smoke cigarettes and ride around in cars without seatbelts.
20
Drinking water from the garden hose
28
Every fun thing I did as a child would be considered dangerous today … riding in the back of an uncovered pickup truck on an interstate highway, riding a bicycle along a busy street without a helmet, riding on the back of my uncle’s tractor as as he plowed his farm and so on and so on
39
When Mom sent my brother and me to run behind the ddt truck to delice us.
32
– Went sewer-lunking in the storm drains of Buenos Aires.
– Set of fireworks so powerful they’ve NEVER been legal here.
– Rode an early skateboard made from a piece of 2×4 and a disassembled strap-on roller skate nailed to the bottom.
– Put coins on railroad tracks and stayed close enough so I could see where they’d up and retrieve them.
There are more, but I think those will do.
25
My Pawpaw would take us kids on a ride on the tractor down the country roads. I would sit on the front axle holding on to the grille and the steering rod.
14
Blew shit up
17
Walk around without a mask on
49
Apart from the things I did that may or may not still be under state of limitations which we won’t go into, had plenty of generic outdoor unsupervised play including unsupervised use of firearms, archery equipment, sharp pointy things, fire, improvised fireworks, amateur rocketry, and disregard for warning labels.
22
Too many things to list. The danger started when I woke in the morning and ended when I went to bed at night.
28
GUNS!!!!
19
Fireworks
17
Stayed home all day without parents.
21
Hung out in the car in the parking lot while Mom shopped.
18
When I was five, I made my cousin Joe walk down the double-yellow line in the middle of the road by our house. I told him cars weren’t allowed to cross the double-yellow lines, so it was totally safe to walk there.
Though, in fairness, it was considered dangerous back when I did it. I ended up getting a walloping when my parents saw us, bold as brass, walking in the middle of the road.
17
Played outside without parental supervision.
30
Rode in the bed of pickups, played King of the Hill on the hay stacks,
the most dangerous though was ring in my mother’s Galaxie 500s while she was simultaneously passing other vehicles that were going 90 mph, lighting a cigarette and turned around backwards slapping down three kids in the back seat
21
Thought for myself.
34
walked on thin ice and watched the cracks pass underneath me
14
Gestate.
Wonbs are VERY high hazard now.
Thanks, Democrats.
23
Well, Y’all pretty much got it covered! It was fun, wuddin it?
20
Went to public school.
20
Expressed opinions that did not have the progressive movement imprimatur on them
12
Shot arrows straight up in the back yard with my Dad’s recurve bow
12
Blew up mailboxes with M80’s and Silver Salutes.
13
Bottle rocket wars.
15
Many of the things already listed. Had free run of the neighborhood, including walking all the way around the lake we lived near; 7-8 years old going 3-4 miles unaccompanied by adults, just one or two other kids.
16
Ran with scissors.
14
Played on a playground that had monkey bars on a cement slab. It was a time where wood chips were saved for the landscaping decor.
15
Walked to the store by myself.
17
All of the above
11
Went to the late night showing of movies and walked home afterwards.
12
Rode in the backseat without a safety seat…kids of the 70’s didn’t need those damn things.
Had sandspur fights (playful) with all the neighborhood kids.
Swam in the neighbors pool when they were on vacation.
Shot rat shot with my .22 bolt action, in the bedroom closet.
Babysat my younger sisters when I was 7…from 7 to 11 I was the babysitter, then my sisters were on their own.
Too many others to list.
9
Riding in the back of a pickup truck.
Riding bike without a helmet.
Riding all over town with my friends.
Playing with cap guns, BB guns, and pellet guns.
13
Shot off REAL M-80’s in South Carolina
when I was 10 years old. 144 M-80’s for $7.00.
13
I used to ride my bike to a Catholic high school which caused me to transit through Pomona CA almost every day. I am extraordinarily white.
10
I went to Sunday School every week.
11
Recited the Pledge Of Allegiance in school and prayed that I’d get good grades.
14
Also went to the Religious Release Time trailer and learned about Jesus and The Bible on school time.
14
D@mn, you all grew up the same way I did. I was gowing to put in a list, and after reading the first five responses knew they would just be duplicates, so: all of the above, or at least most of the above
14
Jarts.
9
^^^ going – how did autocorrect miss that?
5
Took a gun to school (grade school) and the penguins never found out. H. C. Lombard & Co. Springfield Mass. Single Shot Pocket Pistol 22Cal.
