Were You Tough?

[Janice]

Way back when I was in grade school, etc. we did things that would shock some parents today if they watched their kids play. What were some things you and your friends did outside that would seem scary today and we actually lived thru it?

Me... mom would make a sack lunch and we would climb as far up a tree as we could and eat lunch.... we would jump off the roof of our garage..actually pick up bugs and spiders

[HurryKane]

According to Mom, I used to climb to the top of a slide that had bars on top of it, and swing upside down at my knees from those bars some 20 feet above the ground. This was back in the good ol' days when playgrounds were not padded and whatnot.

A lot of us used to go exploring the undeveloped, heavily wooded parts of the neighborhood that were full of snakes and other assorted painful things.

[GalvestonDuck]

Furniture was tough...I was just agile. I used to climb over, jump off, and crawl under anything and everything around the house, park, backyard, neighborhood, etc.

[Miss Mary]

My friends and I spent a lot of time outside, not inside. Unless it was too cold to be out. We played pickup ball games, walked or biked all over our 1 mile square suburb of Cincinnati (Mt. Healthy), hung out at our area's park, in the center of our village. Even if you weren't stopping at the park, you walked thru it to see if you spotted a friend. My family moved 4 times in our village, our dad was in construction so when a street was nearly finished he had the chance to buy a home. But he was never quite satisfied with it so we moved again. Good thing about this habit was I never had to change schools but I have good memories of each street's wooded areas. With creeks. We spent hours there, sitting on tree stumps and not doing what some might suspect - drugs or smoking. Although I did try smoking at 16, for one month with my best friend. I hated it and quit. She didn't. She always reminds me of this at school reunions - you were smart, I wasn't! But to get back the question at hand - one habit we did all summer long? Slept outside. We grabbed our parent's chaise lounges, sleeping bags and pillows and chose a yard. Girls AND boys. Our parents trusted us. Only thing I remember remotely worrisome was playing spin the bottle and one girl who was a (wild) foster teenager, took off her bra w/o taking off her shirt. The guys were drooling while the rest of the girls and I were rolling our eyes - big deal we said. LOL If you got cold or tired, or missed your bed (what happened with me) in the middle of the night, you just knew your front door would be unlocked. You simply went home. No one locked doors. To houses, detached garages, sheds - none.

We spent so much time outside that I only recall watching the typical TV shows (Gilligan's Island, Andy Griffith and my biggie back then? Dark Shadows). We only had a handful of TV channels too!

Mary

[Kim_in_MN]

I grew up on 40 acres of woods right next to a river - I don't think our mother saw us all that much in the summer! We built forts in the woods with kids that lived nearby (anything under 2 miles counted as nearby ). We spent a lot of time in/on and by the river. We were only 2 miles from town, so if we wanted to go in to the pool or to a friends and mom wasn't ready to take us in, we either rode our bikes (usually) or walked in (occasionally - that took too long!!!). When we were out playing and it was time to come home mom honked the car horn . . . and we had BETTER head for home the minute we heard it!

Times have sure changed - I wouldn't let my kids have that much freedom (I am a much more worrisome mother than my mom was). When I was in high school one of our dogs (a great dane) was killed out in those woods by what my father figured was either a bear or a large cat (not even sure what kind might live around here) - he could hear the snarling, etc from the yard; by the time he had the gun out and got the 4-wd out of the shed the noise had stopped and the other dog was home, looking much worse than when she had left.

Kim

[rainstorm]

i pilfered a bunch of nuts and bolts from a hardware store when i was 5 or 6. they were shiny and pretty sitting in their bins and i stuffed some in my coat pocket. when we got home my coat jingled when my mom took it off and she made me return them and apologize. she was very mean that night

[Miss Mary]

Kim - so sorry to hear about your beloved dog and a great dane at that. Like you, growing up my friends and I had so much freedom. You didn't want to spend time at home I might add. My dad was always watching some goofy show (Lawrence Welk usually, no offense to anyone who liked this show!), volume turned up so loud, my mom ironing or cooking, or talking on the phone to friends. Our phone was not cordless, it was a wall phone in the kitchen (picture the phone from the That 70s Show, ours was avacado green too!). I would stretch this cord clear across a large archway into the kitchen, to step into our walk in pantry, to talk to my friends. For privacy. When I was given ax extension phone for my bedroom, you would have thought I had won the lotto! LOL

Today kids rarely use the home phone and use their cell, to make plans. But they are short calls. Teens today don't mind hanging out at home, in their room b/c they may have iPods, their own computer, TV, etc. - everyone has their own area in the family home these days (not our situation but many families live like this). In our house, we had a living room, no family room, an eat in kitchen, no dining room. Except for your bedroom, you didn't have a quiet place to call your own. That might be why we hung out in the woods all the time. Similar to your river memories Kim!

When our girls were little, they weren't allowed to spend as much time outside, unsupervised, as I was. No way! I checked on them a lot and intentionally did my yardwork when they were outside. I don't recall my mom being nearby when we were playing outside. None of our mom's were! Unless they were taking down or hanging up clean wash clothes. They were probably inside doing their Desperate Housewife Bree-like things. My mom ironed everything! Washed our curtains on a monthly basis too (but she and my dad smoked a lot).

Mary

[conestogo_flood]

i pilfered a bunch of nuts and bolts from a hardware store when i was 5 or 6. they were shiny and pretty sitting in their bins and i stuffed some in my coat pocket. when we got home my coat jingled when my mom took it off and she made me return them and apologize. she was very mean that night

I hear stories like that all the time from old phogey. They always say when they were 10 in 1965 they stole a bottle of coke from the corner shop, and their mom made them return it and appologize.

Now-a-days you steal a bottle of coke, you get charged. Boy times must have been different back in the day. I think it would really be interesting to spend a summer living like yall used to. No one does things these days, it gets so boring here.

I have to cross-country bike all alone, no one ever wants to come. I bike around the township in the summer, it's a lot of fun.

[CajunMama]

My friends and I would get on our Penney's 3-speed bikes (couldn't get a schwinn 10 speed, they were all sold out) and hit the "trails" that ran along the river here. We biked everywhere...to the "Woolco" (now Walmart), to the corner store, just about everywhere we could pedal.

[beachbum_al]

My sister and I were just talking about this the other day. When we were little back in the good old days we decided to take a rope and tied it to one end of our hot wheels and tie the other end to the mailmen truck one day. He took us for a ride until he discover that we were back there and then we were in big trouble. He was a nice young man who scolded us for doing something so dangerous.

Then there was the times we would climb down this deep gulley/30ft down into the stream which lead down to Mobile Bay. If only we had known what would happen if we had fallen or slipped because it was a straight drop once you fell.

[conestogo_flood]

I do some pretty risky activities myself.

I pull the chord on the city bus when it's not my stop.
I wear nail polish when I'm a guy.
I cry in public.
I dance in public.
Heck, I don't care what people think of me.
I wear colours that don't match.
I dye my hair crazy colours.
I call long distance before 6pm.

[Pondbuilder]

We were always in the creeks fishing for crawdads or going for long hikes to the airport. The worst was we hopped a freight train to go to a lake. Hithikked all over St Louis and parts of the state. I'd never pick up a hitchhiker today and would kill my kids if I thought they were.