liberal now.
Behind our house before the woods and creek was a huge field with apple trees. Use to climb those trees, snatch an apple, and eat it. Pretty cool stuff. I also remember crawling over the big yellow construction machines. Never got one to turn on though.
Another thing the 25 rules did not mention was being able to take a basketball, go down to the local park or schoolyard, and play basketball with whoever showed up. No adult supervision. I suppose others have the same experience with baseball and such. Cool days indeed.
I loved playing with matches (source of rocket fuel). And I enjoyed mixing chemicals at random just to see what would happen. Somehow I talked my father into buying me a big jar of potassium chlorate (a major ingredient of fireworks). You can do neat things with that stuff.
Seat belts meh.My old man many years ago was fixing up the old family wagon.The rear seat was completely removed and the three of us kids simply stood in the back and held onto the front seats while waiving at other motorists and looking down at the road through the rust holes in the floor.
Ditto
No snakes in NYC
I got my rifle (.22LR Single shot bolt action) at the age of eight.
I was so proud I took it to school to show the Nuns. They all loved it. Even the Mother Superior wanted to see it.
Its a felony today.
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Great memories! I grew up in a small town called Castle Rock and when I was 12, three buddies and I went on a three day hike in search of a local missing kid. We followed a train track - and almost got ran down by a train while trying to take a shortcut across the trestle! We also waded through a pond and about got eaten alive by leeches.
Haven’t seen those guys since then. It happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of our lives, like busboys in a restaurant!
I have played with lawn darts. And the rule was it was your own fault if you got pinned to the ground with a dart because you were supposed to be paying attention.
True about the basket ball. We’d play in our school clothes on the way home, sometimes in light snow.
Season changes and footballs or baseballs appeared. For some reason softball wasn’t part of our play.
Summers had trips to family farms. Ten years old and we’d spend the whole day wandering with an old single shot .22 and a box of cartridges. Adults had no problem with it. One of the farms had several pre-WWII cars abandoned because of rationing. Rusty hulks but really cool. One obviously once expensive in late thirties had a straight eight engine, can’t recall the make. Those we were warned not to climb on because of rusted metal was fairly fragile. Threats of tetanus shots sort of enforced that.
Yeah, leaving two kids tied up in a hole in the ground would have the FBI on our tails today. In our defense we had so many kids in the neighborhood somebody was always coning or going from the group and we really didn’t pay that much attention. This was circa 1954 and most of the families had 3 and more kids.
I usually rode on the back of our flat bed Studebaker when we went to town, usually once a month. Flat bed, no side boards.
Went to school, worked on the farm and had my first public job by the age of 12.
Got my first tickets at 13 in that same Studebaker.
Over weight and driving w/o license.
Had both tickets thrown out by the judge. Judge asked the State Trooper if he expected that wheat to get to the mill by itself.
Get to the mill, spend the day and night inching ahead one truck at a time.
Get home to pick up another load and head back to the mill.
Finest form of recreation was sitting on the back porch during a thunderstorm and watching the lightning.
Learned to love the smell of new cut hay, the smokey haze of oak fires curing the hung tobacco.
Being lulled to sleep by the bawling of 50 or 60 weaning calves.
All the things I did because I was needed to do it, my parents would get in serious trouble for today.
Now a days the neighbors would pitch a hissy fit listening to calves bawling for mama. They might even call the law.
I remember when the only boys in school the first month were the boys who lived in town.
Dang it, we were ALL free range kids back then.
Ray Bradbury predicted the current anti-imagination anti-free-spirit culture we have today. I think it was one of his short stories. I forget which one. I forget the detals but I remember the accurate depiction of the Uber Bureaucrat in total control of all thought and action using the excuse “for the children “.
PS- there are two books that I have been contemplating for grandchildren; The Dangerous Book for Boys and The Daring Book for Girls. Anyone actually read these? They sound like a good idea for rebelling against the nanny state.
Don’t forget the “Mad Scientist’s Club” books by Bertrand Brinley. They’re good stuff.
Worse cars - you think the cars are better looking today? Of course, they probably have better safety features, speed, and such, but the styles of the 50' and 60's cars are unmatched today.
