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When I was a kid . . .

My mom worked, so every summer, my dad would drop me off early in the morning at my mom's friend's house where I'd spend the day -- probably up until I was 11 years old.

I'd go back to sleep when he dropped me off . . . and when I woke up, I'd have Cheerios for breakfast, and then "Aunt Winnie" would make me a thermos of Kool-Aid, a PB&J sandwich and a chocolate chip cookie and off to the park I'd go for the day.

The park was a block from the house. It had a kiddie pool, a huge sandbox, swings, teeter-totters, jungle gyms a pushy-thingie we called a merry-go-round . . .

And no perverts.

Clusters of untrimmed bushes became secret forts, jungle gyms became war zones, the merry-go-round took us to far-away places, kids made new friends every day, learned to get along, had active imaginations. I think times were better then.

Today, if moms have the time, their kids are organized into everything. Soccer, baseball, football, peewee ****. Where's playtime today? Where does a kid learn to use his imagination and entertain himself?

I think times were better then. What do you think?
Maggie, that's the Golden Age the most cynical among us refuse to believe ever existed. Still pissed off about that one.
 
Ah the good ole' days. :lamo

I'll be honest, there were things I appreciated about back then and things I think are better today for kids. To have incorporate the latest technological advancements incorporated into their entertainment experiences is in my opinion huge. I know a couple of kids who were teaching themselves basic Korean and Japanese from the anime cartoons they're able to watch online. Technology has opened a world of information to today's kids few got a chance to experience when I was growing up.

I was a fortunate one I think who despite seeing my parents divorce at a young age, got to live outside of the mainland United States for a while and experience other cultures. Just walking down the street when I was a kid was like visiting a petting zoo as I got to see goats crash their heads into each other right in neighbors' yards, people going to the beach on their family horse and see lizards, crabs and other creepy crawlers walking on the sidewalks like squirrels and ants. One of my most entertaining memories from childhood was watching my mom and sister run for dear life the first time they tried to step on a 3 inch cockroach and it took off flying while sounding like a miniature helicopter. Being from a home where education was huge, my elders figured out ways to incorporate learning and cultural experiences into our fun time. By the age of 10 I knew a little bit of two other languages and one dialect that sounded like a foreign language to an untrained ear. I'd taught myself to swim accidentally while watching beautiful and colorful sea creatures walking in shallow waters hunched over with a snorkeling set. I don't think most kids today get those kinds of experiences without technology.
 
We were the lucky ones, IMO. :thumbs: I remember my sister and I catching a bus in front of our house when I was about seven years old, transferring downtown to another bus, which took us to the local amusement park! We spent almost the entire day there, happily riding all the roller coasters, ferris wheels, etc, all for one entrance fee!. And we used to go sled-riding till late at night with all the neighborhood kids, too, and no one worried! Today I don't feel comfortable letting my younger relatives out of my sight for an instant, no matter where we go! What happened? Sad! :sigh:
I hear ya. I don't know - it's really very sad.

I remember sledding too - we had a huge hill in the foothills in town that was always PACKED with people sledding and tubing. You could easily go several hundred yards, which made for an awesome ride! Now it's "off limits" to everyone - because the City doesn't want lawsuits. :doh

Those places we used to hike in the foothills? Off limits now for most of the useful time of the year because of "nesting birds."

Riding my bicycle on the streets? Used to be safe. Now pedestrians and bicyclists have legal right-of-way to the streets - before cars and trucks. Ostensibly it was for their safety. Ironically, it's now no longer safe to ride on the streets or cross them. People assume since they have the right of way they can just ride wherever/however or amazingly, just walk right into traffic! The City is actually trying to figure out why the past 10 to 15 years have seen an astronomical increase in vehicle-bicycle and vehicle-pedestrian deaths.

"I'm frum da gubmint and I'm heer ta help..."


.....but I digress. We really had a lot of fun tubing, making jumps, crashing, piling on....