Neat little brass framed derringer type pistol with swing out barrel for loading. Still have it and believe mid 1800’s manufacture. No evil intent had to show it off. Amazing that nobody told the nuns. But back then it would have only had been a beating.
Played with Raid. Melted candles while home alone.
Fished alone along river levees.
Took a rowboat out with friend on choppy lake and no life jackets.
9
Drove through Chicago.
7
Well, pretty much everything, with exception of when asleep and not dreaming.
My brothers, sisters, and I grew up on a large family farm way out in the middle of no-where TX during late 50s to early 70s. Life was one immense ongoing adventure. Looking back I marvel we all survived our childhoods, though at the time we weren’t worried. My fond reminiscences elicit tolerant shrugs by my children, but outright disbelief from my grandchildren. I earnestly swear that each recalled event is told true. Well, mostly.
IATS
TWD
8
Ernest T Bass
DECEMBER 8, 2021 AT 11:22 AM
“Shot arrows straight up in the back yard with my Dad’s recurve bow”
…I got a broadhead arrow once as some Scouting award back when the Scouts did dangerous things to try to make men from boys, and I wanted to do something with it, so I went to the Goodwill on my bike in traffic and got a cheap bow, then taped a piece of cardboard between two exposed studs in Dad’s basement for a target.
Without regard for the copper pipes for the bathroom sink on the other side of the wall, right next to the target.
…It was my first shot ever and Wiliam Tell I am not, so it went wide and directly into the hot water pipe.
On a Saturday night.
…the actual arrow thing wasn’t the dangerous part, as much as the “telling Dad about it by going upstairs soaking wet when he’s settling in for the night” part.
My father was not usually a vengeful man.
But he tanned my hide with the thunderbolts of Zeus THAT night, and I got to work off the CONSIDERABLE bill besides…
9
Guns were not locked up. Got on the shelf in the back of the car. Took the bus by myself at the age of 9 and ride to the caserne in France and went to the movies just about every week. Left the house in the morning and knew when to come home.
8
After pondering this, EVERYTHING.
7
” Left the house in the morning and knew when to come home.”
When the street lights came on. The universal “Git yo ass home” warning system.
14
Everything everybody listed here. twice or more!! And it was glorious!!
9
When I was 5 we would jump off the roof of the house into snow drifts.
7
I can’t think of anything I did as a kid wouldn’t freak out the liberal pussies in this country today!
8
Chuckie
DECEMBER 8, 2021 AT 11:40 AM
“Rode in the backseat without a safety seat…kids of the 70’s didn’t need those damn things.”
…my mom’s ’71 Dodge Dart had seat belt as OPTIONAL equipment.
Just lap belts. No shoulder belts.
A solid metal dashboard with a thin veneer of vinyl on top.
No collasable steering column.
And NO airbags.
If you bounced your face off the inside of this automotive brick, they’d just hose it out and sell it to the NEXT guy since your skull wasn’t going to significantly dent it…
7
Hitchhike to the beach
7
lived
6
Was born!
6
So many things. We had horses and a bull named Hubert. Bare back riding, jumping anything stationary, riding circles around Hubert who was usually mild mannered with no cows around.
Taking short cuts through the woods that involved walking 1/4 mile on a skinny water pipe.
Putting our skates, no helmets of course, and grabbing the tail gate of a pick up for a great ride. Standing on our bicycle seats one foot on the seat and other out behind as we went down hills. Climbing trees.
As a teen driving on I-95.
7
I forgot to mention riding in my boyfriends old and junky Corvair at maximum speed. Ralph Nader disapproved.
5
Walking on railroad tracks. Used as a shortcut to the local store.
Playing in the creek at wooded area near house.
Climbing trees and swinging on the branches.
Sledding down neighborhood steep streets and alleys after a good snow. Not a lot of traffic back in the day where I grew up.
Really miss those great times.
9
Later on I dated a lot of women with questionable morals. But I survived.
3
Walked across I-295, to go from the Projects, short cut ^^^ to some store, on the other side of that highway.
What a dumb dumb!!
4
What is did as a child that would not be considered dangerous today would be a much, much shorter list…
3
Oh, my. Such fond memories a’y’all are dredging up, I’d all but forgotten most of them. Thanks for reviving them.
Hitch hiking (MA to VA), Roman candle fights, jumping off rooftops (into snow), bike riding w/o a helmet (who had bike helmets back then? maybe if you were “special”, but then you didn’t deserve to be riding a bike). Holding a Black Cat in my hand (stung like hell, and my ears rang for a week). Holding my little brother outside our second floor window over a window well, then dropped him (oops!). Fortunately, he missed the window well.
