Ahhh, The Good Ol' Days

[Lord Starshadow]

I'm not that old (only 22), but I think my family was more old-fashioned, so I remember a lot of the type of things you were talking about. Actually gonig to friends' houses to see if they could play. Playing all day without parent supervision (as long as we were in the yard by dark; we could still be out then, just had to be at home). Repeating grades if it was felt that you had to stay behind. Getting in little scrapes and then getting over it. Dodgeball. Sharing a pop (or soda for everyone else) with a bunch of friends. My, those were the days.

I remember these days especially because I was the ringleader in the neighborhood. I was the eldest kid, and everyone just kinda followed me (heaven knows why ). We would make up games and play them for hours on end. The best was in the winter because we would help eachh other make big snow forts and then have huge snowball fights. We never cared who won or lost, just that everyone got pelted. Or playing snow football. We had lots of fun, and we hardly watched any TV.

Is it strange that I would experience all of this as part of the newer generation?

[Nanobyte]

I'm several generations behind, but a lot of the things you've listed I've gone through. That's life on Baum Rd. in Upstate NY

[Downunda]

Originally posted by ladyzekke: Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.... Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade..... Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

I agree with Saz. These two points have got to be one of the major teaching problems in the world today. Every child is brought up to be a "winner", there are no "losers". This is not how real life works and it's not preparing kids for adulthood and dissapointments. JMHO [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Ladyzekke]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: Great Post, LadyZekke. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] Let me see what I can add. Being an only child with two working parents, I had to "invent" ways to entertain myself during summer vacation. For a couple of years, we lived in a house right next to a busy highway with no other houses around....so I was on my own during the summer. I was by myself and unsupervised all day. I would take my Daisy BB gun and go "hunting" in the woods behind our house (never shot anything other than an occasional bird, though). I played with firecrackers - a LOT! I learned to "light and throw" or bundle them together. I would make "dynamite bundles" of 6 at a time. It was a special treat to go visit my cousin's house, because they lived in a neighborhood with lots of kids and their house was the local "gathering place". We would sit in yard on the lawn furniture, drinking cokes and eating candy (after supper, of course). We would play tag, hide-n-seek, Red Rover and even went Snipe Hunting once or twice. I had favorite TV shows, but there were no VCR's...so if you missed your show - you just missed it. No way to see it again unless you happen to watch it on the right night during re-runs. Some of my favorite shows were Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Wonderful World of Disney Sunday Night Movie, & Batman!. I remember when "damn" and "hell" were NEVER heard on TV (unless you stayed up late enough to listen to Johnny Carson. I remember when Carol Burnette had the best "variety" show on TV. I remember when the Jackson 5 and Osmonds had their own TV shows...and other "TV groups" like the Monkees, Partridge Family, and even the Archies crossed over to produce musical albums. I remember when the really cool kids had those snazzy 8-track players with the "dynamite plunger" handle. Then there was the CB fad, mood rings, pet rocks, and that most accursed device ever invented by man...the RUBIK'S CUBE!. I remember going to town on Saturday afternoon, and my mom dropping me off at the department store (where I would head straight for the toy section) while she went to a DIFFERENT store to look at clothes. Same thing on our next stop at the first ever "strip mall" in our little town. I would stay in Sky City, looking at more toys, while she bought the groceries at Ingle's. I remember how ecstatic I was when we finally moved to the SAME neighborhood where my cousins lived. Our house was on a quiet little cul-de-sac with a big field right across from it. The neighborhood kids would play softball and football until it was too dark to see the ball anymore. Big kids and little kids played together and nobody got seriously hurt. Yeah, we all got our share of cuts and bruises, but that was just part of growing up. I remember thumbing through the Sears Wishbook every year before Christmas, until the pages were almost worn out. Our parents could take the kids to the local movie theater on Friday night and "drop us off" without having to worry for our safety. I never "hitchiked" to town, but I knew lots of kids that rode their bikes to town. I also remember going to the Skating Rink on Saturday night and skating for hours at a time. Ahhh...SO many more things I could include...but I'm sure the "younger crowd" is already bored stiff with my reminiscent rambling....so I better stop while I can.

Thanks for posting that Cerek [img]smile.gif[/img] I, like you, grew up as an only child too, so had to entertain myself. We also always lived out in the boonies with no neighbors (except for three years when I was 8-11 where we actually lived in a neighborhood!). I spent a lot of time riding my bike (by myself) all over, down back roads, trails in the woods, etc. I did a lot of TV watching too although we only got five channels. Man I hated the weekends, only Planet of the Apes or Tarzan on!!

I also spent a good seven years going to our local skating rink (was all there was in my small home town). I'd go Friday nights (6:00pm - 1:00am), Saturday nights (same times, but sometimes the rink would be open all day and until 1:00am, I loved those times!), and Sundays (noon - 5:00pm). There wasn't a day that the rink was open that I wasn't there LOL. My mom would always drive me there, and I'd get a ride home by different friends whose parents didn't mind the late hour like mine did LOL. I miss that place (moved away when I was 16). It was a great place for kids to go back then, you could skate, they had an arcade room with Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, all the classics They had a food area where you could get a soda or a snow cone, a piece of pizza or a hotdog, booths surrounding a wide area where you could eat, people skating by LOL. Lots of cool looking lights in the skating area (HUGE disco balls that refleced lights and left little multicolored moving circles on the floor, sometimes the room would be lit with nothing but red lights, sometimes nothing but black lights) with boogie music blasting. I remember many a night where I'd be going home, take my skates off, but still had that "movement" feeling in my feet and had trouble walking for five or ten minutes LOL. Was great. I heard since then the rink has gone downhill, lot of gang activity and crime there now, what a bummer , we never had a single fight during the seven years I was going there.