And we'd ride all over town and in the mountains, exploring everywhere.
I remember riding downtown with my brother when we were both in grade school - some 3 miles. Leave our bikes outside the Walgreens to go inside and sit at the counter and down sodas. :)
 
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Well when I was between 6 and 12 I suppose we did the usual things like play out all day in the woods, ride bikes, build forts, collect everything, play sports in backyards, and bike miles to a local gas station for drinks. I shot BB/pellet guns in the woods, used machetes, hatchets, and hand tools; dug holes and climbed trees. I think things changed a bit after starting junior high school.
 
We had these great cap guns that when you shot them, produced a very loud, realistic "bang!" The cheapos had paper spools of caps, but these had plastic "loads" that were just too cool. We played war all the time, cowboys and indians, cops and robbers.
 
I hear ya. I don't know - it's really very sad.

I remember sledding too - we had a huge hill in the foothills in town that was always PACKED with people sledding and tubing. You could easily go several hundred yards, which made for an awesome ride! Now it's "off limits" to everyone - because the City doesn't want lawsuits. :doh

Those places we used to hike in the foothills? Off limits now for most of the useful time of the year because of "nesting birds."

Riding my bicycle on the streets? Used to be safe. Now pedestrians and bicyclists have legal right-of-way to the streets - before cars and trucks. Ostensibly it was for their safety. Ironically, it's now no longer safe to ride on the streets or cross them. People assume since they have the right of way they can just ride wherever/however or amazingly, just walk right into traffic! The City is actually trying to figure out why the past 10 to 15 years have seen an astronomical increase in vehicle-bicycle and vehicle-pedestrian deaths.

"I'm frum da gubmint and I'm heer ta help..."


.....but I digress. We really had a lot of fun tubing, making jumps, crashing, piling on....

And we'd ride all over town and in the mountains, exploring everywhere.
I remember riding downtown with my brother when we were both in grade school - some 3 miles. Leave our bikes outside the Walgreens to go inside and sit at the counter and down sodas. :)

Agreed. I just finished a high school reunion in the town where I grew up, and it is depressing to drive around and see that all the places where I played softball, football, hockey, and camped out in a city park have long since been buried under the tide of advancing civilization, and the gravestones all read "Keep Off The Grass."

I got my first .22 rifle for my 13th birthday, and the next evening the neighbor kids and I hiked a couple of miles to a grove by a creek where I shot, cooked and ate my first rabbit. That grove now contains an aging residential development and the town has metastasized around it. The world I knew and loved is gone, probably forever.
 
My mom worked, so every summer, my dad would drop me off early in the morning at my mom's friend's house where I'd spend the day -- probably up until I was 11 years old.

I'd go back to sleep when he dropped me off . . . and when I woke up, I'd have Cheerios for breakfast, and then "Aunt Winnie" would make me a thermos of Kool-Aid, a PB&J sandwich and a chocolate chip cookie and off to the park I'd go for the day.

The park was a block from the house. It had a kiddie pool, a huge sandbox, swings, teeter-totters, jungle gyms a pushy-thingie we called a merry-go-round . . .

And no perverts.

Clusters of untrimmed bushes became secret forts, jungle gyms became war zones, the merry-go-round took us to far-away places, kids made new friends every day, learned to get along, had active imaginations. I think times were better then.

Today, if moms have the time, their kids are organized into everything. Soccer, baseball, football, peewee ****. Where's playtime today? Where does a kid learn to use his imagination and entertain himself?

I think times were better then. What do you think?

Your OP brought back memories, vary fond ones. We were a few blocks from the neighborhood park. Yup, those rows of bushes were forts and there were deadly battles (before plastic Lightsabers of course) as we stalked each other. We learned physics by finding out you could not persuade a swing to go the full 360.

We used our own resources to have fun and it was safe. Those days sadly are long gone.
 
Save refrigeration, to keep the beer cold.... kids would benefit from an electromagnetic pulse, rendering all functions, AC or DC inoperable. Back then, it would have made little to no difference in how we spent our fun-time outside or inside. Today? kids would stand shaking in fear...and look around, not knowing whether to cry or fart.
 
I hear ya. I don't know - it's really very sad.

I remember sledding too - we had a huge hill in the foothills in town that was always PACKED with people sledding and tubing. You could easily go several hundred yards, which made for an awesome ride! Now it's "off limits" to everyone - because the City doesn't want lawsuits. :doh

Those places we used to hike in the foothills? Off limits now for most of the useful time of the year because of "nesting birds."

