The Wild Children of Yesteryear

New York Times ^ | 5-31-14 | JON GRINSPAN

[Conservative4Ever]

Ahhh yes, the jungle Jim...good times...roller skates that fastened to your saddle shoes with clamps tightened with a skate key. A few times the clamps came loose and you tumbled on the sudewalk...more good times.

[The Cajun]

Bought a third hand 1970 Opel GT way back when from a friend, fixed it up and sold it to a collector.
He already had 3 of them.
Wish I would have kept it, was a fun little car to drive with the 4 speed, but he offered me 3 times what I paid for it.

[Gabz]

Wolfe was right!

I wouldn’t trade growing up there for anything, it was wonderful, but I’m happy my daughter is growing up in an environment more closely related to the way her father grew up than I did.

My grandparents moved to the west coast of Florida in 1973, I spent my first summer there in ‘74 and immediately knew I just didn’t belong in a big city. I was 22 when I left Brooklyn in ‘82, and the biggest city” I’ve lived in since was Dover, Delaware, and I moved from there 11 years ago! The Virginia county I now live in, just 2 hours south of Dover, has a population less than Dover had when I left!

[eartrumpet]

My first car was a 69 Opel Kadet wagon. It was amazing how far up in the mountains that thing would go, and come back. Bought it for $100 with a seized engine, rebuilt it, switched the auto for a 4 speed, drove the heck out of it and sold it for $900.

[fella]

Those rascals inspired my generation to get out and do things and make things with what we could find. We were outside most of the time. Fell our of a willow tree and broke my arm in first grade and found out I could use my cast to take down the third grade schoolyard bully.

[Cicero]

Yep. That’s how it was.