I had an 8-track player (boast boast ) my dad was a DJ for a local radio show so I lucked out LOL, but I never had that dynamite plunger LOL, what was that?? I also had a PONG machine for my TV in my bedroom, oh joy!!

[ 11-08-2002, 06:21 PM: Message edited by: ladyzekke ]

Great post Lady Z. Almost enough to bring tears to my eyes that my kids won't grow up in that world [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img]

I grew up with my friends, we all had .22 rifles and would go hunting together at age 10. We would try out for ball teams and some times not make the team, We would leave at day break on saturday, riding our bikes to see what was over the next hill...not getting back home untill after dark some times, We could camp out in the woods or on the a Boulder in the lake without our parents worrying about us, how times have changed. Amazing that we and millions (and millions, and millions ....) like us survived.

[ 11-08-2002, 06:28 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Ladyzekke]

I did the same thing Magik all the time, pick a road and just ride my bike down it to see where it went. Would go further little by little each day. On the weekends I'd ride for hours and hours. I never had anything to worry about safety-wise except for coming across people's dogs in their yards LOL (learned to peddle fast )

[Attalus]

LOL, LadyZ, when I was growing up in Kansas, my sister, cousin, and I used to leave the house early Saturday morning and ride all day. We would take fishing poles in case we came to a stream or pond. Once, we caught a bluegill and tried to cook it on my Boy Scout cooking set, but without fat to fry it, we didn't get very far. We called those "Bike Hikes." When we got home, my folks didn't even ask where we'd been, just whether we had fun. I remember going up to Woolworth's and buying a hamburger, chocolate shake, and bag of chocolate stars from the candy counter, all for less than a dollar. Yeah, we only had three channels and no color, but when we went through Ft. Smith, AR, we pitied the kids in that town, 'cause they just had one. Then, when we moved back to Texas, we actually had four! Riches!

[Ladyzekke]

I remember Woolworth's Attalus [img]smile.gif[/img] I loved their little diners! I also went there once with friends, and one of their boyfriends actually stole a bag of goldfish from there, stuck the bag o' fish in his pants! Not that I'm condoning that btw, but it wasn't me, we were kids, and I just remember that cause it was so bizarre LOL!

I also once caught a fish, albeit a sunfish and not a bluegill, but instead of trying to cook it, I stuck it in a fish tank LOL. It didn't live, but the crawdads I caught did, but they'd fling themselves out of the tank and you'd wake up with one crawling round in your bed with you! LOL, ah the lessons learned [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Attalus]

Did y'all have bois d'arc trees, LadyZ? We used to have fights with the inedible green horseapples that grew on them. I also remember that you could catch crawdads with a piece of bacon rind and a string. Yhey grabbed it with their claws and wouldn't let go, silly things.

[DragonMage]

Well, let's see LadyZ.

Growing up on my street as an only child, I had similar experiences...at 8 years old, I HATED the daycare center, so my parents agreed to let me stay home. I became a latch-key kid because they were afraid they'd get in trouble (there were laws at the time in our area, at least, which stated a child under 12 could not stay home unattended). So...I was careful and spent most of my time with my best friend tooling around the woods and streams.

I did chores around the house without expecting payment of any kind. It was my 'job'. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

When I would get bored at home by myself I cranked up the volume on the radio and *danced*, for lack of a better word , until I was pooped. My main *punishment* for misbehaving was to be sent to my room. My parents never could understand why I didn't mind. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Lemme see...a full set encyclopedia, dictionary (for the words I didn't know in the encyclopedia) and a great deal of books at hand. PLUS loads of stuffed animals and board games. [img]smile.gif[/img] I'd entertain myself during my entire *incarceration* [img]tongue.gif[/img]

My best friend lived across the street and three doors down. We would take off and re-enact the Dukes of Hazzard or Miami Vice in the back woods...we were always damsels in distress. [img]tongue.gif[/img] We'd play tennis in the street and only have to move out of the way occasionally for a passing car. And we'd sunbathe ALL DAY LONG, only turning on occasion for even browning [img]tongue.gif[/img] and never thought about the dangers of skin cancer. We ate REAL sugar and twinkies and never thought about what any of it might do to our arteries.

I'd go across the street to the nice older couple's house and receive milk and cookies or lemonade and pie with no worries that they meant me any harm. Everyone knew everyone else and everyone else's kids. We all looked out for each other instead of just ourselves. We'd take up for a kid getting picked on instead of turning a deaf ear. We'd go to bed with the doors unlocked. And frequently, on nice spring and summer evenings, I'd wrap up in a sheet (to keep the bugs from crawling on me [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) and get a pillow and SLEEP on the front porch swing...

*sigh* [img]smile.gif[/img]