(Slinging dead cats like a boomerang?)
Kids walked or rode bikes everywhere, even from town to town. Played cops-&-robbers and cowboys-&-Indians.
In summer we an out after dark with our jars to catch lightning bugs (fireflies). Played fly-&-bounce alley until dark. Got called home after supper because Amos & Andy was on the radio.What a nostalgic list that is.
Young people nowadays have no idea how much fun it was to grow up back then.
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.
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.
How about getting on a bus and going to the movies on Saturday? Or getting dropped off at the mall?
Sitting in your dad’s lap and driving the car.
Having rock wars - two teams of kids on different sides of the creek, with a raft in the middle going down the creek. Guys with rocks on the raft, guys hiding in the little structure in the center of the raft. People throwing rocks at the raft as it floated by. Everyone took a break so that they could get the raft back up the creek. People argued about who was going to get to be on the raft first.
Sleeping outside in the backyard under the stars in the summer.
Playing ‘smear the queer’ on the playground. Guy with the ball gets to run around with it while everyone tries to tackle him on the pavement. Once tackled, you give up the ball.
As an altar boy, there was always snacking on the unconsecrated hosts, or taking a pull from a bottle of muscatel used to fill the cruet before Mass.
Bringing the neighbor kids over to haul railroad ties and bricks in the backyard, then paying them #5 and taking them to the local corner store to load up on candy, and thinking we kids got the great end of that deal.
Our parents smoked in the house. Fed us liver.
We erected massive bicycle jumps on the cul-d-sac and jumped kids who laid under the ramp. Nobody had a helmet on. Ever. I can’t remember the last time I saw I kid with a BMX bike jumping in the street, even off of driveway ramps that are built into the sidewalk.
Unsupervised use of firecrackers and fireworks. Unsupervised use of Estes Rockets. Unsupervised use of wrist rockets and BB guns.
Kids raised in the 1980s?
By the way, kids didn't sling dead cats in the 40s and 50s, if you came across a dead and threw it, that was pretty something that you came across that day, it wasn't a child hood activity.
Well, I never came home so dirty that Mom had to hose me off, while I was still a child.
Had to have the wife hose me off one time after getting the truck stuck while deer hunting.
Not really sure if that counts in the “child” or “adult” category, though......
I’ll add to the list...
Bottle rocket wars with my friends (no eye protection!!!)...
Making Evil Knievel style jump ramps for my mini-bike...
Back yard shooting as a minor (unsupervised, but then my Dad taught me how to shoot at age 7 and hunt at age 10)...
I ALWAYS carried a knife (it was a tool)...
Not only mowed the grass with both push mower (age 7) and rider (age 9), but bush hogged about 5 acres several times a year on a Massey-Ferguson starting at age 12...
What kind of list is complete without fireworks?
Travesty.
Drag racing.
In the 50s and early 60’s, nearly every schoolkid’s dad was a WW2, or sometimes Korean War veteran. So kids brought all kinds of dads’ war souvenirs into school for “show & tell,” including captured edged weapons. I even remember a Japanese sword. I went in with a piece of German AA shrapnel that smashed through my father’s B-17, and his father’s WW1 French 37mm tank shell with propellant and explosive removed long before. Today any of the above would get a kid a lot more than arrested.
Lived on a Marine Base as a kid, 29 Palms, CA. We got ahold of a parachute and tied it to the tongue of a wagon. Wind came up and we took off down some dirt road in back of base housing.
We couldn’t see anything in front of us except the parachute and man were we flying fast ... until we crashed. Ouch! Rocks and cactus. Once was enough, we never tried that again; but what a ride.
Building a go-cart out of scrap wood, steered by a rope (those of you who have built these know how it is done) with your friends, and going down a hilly street at what seemed to be a multiple of the speed of light, dodging traffic and crashing into a dirt pile at the end of the ride.
Then, doing it AGAIN.
When it was YOUR turn.
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.
Or Smear the queer...
(GASP!) I miss the 80's.
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...
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.