3
If I divulged that information, none of you would be able to sleep tonight.
3
*played Army D-Day in the sand dunes with bb guns with no eye goggles
*blew up CO2 cartridges by tossing them into the fireplace
*had Funnilator Wars using water balloons, plastic funnels and rubber surgical tubing as giant slingshots
*rode police-auction stolen bicycles off the bulkhead of the streetend into the bay after getting up a head of steam by blasting thru a busy intersection
*shot Estes model rockets at the daily commuter plane
*snuck into bars beginning at age 13
*jumped off a creosote-soaked crane 50 feet in the air into the water below
*almost got disemboweled jumping off a bulkhead into the water and there was a rusted, barnacle-encrusted shopping buggy just under the surface, ripping open my abdomen. Mom slapped the shit outta me.
*dug underground forts in the sand dunes and almost got suffocated during the resulting cave-ins.
Fuck it – I could list more shit but I wanna enjoy my lunchbreak
6
Survived a childhood where I had to deal with four @ssh*le older brothers
7
Playing “Ditch ‘Em” near a very busy California highway at night.
3
Played outside.
Played soccer in the street.
Used to go to the park with friends.
Beat up couple of bullies.
Much more, but some details I would not like to share.
3
BB gun fights. We all had Crosman 760’s, only 1 pump allowed.
Swam in a farm pond.
Drank a lot of water from an artesian well with a rusty cup. Water ran year round and the tin cup hung from the top. Sometimes 10 or more people shared the SAME CUP.
Smoked badger out of their hole on the hill side. If you want to see people scatter, have a mad badger coming after you.
Sitting on the tailgate of the truck, feet dangling, blazing down the road.
Driving the tractor at 7-8 years old, doing actual work.
3
Mowing neighborhood lawns with a 21 inch power mower for money, 9 YOA.
Walking to Sunday School with my little brother, along a busy state road with one intersecting state road, 8 and 5 YOA respectively.
BB gun wars, biking w/o helmets, swimming in a farm pond (ice hockey on same in the winter), and being raised as free range children.
Oh, and hunting the evil woodchuck with our friends and a .22 Hornet rifle.
2
Holy cow, what didn’t we do that today’s little snowflake angels wouldn’t be allowed to?
Took off for the day with orders to be back for dinner. No cell phones.
Bumper jumping.
Riding 2 to a bike.
Playing in the woods and the swamp.
Clackers. The real ones on string.
Fireworks.
Sledding down the side of the street on the hill with the jump we built at the end by packing snow around garbage cans.
You know, fun stuff.
I allowed my kids to actually play too.
Helped make fake blood for their videos where they made bombs out of toilet cleaner and tin foil.
Found rope for them to make a noose and drag each other up the tree by the feet. Let them build a trebuchet.
2
Odin, we let our 6 yr old grandson mow. His favorite activity.
2
I did my share of stupid, but the one I’d like to share is about a guy I know when he was a teenager. Him and his brothers would take turns pushing each other with the front bumper of a lowrider while they sat in a crate on the street at speed.
As he tells it his brothers used to have fights with 22s until their mom would scream at them stop wasting ammunition. Not sure if I believe the last part?
2
Pretty much everything I did. The puss-i-fication or fag-i-tization started (In my opinion) when they removed dodgeball and deck hockey from gym class (a few yrs after I graduated HS in 1990)
2
All of the above, but here is one I didn’t see listed. We would take a dry cleaner bag (those flimsy clear plastic deals) and seal the openings with mom’s iron (yeah, it messed the iron up), then we would fill it up with natural gas from the fireplace, add about 18″ of fuse to the bottom, take it outside, light the fuse and release it. it would rise a few hundred feet into the air and burst into flames. This was in suburban LA in the late 50s. Everyone had a wood shake roof. Somehow we got away with it and my parents were none the wiser.
4
Had fun!
3
Mowed the lawn in my bare feet. But I didn’t do that anymore after I stepped on a broken glass bottle and cut a nasty gash in my big toe. Mom was going to take me to the doctor for stitches and I begged her to just slap a band-aide on it. She did and I survived.
5
Thought about stuff.
Even wrote some of it down.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
3
Riding on the deck of an in-service 8 foot bushhog.
