Posted on 07/31/2017 5:36:51 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Not as long as you followed the rules. No shots above the waist.
We never shot our eyes out!
There were slides, wooden teeter-totters (hurt like the blazes when skin of your finger happened to be between the two joined planks), the spin-a-wheel, monkey bars, tall swings and all on black asphalt and gravel. Many a scrape and a bruise found on the premises.
We could ride our bikes, even after dark, to the neighborhood shopping center, have a soda, take in a movie, and then ride home. The bookmobile had a schedule to keep and came round like clockwork in the summer months (at that time we had summer vacation from the end of May until day after Labor Day). And the schools were NOT air conditioned. YOU sweated.
In Texas heat, you sweated a lot.
“If you guys are going to beat each other up go outside and do it!”
We rode our bikes to Who Knows Where to play in places that only we knew, never having to worry about freaks or psychos or pedophiles lurking behind every tree.
We said ‘Yes sir’ and ‘Yes Ma’am’ to total strangers and would hold the door for them as they entered the stores, since there were no automatic doors in those days.
We drank sodas with real sugar, not HFCS’s and never gained an ounce.
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We did that also, oh what fun!
Riding in back of a pickup truck down the freeway - loaded with friends, booze, chewing tobacco.
The only sporting equipment we had were a broken bat that was nailed and taped at the handle; a coverless baseball held together with tape; a broomstick and a Pennsy Pinky (or Spaldeen) for playing stick ball, punch ball and stoop ball.
Almost every guy in high school with a truck, not a brand spankin’ new one but dad’s OLD one, had a rack WITH loaded guns...and if you had two guns there was some jealousy!!...and...the windows were down in the summer and doors unlocked always!
Never had to lock your car in a parking lot anywhere!
We could take our pocket knives to school to play mumbletypeg peg and no one cared......................
Going to the library was a place of education. Now it's filled with homeless people and crack heads using the facilities and have their own chairs.We still used outhouses in some areas and trees were for forts, picking fruits and looking oer yon mountain. Now we have virtual trees with whiney tree huggers and google earth. God only knows what would happen to kids with cap and dirt clod guns.
Fast food was frowned upon and when you got food poisoning no trip to the doc but parents would laugh,"Hope you learned your lesson dumbass."
Nights were sometimes spent taking up a board game, reading, learning chess, homework ( with real books treated with respect.
There was the milkman, we had Helms Bakery trucks, we had orange groves and vegetable fields and ASKED prior to picking. We helped farmers redo their furrows, counted cattle, rode horses wih out saddles and safety gear and when we fell it was a badge of honor.
Since we went to the beach we had no straps for the surfboards, we dug for clams at low tide, went for lobsters and abalone. No one drowned because most knew how to swim and as staed we would provide for that evenings BBqued clams, fish, whatever we caught or gathered. Nowadays...well fugetaboutit.
We left doors and windows open. We had fireplaces and of course bonfires with the neighbors. We cut lawns with manual mowers and it was an honor learning to fix cars.
I'm not quite sixtyyears old and the changes have been massive and scary. Children rarely pla in the streets. We used to have special "chalk rocks" for baseball or fotball or hopscotch and foursquare. Get a rope and you have the girls jumping rope and a hundred cool rhymes in the street gymnasium.
Kids were not allowed to use the phone. We learned to be polite or get a whoopin.
I could go on but this is making me sad...looking for my safe space and an appointment for a mood stabilizer....BTW banks were open Nine to three, to five on Fridays and closed on the weekends...
Fun stuff. We had a mountains and used to slide down with cardboard or wood. Top of the hill was a fort and kite flying. Fun fun fun
I remember when all the sitcoms switched to color. Like it was a big deal.
Sliding on just our bottoms on the tailings pile, which was a beautiful iridescent black/purple/blue near a small strip mine. Same on a huge (to a 9-year-old) pile of construction sand. Lied about it, even though our bottoms were filthy. Got spanked with a hairbrush for lying. Ruining our clothes was good for another punishment, usually having to wash them ourselves, by hand before they went into the laundry. Mom had a wringer washer. No dryer except a clothesline.
Being trusted at age 7 to look both ways before crossing the hard road to buy a loaf of bread for a nickle at the tiny neighborhood *store*, which was also the truck weighing station where we waited for the school bus. Always got another 2 cents for gum or a candy.
Being told to go out and play and be in by dark. No streetlights. Walking a mile along the shoulder of the hard road to get to the park, carrying a tennis racket in summer heat. Playing all day without supervision, then walking back home.
Missing the school bus and walking home 3-4 miles along the hard road. It was downhill, so it wasn’t too bad. No personal phones. No money for a pay phone. One-car family, so no one could get us anyway. No one freaked out.
Playing in the creek, then finding a loose part of the fence and sneaking into the grounds of the old nun’s home to pick white violets. No adults were ever there to stop us.
Exploring on our bikes, finding a steep dirt road and at the end was a pony farm. Feeding the ponies. We were 11. Finally, we became such pests, they put up a gate to keep us out.
No one ever even mentioned getting sued. We were told to be careful and usually we weren’t, but nothing really serious ever happened.
ML/NJ
I remember the Little Rascals when they were new, not reruns
Ah, yes - back when we all had imaginations, I was sure that I could see colors in the B&W cartoons on TV. It was, of course, all in my head, but we all knew what the colors were supposed to be.
Drive-in restaurants that weren’t a franchise. Drive-in movie theaters. Aluminium milk box on the front porch and milk in glass jugs being delivered. S&h green stamps. Mom cutting a bingo card out of the paper, and using elbow macaroni to mark the boxes while she listened to the bingo caller on the AM radio. (She’d never win.)
I miss the smell of DDT at dusk, but I digress.
How about candy cigarettes, fizzies, and pixie sticks?
I remember being in 2nd grade (1978) and riding my bike 2 miles to school unsupervised. We would take a “shortcut” through an abandoned quarry. And this was before schools called home if you were absent, so if anything were to happen to you no one would know until 3 pm when you didn’t return home.
I remember summers at the swim club, where the moms sat around drinking and smoking all day, the kids played and swam in packs (no mom ever watching her kids), and the dads would show up after work for a BBQ and more drinking and then we’d all pile in our cars and drive home. Without AC or seatbelts.
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