Posted on 08/15/2014 9:54:14 AM PDT by Drew68
Haha! Thinking the same. Dang!
How about pushing .22 shells into the dirt, standing back about 5’, and shooting them with a bb gun?
One of my dear friends and I were discussing the old Chemistry Sets that we got for Christmas - the one I got was USED and most of the chemicals were gone but friend said what was in that kit was enough to blow the house apart - among other dangerous experiments.
We also had that children’s toy where you could make those rubbery insects by pouring a solution into a mold and then cooking it in a metal device - damn thing heated up to about 500 degrees. We burned the heck out of our fingers making those things - and this was in elementary school.
Parents never said a word -if we were burned, it was our fault for not being careful enough.
There was also the Suzy Homemaker Oven — the REAL one, not the fake one now that’s heated up a little bit by a light bulb - the original oven really cooked things are real temps like a real oven - some children’s toy,huh?
We also chased each other around with squirt and cap guns that we bought at the local 5 and dime - they were LOUD and I understand would get a kid expelled from school if he were caught with one.
But, God did we ever have fun.
Creating an amusement park in my backyard where one of the “rides” was a 20 foot wooden ladder “roller coaster” propped on an 8 foot fence. You went down on whatever wagon or pedal-less vehicle happened to be laying around nearby and landed “hopefully” at the end into a brick walkway. That was one of the many “safe” rides.
When my uncle was growing up in the 40s it was still possible to buy M-80s off the shelf. He said all the kids had them and set them off all over the place.
Later, they were banned but not Cherry Bombs, which are still powerful. My cousins said in the 60s they threw plenty of them.
Very funny. We thought my aunt had it made because her husband could afford a station wagon with power windows.
left out Beanie Weenies, Surf & Turf (still have no idea what the “Surf” part was!) and loads of Tater Tots!
Never did this myself, but heard of flushing m80’s down a toilet...
I grew up near the RR tracks. We would jump off trestles, play around the yards, jump freights to the next town.
We also swam in old quarries filled with water, some you would go to a high ledge where you had to run to clear the rocks below.
“Last year, hidden in the rafters in my parents garage at their lake house, we found a box similar to this. We got them out and started playing until mom came out and said she had been looking for them because they were dangerous and needed to be thrown away promptly.”
We still have a set of Jarts. When parts of our yard needed to be aerated, I would break out the Jarts. Our grandkids play with the Jarts when their parents aren’t around.
Remember wood burners? I burned myself so many times I threw mine away.
Really? We always had fish sticks on Fridays because of the Catholics. I loved them - plus all that other food you mentioned. In the 60s, school food was actually food.
Oh yeah, we did that too, we called it “skitching”. They wouldn’t plow the sidestreets, so if we got at least 6 inches of snow, it was game on!
In the summer, we would wait for the ice cream truck to come around, and get some kids to run out so he would pull over, then a few of us would sneak on the rear bumper and see how long we could ride before he noticed us and chased us off. Sometimes we would end up like 6 blocks away and had to walk home.
Yeah, I’m just pulling from memory, we did get fish sticks too but I don’t remember getting them every friday.
I started having children later in life. I was 40 when my first son was born. He's 5 now. It had been decades since I visited a toy store but now with kids, it's a regular occurrence.
I recall the first time as a father that I visited a Toys 'R Us. It was depressing. No chemistry sets. No Revell or Monogram models (and, needless to say, no paint or model glue). No Estes Rockets, electric train sets, gas-powered Cox airplanes. None of the toys I loved as a child.
In fact, it seemed like there wasn't a single toy that would challenge a child's creativity. Even today's ghastly expensive Lego sets are engineered in such a way to be assembled with as little imagination as possible.
What a wonderful generation of safe, compliant worker-bees we are producing.
The boys used to pour a little gasoline in a metal garbage can and put the lid on. Wait a while, then throw in a lighted match. I’m not sure I ever saw this. Maybe just heard about it. Try to even find a metal garbage can today.
We all had those sparkler things on 4th of July though. Until someone in later years pointed out that the core was about a thousand degrees.
We “smoked” “punks” and cattails. What is a “punk” anyway? They were thinner than a cattail.
Great fun plugging the radio in half way and touching the exposed plug for a minor shock. Brilliance.
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