[Empireoftheatom48]

I remember when my parents bought a refrigerator and I got the box. It became my own personnel space ship. I drew dials and controls on the In side. It was cool I spent hours doing it. When a little older we use to go swimming in the creek about a mile from home. Swimming in the buff lol. Sometimes we would take our 22's with us. Bagged a mean ole snapping turtle once. I can't imagine kids doing this these days.

[Bobsat]

And those "risks" barely scratch the surface of those fun days....

[blam]

I did have a watermelon grow out my ear one time back in the 50's.

[sauropod]

"People Over 40 Should Be Dead"

Can I pick my casket?

[Dane]

Wow, this e-mail describes my childhood and neighborhood to a T.

[depenzz]

I am going to weigh in on this. I was a kid in the 40s and everything that has been said here was true in the 40s. We left the house in the morning and then touched base around noon for a sandwich. Back out we went until dark. We use to swim in an abandoned stone quarry hole and I remember one day there were some baby pink pigs that evidently died and the farmer just threw them in the quarry, we could see them laying on the bottom. We just moved down a little and went on swimming. (hey, it was a hot day)
We use to chew tar, yes tar off the road that bubbled up because of the heat from the sun. Did ya ever cut a limb off of a birch tree and eat the bark off? We did it. I could go on and on but some probably heard all of them. One thing I will say, when I started 7th grade my parents bought a dairy farm. My brother and I milked our 5 cows every morning before getting ready for school (pretty sure we smelled a little like the barn but we were popular so it didn't matter, I guess.We milked the same 5 cows in the evening also.
Oh yea, every morning Mom had at least 3 kinds of meat and we had eggs and pudin and scrapple. My Dad's favorite was buckwheat pancakes and we use to "dunk" the bites in the grease that was in the big ole iron skillet that the meat was fried in. My brother and I are in our 70s and both are healthy, not on any drugs and no health problems. We have the good Lord to thank for that as well as a lot of good luck.
I am not telling this to brag, just to say that something is wrong in this day and age that so many people are dependent on drugs and have so many health problems.
Oh yea, I forgot to mention, we worked our little butts off during the spring,summer and fall. From early morning until late evening. One last thing, I remember one of the happiest days of my life, one day when we got off of the school bus, the DeLavel milk machine man was installing a milking machine in the barn. No more hand milking at our place. whoopee!

[Crawdad]

This is one of the best posts I've seen (and bookmarked) here. Thanks.

[Cpu]

...and our Dads taught us to shoot pop cans with .22s and Ruffed Grouse with the 20 gauge (and not to shoot randomly without a definate target).

[ArneFufkin]

They could never have anticipated the "Best of Mature MILF 3" boxed DVD set and uttered such nonsense.

[ArneFufkin]

Ah yes, buying those useless baseball and football trading cards JUST to savor that freeze dried, ready to crumble into millions of pieces chewing gum.

Later, we found a treat with the same consistency, taste and longevity as that chewing delight ... carrots.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

And our Social Security programs would have a surplus of cash as most people who paid in would have died before becoming eligible for retirement.
Blame it on Pennicillin.

[nutmeg]

read later bump

[Ciexyz]

I always came in when Mister Ed came on TV.

[man of Yosemite]

I can remember leaving home to walk a mile and a half to the foot of the mountains, then hike three miles to the top. My parents never knew what I was doing as long as I made it home for dinner. Looking back now, I wonder how we got away with stuff like that.

[BluH2o]

Recently returned from a trip to Tasmania. While there, my wife and I walked by a children's play yard. The theme of the playyard was a pirate ship, there were rope ladders to climb, the bow pulpit extended up at an angle maybe six feet above the ground (it was designed to climb or slide up or down on). My wife and I both agreed, it was highly unlikely that you would see anything like this in the U.S. (it was well done & looked like fun) for fear of lawsuits if, God forbid, some kid fell off and broke an arm or collar bone. We're raising a generation of coddled wimps here in the U.S., tort reform is sorely needed in this nation.

[arasina]

Ahhh....the memories of real freedom! No locks on doors, outside playing until it got too dark to see, riding bikes with your friends on roads where cars were rare, playing games like tag and "sandwich" and Red Rover, picking up grasshoppers and hoping they'd spit their "tobacco" juice, playing with paper dolls , watching Captain Kangaroo on TV, eating paste/dirt/tar/leaves, covering dimes with mercury, driving a homemade Go-Kart in the back yard, dressing up for church on Sunday---including white cotton gloves in the warmer months---and going for a drive with Mom and Dad afterward...and thousands more.

Those were the BPC days: Before Politically Correct. Does anyone remember exactly when things started taking a turn toward our current emprisoning lifestyle?

[SeeRushToldU_So]

Not of todays kids are wimps. I have a beautiful 14 year old(Cheers compitely) that jumped off a 65 foot bridge this summer.

I didn't know about it until after she had done it, and I didn't know wheather to kick her butt or high five her.

Her mother, and my wife, blamed it all on my genes.

I told my daughter, you lived and you are the only girl to have ever jumped from here, don't do it again. (Amen, thank you Lord she didn't die.)

[ArneFufkin]

PEOPLE OVER 40 SHOULD BE DEAD

Adrienne Barbeau is 59. Raquel Welch is 63. Pam Grier is 55. Tina Louise is 70. There was a summit of the world's leading Paleontoligists gathered just to estimate the age of Cher at somewhere between 459 and 472.

[knak]

We used to run in the fog behind the mosquito trucks that would cruise the neighborhood at dusk. We're still alive!

[woofie]

How about if we just feel dead?