More channels on the tube today and still nothing worth seeing.
There are still unreported rapes today as well as more women accusing someone of a rape that never happened.
Pedophiles aren't free ranging today? You're kidding, right?
The word queer was an insult, not a badge of honor. Not that this was the proper response, but any guy who seriously announced that he wanted to be homecoming queen would have the snot beaten out of him before the day was over with a reapplication of the beating every few days.
There were a lot of things that I did as kid which would be illegal today but were illegal then too. However, cops were a bit more reasonable back then and as long as you weren't hurting anyone or anything, they would generally give you a warning and send you on your way.
And I fell off the running board of our car while delivering newspapers.
Medical care wasn't that bad and it was truly affordable even a hospital stay. The doctor who delivered you could also do surgery and was probably your grandparents doctor as well.
Worse cars? Oh please! At age 16 I could diagnose fix any issue with my car. Today? Today it takes a trip to a shop with a computer and a $200 hit to hook it up and you never leave there without forking over about a $1000. Remember when Brake Rotors and Drums could be turned saving you from buying new ones at a ridiculous price? My older cars usually did not leave me sitting due to the wretched Crank Positioning Sensor which always seems to fail in most dangerous of circumstances. As a 5 year old unrestrained in the back seat of the family 55 Chevy I survived a high speed rear ending with a broken tooth. Todays cars I can just about total one out kicking them with my boots. Cars of the 1970's built in USA you could sit on the hoods. Cars built earlier than that you could stand on them.
Three channel TV? I'm 57. We didn't have a color TV until I was married in the early 1980's. We didn't get anything but poor reception of the three channels and we lived with it.
Perverts? Yeah they were around then some unreported and still today most are unreported. One thing many perverts greatly feared then that they don't now was vengeance done upon the perp from family members or neighborhood men that also went unreported and didn't bring about criminal charges for hurting dear perp victim.
The truth? My grandsons can not enjoy the nation of my youth. The worse thing we had in school was allowed smoking outside. Fist Fiughts didn't bring a police response nor a criminal record as they do today. Today a Fag Pervert can talk to the kids in school about how to enjoy Gay Sex but smoking is a criminal offense as is a pocket knife and no one better even mention GOD or read The Bible during school hours. Prayer will bring lawsuits except those to Ollie in the special room. Our school didn't begin classes without Devotion, Prayer, and Pledge being said. Many of our teachers in high school and principals were also Deacons, preachers, or church officers. I went to a public school BTW. My high school principal was an ordained minister who ran a safe orderly school. The Consolidated Mega High School built four years later was a Zoo and it's principal faced criminal charges.
My grandsons unlike the USA of my dad and my youth can't go camping at a lake alone as 14 year olds armed with a rifle. Either the Fag Mafia will get them or Children's Services will take them into custody so Butch and Dyke or Adam and Steve can have foster kids and be a real family. Yes indeed that's the evil agenda of the so called Child Protection racket.
I grew up in the 1960's up to the mid 1970's in the same nation values wise, laws wise, and common sense wise, that of which my father did in the 1930's and 40's. I could walk downtown in the evening even going past bars as a 12 year old. Because we lived in a rural area I rode into work with my dad who worked evenings and I went too see a movie or two then walked to where he worked about 8PM or so for a ride home when he got off from work at midnight. Today that same area I would not go without carrying. It's now a Homeless Haven known by every homeless person east of the Mississippi. It's a huge NPO with huge administration. IOW encouraging the homeless into the city. For that matter I don't much go anywhere these days without a weapon. Growing up our doors weren't locked on cars and on houses only if you went on vacation.
Today leaving your dog in a car windows partially down on a partly cloudy day will get you criminal charges because the Wanna Be Animal Prescient Nutjob looking in parked cars will call it in. I remember being told stay in the car while either Mom or Dad went inside a store. Today that warrants a DCS intervention or minimal a visit.
Anyone can screw up anyone's elses life for considerable time now simply by making an anonymous call to CPS or for that matter any government agency and telling them fabricated B.S. Worse kids in school are learning how to do this and calling in on other kids parents or their own if they don't get that new phone or game.
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