(Slinging dead cats like a boomerang?)
Kids walked or rode bikes everywhere, even from town to town. Played cops-&-robbers and cowboys-&-Indians.
In summer we an out after dark with our jars to catch lightning bugs (fireflies). Played fly-&-bounce alley until dark. Got called home after supper because Amos & Andy was on the radio.What a nostalgic list that is.
Young people nowadays have no idea how much fun it was to grow up back then.
Memories...
Did it all, except throw rocks at snakes in rivers. We didn’t have snakes in rivers where I grew up. We did everything else though and then some.
Young adults these days need to be coddled, it’s quite tiresome to me.
Nowadays, someone would have my parents arrested for abandoning their child.
Yup, did all those things on the list except having a real gun (we did have cap guns with those little strips that popped) and walking to school alone (only because I had a twin sister who walked with me). And it was that sister who jumped off the roof (it was only a little one story one over the porch) — it was when we put on a neighborhood skit and she was the Wicked Witch and that’s how we made her dramatically “appear” out of thin air!)
I have not seen a non-adult cut their grass in years. Using a lawnmower is too dangerous for kids.
I do remember packing a sandwich so that I could ride my bike with my friends from Hampton, VA to Yorktown, VA so that we could run and play on the battle grounds. And we all got home before dark and had no adults with us.
I also remember a Maryland State Trooper pulling my dad over to let him know that we’d left my brother behind in the Stuckey’s restaurant after finishing our meal. No tickets or problems from the police, they just wanted to be helpful.
Wow.
I think I did the entire list.
We even played, "doctor".
After a particularly nasty cut from sliding down a metal pole (nothing real serious, just blood, no stitches), mom made an appointment at the doctor for a tetanus shot. I bicycled myself to the appointment. Nobody batted an eye at unaccompanied 10 year old showing up at the doctor's office for an appointment.
how about various activities with:
a WHAMMO sling shot
firecrackers, and maybe a frog or two
crow hunting using the neighbors cat as bait
i could go on, but it gets worse.....
Preparedness Nut-Job Conspiracy (to make us soft and dependent) Nanny State PING!
I made my own fireworks from reloading powder I bought, no questions asked, from the hardware store.
Did most of the list.
Carried a pocketknife to school in the 60 and 70s without any problems but was nearly fired in the 90s for having a small Swiss Army pocketknife tool on my keychain ...while working in a warehouse having dozens of box cutter knives with unguarded 6 inch blades laying on work tables there!!!!
We have institutionalized stupidity as the norm.
I had the unique experience of growing up by Love Field, a former Army Air Corps base in the late 1950’s. There were old warplanes parked just off the road going around the base. We played in most of them.
Our favorite group was a row of a out a dozen B 17’s parked in a row. The only thing between us and them was a three strand barb wire fence.
All the manual flying controls still worked.
A maintenance crew drove by while we were in them one afternoon while we were in one. We knew we were in trouble when one of the men walked over to us. All he said was, “Have fun, and don’t get hurt.”
Did them all! I had so many bike accidents that I have lost count. I still to this day have a few scars from them. We all thought we were Evil Kneival back then. LOL.
23 of 25...
How about these? Biking with friends for 2 weeks, going on an airplane alone? (used to go to a private school, so every September I flew when I was 11), hang out at the mall, build a treefort (not a tree house) with scrap wood in a woods?
My brother used to make me sit in the basement and load shotgun shells for him.
Once I made a full rack he took me water skiing. Good times!
“13.Throwing rocks at snakes in the river”
Water moccasins breed in the spring in a large thrashing wad out in the water.
Imagine how angry they are after getting a treble hook in their side and dragged onto the bank by a fishing rod and then bludgeoned by a baseball bat?
Guilty on all counts. I remember one of the coolest things we ever did was to build a monster slingshot with surgical tubing and a funnel which took 3 of us to operate. That thing was the kidsize equivalent to having a B52 bomber. We dominated the neighborhood in every snowball fight and in summer with water balloons. We actually forced our neighbors off the roof of their barn they were building with a steady barrage.
I've never heard of "wild swimming." Do they mean skinny-dipping?
When we were kids, it was just plain old swimming. While people see something sexual in everything nowadays, it wasn't odd for the boys to cool off by jumping in the creek in their birthday suits. If there were girls along, they'd swim around the bend.
It's kind of funny. All the liberal talk of "being free with our bodies" has actually resulted in people being a lot more uptight.