Everything, my mom was a master at patching up 4 very active boys who were free range kids who came home along with the dog at dusk during the Summer when my dad would loudly whistle for us to come home. And walking by myself to kindergarden in the late 50’s thru Cannon Hill Park (it was a blast to catch frogs and pollywogs in the Spring at Cannon Hill pond and take them home) on Spokane’s S. Hill to the house where my wife grew up later in the 60’s. And like JD Hasty we blew a lot of shit up with homemade fireworks. Thank God that I grew up when a kid could be a kid and none of my brothers or most of my friends turned out to be criminals. My favorite thing was sneaking out of the house late at night (usually after midnight) in the Summer with most of the neighborhood boys and walking down over the bluff to Latah Creek AKA Hangman Creek and catching frogs and snakes and bring them home. Two of my brothers and a neighbor kid did that once with one of the neighbor girls when they were early teenagers and walked down the bluff buck naked and nothing happened nor did they get caught, her dad would’ve killed them if he’d known that. The cops back then would’ve laughed their asses off and taken them home if they’d caught them.
4
Would be a much shorter list of what I didn’t do.
Catch honey bees with an empty peanut butter jar at 3-4
Started shooting my dad’s .22 at 6 and was hooked.
Jumped off the roof of my one story house to see if we could do it
Ride everywhere without hands with my droopy handle bars slung down because the mount was stripped.
Shimmy up the flag pole on the front of my elementary school to roam the roof. Once found two sets of football duffels with complete unis and pads. Weird.
Accepted the fight challenge at that Elem school from the biggest bully. The challenges stopped after that.
Rode a shetland pony bareback and fell off at full run. Out of gym for a while.
Swam many times in the stock tank on the deer lease. Something I would never do now.
With my Dad’s .22LR bolt I shot at the high wires running through the deer lease until I heard the scary twang of it being hit.
Shot, cooked, and ate a snake at 14
Took a two foot length of garden hose, dropped a lit black cat down it and whipped it like it was some kind of firecracker launcher. The occasional blast near your hand was enough to stop after a while.
Took a bite of a ripe plumb off a neighborhood tree and found half a worm.
From 10-13 rode my mini bike around the neighborhood without license, permission, or helmet. Only once did the cops see me and make me walk it back home.
Carried pocket knives to school.
Kissed the girl next door.
Had Girls P.E. on my schedule first year in Jr High. Darn tootin’ I showed up for class.
End of childhood at 14? – Dated the girl across the street for two years.
At 16:
Dated the prettiest girl at work. If you don’t think that’s dangerous…
Bought my first car with my own money and gave myself wings. See ya later Mom!
Riding in friend’s `69 Roadrunner 383 and tossing old tomatoes in the car window of a couple parking by the local park. A high speed chase ensued for the next 30 minutes ending up on the newly made I635 in Dallas. Dude had a sleeper for street racing! But we pulled away on the highway. Months later a group of us were in his car and we saw full beers passing over us and hitting the stop sign. It was HIM! We had to dump the girls when we could and left him in the dust again.
Just some of the things I can think of off the top of my head.
3
Oh yeah, we made hand grenades out of emergency candles and black cats. they got pretty grey after several re-formings/re-loadings.
Of course we threw them at each other.
Good times. Summer nights of youth.
2
I was one of six children, so I always figured at least one of us was expendable. As of today all of my sibs are still alive — not by dint of our own wisdom.
– walked the train trestle all the time.
– bet my sister she couldn’t cross the swollen river in mid winter with me.
– jumped off an old tree near the Olympia brewery, that overlooked the Deschutes river falls into the lake below.
None of these things seemed the least bit dangerous at the time, but looking back. . .
3
Packing conduit with gunpowder and marbles and setting them off.
3
Rode bicycles, home-made go karts, dirt bikes & skateboards without helmet, elbow or knee pads.
We were daredevils, and if not invincible, we healed pretty quick.
2
@ Dadof4
Impressive! Us Texans had great childhoods.
2
At eleven years old, I rode on a combine while standing on a small step and hanging on to a thin metal bar while my grandfather drove it harvesting rice. If I had fallen, I would have been crushed by the giant tire instantly. Grandpa told me to hold on tight and I did. Good times!
3
Anonymous, one of my brothers made a homemade mortar out of some steel tubing and loaded it with CO2 cartridges filled with matchheads and shot the cartridges about 300 yards or so on the Junior HS playground about a block from our house. It’s a wonder he didn’t injure or kill himself doing that. And I made smoke bombs in my bedroom almost setting the house on fire when I was about 14 which was the last time my dad paddled me for being such a dumbass. But for the grace of God go I as well as my brothers, God protects fools and dumbass teenagers.
Lawn Darts!! Straight up. RUN!!!!
