I am dating myself, ..etc...
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Batting helmet 1950 or so 2 pieces of plastic fit over ears with elastic type straps on top connecting them.
Think Little League made you wear it, optional in HS.
Football helmet 1953 was hard plastic but had single (optional) face bar.
Basketball gym with brick (cinder block) wall about 3’ from basket, with matts attached, bleachers that left just enough room to put players bench in front of.
Floor burn or draw blood, coach would get the 1st aid kit, clean with iodine slap a bandage on it and VOLLA - play ball. In basketball, take a knee and the teams would surround you while you were being ‘treated’ and more often then not, the ‘victim’ would shake with the doer - just get up and keep on playing - All these treatments without MRI, AIDs testing, certified EMT’s on site etc etc
Kids riding in back of pickups,
With both mother and father RN’s, we didn’t get to see a whole lot of Dr’s unless it was school related...
Think the old ‘cough and turn your head’ type treatment.
Naturally, you would cough in his face and turn your head.
Our ‘drug of choice’ was Lucky Strike (they were ‘cool’ with bullseye rolled up in TShirt sleeve - though I was a Camel smoker as 9 of 10 Drs can’t be wrong) and an occasional beer (legal age 18 in NYS)
Remember what LSMFT meant and where the camel rider was.
Course with 1 coach doing all 3 sports and summer ball, with the whole town ‘babysitting’, you didn’t get away with a whole lot of shenanigans.
Oh yes, the coaches ‘assistant’ was usually the shop teacher who would do the Basketball JV (only Varsity Football and Baseball) and a couple of student ‘managers’.
Coach usually had the required “gym” class that all kids went to on a daily basis.
Oh yes the 2 or 3 State Troopers that patrolled our part of the county knew most everyone by name, knew what you drove and who should be driving it and more than likely would just deliver you to your parent(s) on the rare occasion one might ‘step across the line’.
We used to get up, go outside and play in the woods and return only when we were hungry or heard the car horn blow. We knew where the springs were, the water was always fresh and cold.
Remember the playground? We had more fun on equipment most kids today do not even know existed.
When we got hurt it was either mercurochrome (?sp) or merthiolate . The ‘curacomb’ was okay, but the merthiolate stung like hell. I wonder if our mothers decided which one to use depending on how well we had been behaving that day? :) Being the rough and tumble tomboy that I was, my knees were always orange from the above.
I wonder how much mercury we put in pour bodies with that stuff? ======== And you are right. The whole town did babysit. My mother always knew what I had been up to before I even got home.