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.
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.
Next to my house was a vacant lot...baseball, football or capture the flag. Yes football tackle without helmets or pads.