[cripplecreek]

I grew up in a small town with a park right at the center. Everybody knew which kid belonged to which house. Dogs ran loose with us and even the occasional horse. We played real baseball in the park. The playground equipment was durable metal. We had to head home when the streetlights started coming on.

[momtothree]

“Everybody knew which kid belonged to which house”.

I don’t know when you were a kid, but when I was little... everyone knew where you lived and had your parents phone number. Pick a flower from the neighbor’s yard and your Mom knew about it before you got home. For years, I believed that she was a true psychic. How could she know?!! LOL!

[hinckley buzzard]

When I was a kid the playground equipment was all iron pipes--jungle jim, monkey bars, swingsets hung from a good ten feet with chain link and plain board seats. Teeter totters five feet off the ground at the high end (great fun to jump off of when you were down and let the other kid take a breath-expelling thump at the other,) shiney metal slides you could hardly walk up, but always tried. Merry go rounds you could pump to make go faster.

Don't remember a soul who was ever (seriously) hurt.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I grew up in a small neighborhood. Much the same situation everyone knew everyone else’s kids. Whoever’s house you were playing in front of that mother had authority over you. We all ran in a pack. Everyone had a bike and a dog. We didn’t have helmets and the dogs didn’t have leashes. When it was dinnertime all the mothers told the kids that weren’t their’s to go home. We ran the whole neighborhood, the woods and the large creek. We played baseball, football, homemade skateboards out of skates and wood. If you got hurt you ran home bleeding and your mother patched you up. kids got hurt and a few broken bones from time to time but nobody died. I feel sorry for kids nowadays. They have no concept of how great childhood used to be.