Climbing the tallest tree that I could find.
smoke cigarettes and ride around in cars without seatbelts.
Drinking water from the garden hose
Every fun thing I did as a child would be considered dangerous today … riding in the back of an uncovered pickup truck on an interstate highway, riding a bicycle along a busy street without a helmet, riding on the back of my uncle’s tractor as as he plowed his farm and so on and so on
When Mom sent my brother and me to run behind the ddt truck to delice us.
– Went sewer-lunking in the storm drains of Buenos Aires.
– Set of fireworks so powerful they’ve NEVER been legal here.
– Rode an early skateboard made from a piece of 2×4 and a disassembled strap-on roller skate nailed to the bottom.
– Put coins on railroad tracks and stayed close enough so I could see where they’d up and retrieve them.
There are more, but I think those will do.
My Pawpaw would take us kids on a ride on the tractor down the country roads. I would sit on the front axle holding on to the grille and the steering rod.
Blew shit up
Walk around without a mask on
Apart from the things I did that may or may not still be under state of limitations which we won’t go into, had plenty of generic outdoor unsupervised play including unsupervised use of firearms, archery equipment, sharp pointy things, fire, improvised fireworks, amateur rocketry, and disregard for warning labels.
Too many things to list. The danger started when I woke in the morning and ended when I went to bed at night.
GUNS!!!!
Fireworks
Stayed home all day without parents.
Hung out in the car in the parking lot while Mom shopped.
When I was five, I made my cousin Joe walk down the double-yellow line in the middle of the road by our house. I told him cars weren’t allowed to cross the double-yellow lines, so it was totally safe to walk there.
Though, in fairness, it was considered dangerous back when I did it. I ended up getting a walloping when my parents saw us, bold as brass, walking in the middle of the road.
Played outside without parental supervision.
Rode in the bed of pickups, played King of the Hill on the hay stacks,
the most dangerous though was ring in my mother’s Galaxie 500s while she was simultaneously passing other vehicles that were going 90 mph, lighting a cigarette and turned around backwards slapping down three kids in the back seat
Thought for myself.
walked on thin ice and watched the cracks pass underneath me
Gestate.
Wonbs are VERY high hazard now.
Thanks, Democrats.
Well, Y’all pretty much got it covered! It was fun, wuddin it?
Went to public school.
Expressed opinions that did not have the progressive movement imprimatur on them
Shot arrows straight up in the back yard with my Dad’s recurve bow
Blew up mailboxes with M80’s and Silver Salutes.
Bottle rocket wars.
Many of the things already listed. Had free run of the neighborhood, including walking all the way around the lake we lived near; 7-8 years old going 3-4 miles unaccompanied by adults, just one or two other kids.
Ran with scissors.
Played on a playground that had monkey bars on a cement slab. It was a time where wood chips were saved for the landscaping decor.
Walked to the store by myself.
All of the above
Went to the late night showing of movies and walked home afterwards.
Rode in the backseat without a safety seat…kids of the 70’s didn’t need those damn things.
Had sandspur fights (playful) with all the neighborhood kids.
Swam in the neighbors pool when they were on vacation.
Shot rat shot with my .22 bolt action, in the bedroom closet.
Babysat my younger sisters when I was 7…from 7 to 11 I was the babysitter, then my sisters were on their own.
Too many others to list.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck.
Riding bike without a helmet.
Riding all over town with my friends.
Playing with cap guns, BB guns, and pellet guns.
Shot off REAL M-80’s in South Carolina
when I was 10 years old. 144 M-80’s for $7.00.
I used to ride my bike to a Catholic high school which caused me to transit through Pomona CA almost every day. I am extraordinarily white.
I went to Sunday School every week.
Recited the Pledge Of Allegiance in school and prayed that I’d get good grades.
Also went to the Religious Release Time trailer and learned about Jesus and The Bible on school time.
D@mn, you all grew up the same way I did. I was gowing to put in a list, and after reading the first five responses knew they would just be duplicates, so: all of the above, or at least most of the above
Jarts.
^^^ going – how did autocorrect miss that?
Took a gun to school (grade school) and the penguins never found out.
H. C. Lombard & Co. Springfield Mass. Single Shot Pocket Pistol 22Cal.
Neat little brass framed derringer type pistol with swing out barrel for loading. Still have it and believe mid 1800’s manufacture. No evil intent had to show it off. Amazing that nobody told the nuns. But back then it would have only had been a beating.
https://www.google.com/search?q=H.+C.+Lombard+%26+Co.+Springfield+Mass.+Single+Shot+Pocket+Pistol+22+Cal.&tbm=isch&client=safari&hl=en-US&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisppKv1NT0AhU0gU4HHSY3CE0QBXoECAEQDw&biw=1920&bih=889#imgrc=DDyFZShs19936M
Played with Raid. Melted candles while home alone.
