I recall all of us paying outside on summer nights in the late 50s and 60s....None of the parents were concerned about our safety in the neighborhood. Watching out for cars was the big concern of day....Gangs, drive-by shootings, senseless daily mass murders, and lawless illegal invasions from other countries just wasn’t happening.
Playing outside, walking to town to the movie house with a buck to last you all day. Stop back on the way home at the creek and go swimming. Biggest scandals was when an unwed school teacher left in mid year to “teach” somewhere else and while teaching had a baby!
When you got in your teens carrying a .22 rifle around with you everywhere you went to shoot snakes and stuff. We’d leave our rifles on the entry porch to the local feed stored when we went in to get cokes and peanuts. They were still there when we came back out.
When my older kids were young they’d sit for hours and listen to me and my brothers talk about our childhood and they’d eat it up. They watch Little Rascals and ask if we did that stuff.
I recall all of us paying outside on summer nights in the late 50s and 60s.
Yes, and I can even recall letting my son and his friends play in the neighborhood till dark. My front door was always unlocked for my son to come in and out and that was in the late ‘60’s early 70’s.