Riding my bicycle on the streets? Used to be safe. Now pedestrians and bicyclists have legal right-of-way to the streets - before cars and trucks. Ostensibly it was for their safety. Ironically, it's now no longer safe to ride on the streets or cross them. People assume since they have the right of way they can just ride wherever/however or amazingly, just walk right into traffic! The City is actually trying to figure out why the past 10 to 15 years have seen an astronomical increase in vehicle-bicycle and vehicle-pedestrian deaths.

"I'm frum da gubmint and I'm heer ta help..."


.....but I digress. We really had a lot of fun tubing, making jumps, crashing, piling on....

And we'd ride all over town and in the mountains, exploring everywhere.
I remember riding downtown with my brother when we were both in grade school - some 3 miles. Leave our bikes outside the Walgreens to go inside and sit at the counter and down sodas. :)

EW, this topic would be ideal for a new thread, IMO! It seems like people were happier back then, and may like to go back in time for a little while to reminisce. Could you be talked into starting one? :cool:
 
Oh, I don't know about that

As far as I can tell, kids still like to make forts out of cardboard boxes and sofa cushions, play hide and seek, and run around like hell on wheels.
 
Agreed. I just finished a high school reunion in the town where I grew up, and it is depressing to drive around and see that all the places where I played softball, football, hockey, and camped out in a city park have long since been buried under the tide of advancing civilization, and the gravestones all read "Keep Off The Grass."

I got my first .22 rifle for my 13th birthday, and the next evening the neighbor kids and I hiked a couple of miles to a grove by a creek where I shot, cooked and ate my first rabbit. That grove now contains an aging residential development and the town has metastasized around it. The world I knew and loved is gone, probably forever.
What a great line. Can I use that myself?

I remember travelling back to a small town where a girlfriend lived. I'd spent many a day there courting her, though usually ending up hanging out with a couple of my friends and getting into all the usual "small town" mischief you could, hanging out at the "A" (A & W), sneaking in to the drive-in, cruising main, fineagling for booze :) I returned some 20 years later to find it - well, my memories of it really, "gone." You just can't ever go back I guess.
 
EW, this topic would be ideal for a new thread, IMO! It seems like people were happier back then, and may like to go back in time for a little while to reminisce. Could you be talked into starting one? :cool:
Well I *think* that's what Maggie's thread here is about - reminiscing about the "good times" when we were kids? :thumbs: Or, were you thinking along different lines?
 
The rise of the helicopter parents. It's all Dr. Spock's fault you know.
 
I remember travelling back to a small town where a girlfriend lived. I'd spent many a day there courting her, though usually ending up hanging out with a couple of my friends and getting into all the usual "small town" mischief you could, hanging out at the "A" (A & W), sneaking in to the drive-in, cruising main, fineagling for booze :) I returned some 20 years later to find it - well, my memories of it really, "gone." You just can't ever go back I guess.

In the town I grew up near, we had a "Theo's Drive-In". It's still there, and still in business today.
 
Well I *think* that's what Maggie's thread here is about - reminiscing about the "good times" when we were kids? :thumbs: Or, were you thinking along different lines?

I guess I didn't have enough coffee this morning to be alert! 2 + 2 = ? Sorry! I'll catch up...I hope! :sigh:
 
In the town I grew up near, we had a "Theo's Drive-In". It's still there, and still in business today.

I car-hopped at one like this just before my senior year in high school! Fun! And I got paid, too! Life was good, except for the one time I spilled a tray of chocolate milk shakes down the side of one car! :Oh Noooooo! Fortunately they were all teenage guys I knew, and they helped me clean up the mess I made. My face still gets red when I remember it! :shock:

Greetings, lizzie. :2wave:
 
i guess i didn't have enough coffee this morning to be alert! 2 + 2 = ? Sorry! I'll catch up...i hope! :sigh:
lol. That's me all day without my caffein IV :mrgreen:
 
As long as we're travelling down memory lane - anyone else remember getting dosed with castor oil?
 
remember the weight loss product called Ayds?....... they tasted like little caramel candies, my mom would buy a big box and i would eat hell out of them one after another when she wasnt looking...never supressed my appetite
 
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