Fished alone along river levees.
Took a rowboat out with friend on choppy lake and no life jackets.
Drove through Chicago.
Well, pretty much everything, with exception of when asleep and not dreaming.
My brothers, sisters, and I grew up on a large family farm way out in the middle of no-where TX during late 50s to early 70s. Life was one immense ongoing adventure. Looking back I marvel we all survived our childhoods, though at the time we weren’t worried. My fond reminiscences elicit tolerant shrugs by my children, but outright disbelief from my grandchildren. I earnestly swear that each recalled event is told true. Well, mostly.
IATS
TWD
Ernest T Bass
DECEMBER 8, 2021 AT 11:22 AM
“Shot arrows straight up in the back yard with my Dad’s recurve bow”
…I got a broadhead arrow once as some Scouting award back when the Scouts did dangerous things to try to make men from boys, and I wanted to do something with it, so I went to the Goodwill on my bike in traffic and got a cheap bow, then taped a piece of cardboard between two exposed studs in Dad’s basement for a target.
Without regard for the copper pipes for the bathroom sink on the other side of the wall, right next to the target.
…It was my first shot ever and Wiliam Tell I am not, so it went wide and directly into the hot water pipe.
On a Saturday night.
…the actual arrow thing wasn’t the dangerous part, as much as the “telling Dad about it by going upstairs soaking wet when he’s settling in for the night” part.
My father was not usually a vengeful man.
But he tanned my hide with the thunderbolts of Zeus THAT night, and I got to work off the CONSIDERABLE bill besides…
Guns were not locked up. Got on the shelf in the back of the car. Took the bus by myself at the age of 9 and ride to the caserne in France and went to the movies just about every week. Left the house in the morning and knew when to come home.
After pondering this, EVERYTHING.
” Left the house in the morning and knew when to come home.”
When the street lights came on. The universal “Git yo ass home” warning system.
Everything everybody listed here. twice or more!! And it was glorious!!
When I was 5 we would jump off the roof of the house into snow drifts.
I can’t think of anything I did as a kid wouldn’t freak out the liberal pussies in this country today!
Chuckie
DECEMBER 8, 2021 AT 11:40 AM
“Rode in the backseat without a safety seat…kids of the 70’s didn’t need those damn things.”
…my mom’s ’71 Dodge Dart had seat belt as OPTIONAL equipment.
Just lap belts. No shoulder belts.
A solid metal dashboard with a thin veneer of vinyl on top.
No collasable steering column.
And NO airbags.
If you bounced your face off the inside of this automotive brick, they’d just hose it out and sell it to the NEXT guy since your skull wasn’t going to significantly dent it…
Hitchhike to the beach
lived
Was born!
So many things. We had horses and a bull named Hubert. Bare back riding, jumping anything stationary, riding circles around Hubert who was usually mild mannered with no cows around.
Taking short cuts through the woods that involved walking 1/4 mile on a skinny water pipe.
Putting our skates, no helmets of course, and grabbing the tail gate of a pick up for a great ride. Standing on our bicycle seats one foot on the seat and other out behind as we went down hills. Climbing trees.
As a teen driving on I-95.
I forgot to mention riding in my boyfriends old and junky Corvair at maximum speed. Ralph Nader disapproved.
Walking on railroad tracks. Used as a shortcut to the local store.
Playing in the creek at wooded area near house.
Climbing trees and swinging on the branches.
Sledding down neighborhood steep streets and alleys after a good snow. Not a lot of traffic back in the day where I grew up.
Really miss those great times.
Later on I dated a lot of women with questionable morals. But I survived.
Walked across I-295, to go from the Projects, short cut ^^^ to some store, on the other side of that highway.
What a dumb dumb!!
What is did as a child that would not be considered dangerous today would be a much, much shorter list…
Oh, my. Such fond memories a’y’all are dredging up, I’d all but forgotten most of them. Thanks for reviving them.
Hitch hiking (MA to VA), Roman candle fights, jumping off rooftops (into snow), bike riding w/o a helmet (who had bike helmets back then? maybe if you were “special”, but then you didn’t deserve to be riding a bike). Holding a Black Cat in my hand (stung like hell, and my ears rang for a week). Holding my little brother outside our second floor window over a window well, then dropped him (oops!). Fortunately, he missed the window well.
