Posted on 06/13/2014 9:42:55 AM PDT by grundle
Fun stuff! I remember a lot of it. My cousins and I had a playhouse their dad constructed out of lumber. We loved to walk to the nearby grocery store and buy sugary cereal, then come back and eat it dry. Sometimes we’d follow it with chasers of Pixi-Stix (more sugar).
We had one of those big round free-standing pools in the backyard, and we were in that thing every day in the summer. I had a cat that used to jump in and swim laps.
My husband used to get dropped off at the movies with his friends and/or siblings and cousins, and they used to sneak in and out of movies.
But I thought Hart to Hart was an ‘80s show.
“6. Make stuff, like from stuff you find. No trips to Hobby Lobby for pre-cut, pre-stuck, pre-fabricated crafts. Find crap in the garage and assemble it into something you can play with. No, you cant Google how to do it. Ropes are fun.”
I lived in an apartment. My friends and I would get together and do stuff all summer. Being I lived 5 minutes from the beach, we would meet outside, each armed with only a towel and a dollar and hang out all day. We would ride the waves, and go nuts when we heard’ “hot Knishes, cold soda here.” If we dared, we would try to sneak into Brighton Beach Baths.
My favorite was what we could build and play with until one of us got hurt. We took a wooden milk crate, attached it to a 2 by 4, added wheels and we had a go cart. No hammers, no tools. We used a rock to bang in the nails we took from other crap we found. The only street with an incline became our track, regardless of traffic pattern. That was the turn off from the belt parkway to ocean pkwy south bound.
In 1970 I broke my arm falling out of a tree while building a tree house. We used the same wood and nails. Spent a whole night at Coney Island Hospital. Today DYFS would have taken me and prosecuted my parents for child abuse. Two weeks earlier I was there after opening up my chin racing go carts.
Oh, and there were no helmets and we survived.
In the early 50s, I remember getting up in the morning, throwing on some shorts and heading outside. Out there ALL day long. I’d sometimes get miles away from home, and my mom never once got in the car and went looking for me. Most of this I remember before I even started the 1st grade.
We grew up in a safer place and better time.
I remember 1970. Northwestern University students blockaded Sheridan Road. The neighbor’s son was killed in Vietnam as was my teacher’s husband. Another returned and spent all his back pay on a Boss 302 which he and his friends raced up and down the street, drunk and crazy until they blew it up.
Lovely summer.
You might be surprised that this was in Prince Georges County, Maryland.
I wouldn’t even drive through there without my 1911 now.
Realize how much more music is available to you today.
WOW, I guess I was fortunate to live here in childhood...creeks, rivers, mountains and no crazy enviromental nutcases keeping you from having fun.
Sure enough...same for riding unsecured and unbelted in the back of a station wagon.
We used to bike 8-10 miles to get to the multiplex and see 4-5 movies on a Saturday. Then bike home.
As you say. Different time. PGC and DC did not become what it is now until later. People there then all worked and paid taxes.
In one sleepaway camp I wrote home every day about the miserable time I was having and the abuse I took from camoers and counselors.
_____________________________________
Hello Mother Hello Father
Here I am at Camp somethingorother
Camp is very entertaining
and they say we’ll have some fun if it stops raining...
etc
Take me home oh Mother Father
Take me home I hate ?Renada?
Don’t leave me out in the forest where
I might get eaten by a bear..
Take me home I promise that I wont make noise
or mess the house with other boys
Oh please don’t make me stay
I cant bear one more day...
:)
I’m 64 years-old. I would pay a great deal of money to prevent my kids from having a summer such as I had in the ‘70’s.
Not to say I didn’t have a good time, mind you but...
True, and we were taught to do the same.
I’m the same age and have three grand daughters. One weekend all three were here and just playing video games and carping and fighting with each other.
I told each one to go to my small kitchen and get the biggest metal pot they could find. I told them to open up the drawer next to the stove and get the biggest spoon, ladle or spatula they could find.
I then told them to come sit down in the living room and have at it. 30 minutes of nonstop jamming ensued.
Wow, where was that camp? That’s horrible. Too expensive these days to send them and have them be miserable. They have to really, really want to go.
2.have pretend wars with neighborhood kids....put apples on the end of sharp sticks and fling them at each other..
3.catch lightning bugs in a canning jar...
4.drink orange soda from glass bottles..
5.need money/..scour the roads for returnable glass soda bottles..
6.go catch minnows in the crik so you can use them for bait to catch big fish at the big lake...
...some of things are more 60's....and that crik was probably pcb contaminated because it bordered a dump....but hey, we're all still here...
If you are 64 now, then you weren’t a child in the 70s. Guess the “fun” had been long gone by then.
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