Posted on 01/27/2026 10:27:50 AM PST by MayflowerMadam
I was the middle child of five, growing up in Ohio during the 1960s. My father worked double shifts at the factory. My mother stretched every dollar until it squeaked. And most afternoons, my brothers and I roamed the neighborhood unsupervised until the streetlights flickered on.
Looking back, I realize our childhoods looked nothing like what kids experience today. There were no smartphones, no helicopter parents, no curated activities designed to optimize our development. There was just life, unfiltered and unscheduled.
“And when we got in trouble, boy did we get in trouble.”
And usually by two people. Parent + teacher. Parent + neighbor. Parent + preacher.
Nobody showed us how to take a skate and a piece of 2X4 and make a skate board or a tree fort. We just did it.
We picked up bottles alongside the road to turn in for candy money. My dad used to take his shotgun and shoot down a few large clumps of mistletoe every year so my best friend and I could sell it door to door around the neighborhood.
I had a worm farm in a giant bucket and every Saturday morning I had customers waiting for me down at the boat Ramp in the front of our neighborhood. I always had money.
We lived in HI for a few years. One of the most popular pizzas was pineapple and Spam. I tried it. 😒
Dodge ball AKA smear the queer. Those were the days.
Yes, but I think "sexual morays" still works. 😉
We were never bored. We were either in school, outside playing with the neighborhood kids, or we'd go to the local playground. On the weekends, we went to the movies at the local theater. I was an avid reader, so always had books to read.
There was no such thing as instant gratification back then. We didn't have a car, so we either walked, or took the bus to get where we needed to go. My Dad worked on the NY Central Railroad, so the family could ride free on the train. We'd take the train to visit family a couple of hours away, or the family would take the train on a Saturday, to the Buffalo Zoo, spend half a day there, get back on the train and go to Niagara Falls, returning to Rochester that evening. Once a year we took the train to Syracuse to the State Fair. It was always the last day of the fair because my father liked to watch the stock car races. While my father was at the races, my mother took us kids to the mid-way.
We were made to accept responsibility for our errors in judgement. As well, my mother continually reminded us to have respect for our elderly neighbors, making sure we said hello to them first. She also told us to be respectful of other people's feelings...not to make fun of people who were different from us, and to put ourselves in the other person's shoes to see how we would feel, if we were them. My mother was born in Canada. My father was born in Holland. He came here with his two brothers and their parents in 1913, and was naturalized in 1920. My father loved this country. Always told us kids not to do anything bad that would cause us to lose our freedoms.
We knew everyone on our little street in Rochester, and we'd been in just about every one of the homes on that street. Our neighbor across the street had an old Chevy, and was always available to take my mother grocery shopping at one of the bigger stores in the area, as well as taking us to doctor appointments when the doctor couldn't make a house call. It was to my father they came to when my friend's grandfather had a stroke while in the bathtub, and they needed help lifting him from the tub. It was a Sunday. We were seated for Sunday dinner. I remember it like it was yesterday.
There was a funeral parlor on the corner of our street. Everyone on the street that passed, ended up in that funeral parlor...my father included. Being the baby, my mother always dragged me along to those affairs when someone on the street passed, so I was introduced to that setting quite early in life.
I was fortunate in that I had two older sisters who were already out of high school and working when I entered high school. Every Christmas they bought me lovely clothes for Christmas, a new winter coat when I needed it, and a prom dress. My only brother was a Vietnam vet, U.S. Army, Cu Chi, Vietnam '66-67'. I'm the last one left in my family...my last sister having passed in 2013. I have two sons of my own, and my brother's family, whom I visit regularly. I'll never be sorry I was born when I was, or had the opportunity to experience America at her greatest. My only goal now is to not outlive my sons.
Get in a fist fight
Sled down a snowy bank with a suicide saucer
Kiss an older woman without asking
Befriend a stray dog
Get really drunk on “jungle juice” at a frat party
Learn to ride a motorcycle
Learn to fix your own car
Ask a girl out who is way out of your league
Read a book
I don’t think I would like Spam; but maybe pepperoni.
I nearly killed myself on one of those homemade skate boards...
I feel the same way. If I live through eternity I will always find something to do. One for fish to catch. One more recipe to master. One more girl to kiss. One more song to learn. One more book to read....l
We all had 22 rifles at my high school. We would go across the street to the woods and target practice after school. Good times.
Suicide soccer. In the snow.
I’m GenX, and my Boomer parents raised me like this, thank the Lord. We raised our kids the same way. It’s too bad that some parents across different generations took the easier parenting options and chose not to raise their kids like they were raised.
There’s a lot of life lessons that are not being taught today. Now it’s, what color you want to dye your hair .....
Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll…. Two of those three is what f…d so many people up.
Rock ‘n Roll glamorized the first two. It’s one big package.
LIVED ON WISCONSIN DAIRY FARM.
DOORS WERE NEVER LOCKED. NEVER. 7 GUNS INSIDE-——
ONLY HAD ONE INSTANCE: DAD CAUGHT A GUY TRYING TO PUMP GAS FROM THE FARM STORAGE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. GAVE THE GUY A HARD TALK. IT WAS AN OLD FASHIONED PUMP WITH OVERHEAD GLASS THAT YOU HAND PUMPED UP—AND THEN DRAINED THRU HOSE INTO YOUR CAR OR TRACTOR.
29. Watch.
30. We’re all in this together.
31. We’re all alone together.
32. That’s just like _______ (TV show or movie)
It was around the early 80's that I was wearing bell bottoms and my brother, 4 years my senior, was in college and wearing straight legged jeans It looked odd to me, like he was a member of Sha Na Na
oops It was around the early 70’s - correcting earlier reply
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