If I divulged that information, none of you would be able to sleep tonight.
*played Army D-Day in the sand dunes with bb guns with no eye goggles
*blew up CO2 cartridges by tossing them into the fireplace
*had Funnilator Wars using water balloons, plastic funnels and rubber surgical tubing as giant slingshots
*rode police-auction stolen bicycles off the bulkhead of the streetend into the bay after getting up a head of steam by blasting thru a busy intersection
*shot Estes model rockets at the daily commuter plane
*snuck into bars beginning at age 13
*jumped off a creosote-soaked crane 50 feet in the air into the water below
*almost got disemboweled jumping off a bulkhead into the water and there was a rusted, barnacle-encrusted shopping buggy just under the surface, ripping open my abdomen. Mom slapped the shit outta me.
*dug underground forts in the sand dunes and almost got suffocated during the resulting cave-ins.
Fuck it – I could list more shit but I wanna enjoy my lunchbreak
Survived a childhood where I had to deal with four @ssh*le older brothers
Playing “Ditch ‘Em” near a very busy California highway at night.
Played outside.
Played soccer in the street.
Used to go to the park with friends.
Beat up couple of bullies.
Much more, but some details I would not like to share.
BB gun fights. We all had Crosman 760’s, only 1 pump allowed.
Swam in a farm pond.
Drank a lot of water from an artesian well with a rusty cup. Water ran year round and the tin cup hung from the top. Sometimes 10 or more people shared the SAME CUP.
Smoked badger out of their hole on the hill side. If you want to see people scatter, have a mad badger coming after you.
Sitting on the tailgate of the truck, feet dangling, blazing down the road.
Driving the tractor at 7-8 years old, doing actual work.
Mowing neighborhood lawns with a 21 inch power mower for money, 9 YOA.
Walking to Sunday School with my little brother, along a busy state road with one intersecting state road, 8 and 5 YOA respectively.
BB gun wars, biking w/o helmets, swimming in a farm pond (ice hockey on same in the winter), and being raised as free range children.
Oh, and hunting the evil woodchuck with our friends and a .22 Hornet rifle.
Holy cow, what didn’t we do that today’s little snowflake angels wouldn’t be allowed to?
Took off for the day with orders to be back for dinner. No cell phones.
Bumper jumping.
Riding 2 to a bike.
Playing in the woods and the swamp.
Clackers. The real ones on string.
Fireworks.
Sledding down the side of the street on the hill with the jump we built at the end by packing snow around garbage cans.
You know, fun stuff.
I allowed my kids to actually play too.
Helped make fake blood for their videos where they made bombs out of toilet cleaner and tin foil.
Found rope for them to make a noose and drag each other up the tree by the feet. Let them build a trebuchet.
Odin, we let our 6 yr old grandson mow. His favorite activity.
I did my share of stupid, but the one I’d like to share is about a guy I know when he was a teenager. Him and his brothers would take turns pushing each other with the front bumper of a lowrider while they sat in a crate on the street at speed.
As he tells it his brothers used to have fights with 22s until their mom would scream at them stop wasting ammunition. Not sure if I believe the last part?
Pretty much everything I did. The puss-i-fication or fag-i-tization started (In my opinion) when they removed dodgeball and deck hockey from gym class (a few yrs after I graduated HS in 1990)
All of the above, but here is one I didn’t see listed. We would take a dry cleaner bag (those flimsy clear plastic deals) and seal the openings with mom’s iron (yeah, it messed the iron up), then we would fill it up with natural gas from the fireplace, add about 18″ of fuse to the bottom, take it outside, light the fuse and release it. it would rise a few hundred feet into the air and burst into flames. This was in suburban LA in the late 50s. Everyone had a wood shake roof. Somehow we got away with it and my parents were none the wiser.
Had fun!
Mowed the lawn in my bare feet. But I didn’t do that anymore after I stepped on a broken glass bottle and cut a nasty gash in my big toe. Mom was going to take me to the doctor for stitches and I begged her to just slap a band-aide on it. She did and I survived.
Thought about stuff.
Even wrote some of it down.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
Riding on the deck of an in-service 8 foot bushhog.
Well, unlike John Steinbeck, I never murdered anyone. Two pages starting at 91 — https://archive.org/details/americaamericans0000stei_f1u1/page/91.
Everything, my mom was a master at patching up 4 very active boys who were free range kids who came home along with the dog at dusk during the Summer when my dad would loudly whistle for us to come home. And walking by myself to kindergarden in the late 50’s thru Cannon Hill Park (it was a blast to catch frogs and pollywogs in the Spring at Cannon Hill pond and take them home) on Spokane’s S. Hill to the house where my wife grew up later in the 60’s. And like JD Hasty we blew a lot of shit up with homemade fireworks. Thank God that I grew up when a kid could be a kid and none of my brothers or most of my friends turned out to be criminals. My favorite thing was sneaking out of the house late at night (usually after midnight) in the Summer with most of the neighborhood boys and walking down over the bluff to Latah Creek AKA Hangman Creek and catching frogs and snakes and bring them home. Two of my brothers and a neighbor kid did that once with one of the neighbor girls when they were early teenagers and walked down the bluff buck naked and nothing happened nor did they get caught, her dad would’ve killed them if he’d known that. The cops back then would’ve laughed their asses off and taken them home if they’d caught them.
Would be a much shorter list of what I didn’t do.
Catch honey bees with an empty peanut butter jar at 3-4
Started shooting my dad’s .22 at 6 and was hooked.
Jumped off the roof of my one story house to see if we could do it
Ride everywhere without hands with my droopy handle bars slung down because the mount was stripped.
Shimmy up the flag pole on the front of my elementary school to roam the roof. Once found two sets of football duffels with complete unis and pads. Weird.
Accepted the fight challenge at that Elem school from the biggest bully. The challenges stopped after that.
Rode a shetland pony bareback and fell off at full run. Out of gym for a while.
Swam many times in the stock tank on the deer lease. Something I would never do now.
With my Dad’s .22LR bolt I shot at the high wires running through the deer lease until I heard the scary twang of it being hit.
Shot, cooked, and ate a snake at 14
Took a two foot length of garden hose, dropped a lit black cat down it and whipped it like it was some kind of firecracker launcher. The occasional blast near your hand was enough to stop after a while.
Took a bite of a ripe plumb off a neighborhood tree and found half a worm.
From 10-13 rode my mini bike around the neighborhood without license, permission, or helmet. Only once did the cops see me and make me walk it back home.
Carried pocket knives to school.
Kissed the girl next door.
Had Girls P.E. on my schedule first year in Jr High. Darn tootin’ I showed up for class.
End of childhood at 14? – Dated the girl across the street for two years.
At 16:
Dated the prettiest girl at work. If you don’t think that’s dangerous…
Bought my first car with my own money and gave myself wings. See ya later Mom!
Riding in friend’s `69 Roadrunner 383 and tossing old tomatoes in the car window of a couple parking by the local park. A high speed chase ensued for the next 30 minutes ending up on the newly made I635 in Dallas. Dude had a sleeper for street racing! But we pulled away on the highway. Months later a group of us were in his car and we saw full beers passing over us and hitting the stop sign. It was HIM! We had to dump the girls when we could and left him in the dust again.
Just some of the things I can think of off the top of my head.
Oh yeah, we made hand grenades out of emergency candles and black cats. they got pretty grey after several re-formings/re-loadings.
Of course we threw them at each other.
Good times. Summer nights of youth.
I was one of six children, so I always figured at least one of us was expendable. As of today all of my sibs are still alive — not by dint of our own wisdom.
– walked the train trestle all the time.
– bet my sister she couldn’t cross the swollen river in mid winter with me.
– jumped off an old tree near the Olympia brewery, that overlooked the Deschutes river falls into the lake below.
None of these things seemed the least bit dangerous at the time, but looking back. . .
Packing conduit with gunpowder and marbles and setting them off.
Rode bicycles, home-made go karts, dirt bikes & skateboards without helmet, elbow or knee pads.
We were daredevils, and if not invincible, we healed pretty quick.
@ Dadof4
Impressive! Us Texans had great childhoods.
At eleven years old, I rode on a combine while standing on a small step and hanging on to a thin metal bar while my grandfather drove it harvesting rice. If I had fallen, I would have been crushed by the giant tire instantly. Grandpa told me to hold on tight and I did. Good times!
Anonymous, one of my brothers made a homemade mortar out of some steel tubing and loaded it with CO2 cartridges filled with matchheads and shot the cartridges about 300 yards or so on the Junior HS playground about a block from our house. It’s a wonder he didn’t injure or kill himself doing that. And I made smoke bombs in my bedroom almost setting the house on fire when I was about 14 which was the last time my dad paddled me for being such a dumbass. But for the grace of God go I as well as my brothers, God protects fools and dumbass teenagers.