Posted on 05/31/2013 6:21:29 AM PDT by IbJensen
The Boy Scouts offer that now on their camping trips, although the method is very different.
The fifties were even better- the trikes were made of steel, not that sissy plastic stuff!
Does anyone remember homemade wooden guns that shot the cross sections we cut out of innertubes?
How about scooters made from pieces of wood with old skate wheels nailed to the underside?
How in God’s name did anyone survive?
They made us eat PB&J and nobody died!
“nobody died!”
Except Barbie ... when we strapped her to a cherry bomb. :)
On the other hand, the life expectancy of an American at birth has increased from 53.7 in 1930 to 73.7 in 1980 to 78.3 in 2010. I have no opinion as to whether the increase in life expectancy is because of the nanny state or in spite of it. I will say, howevr, that I would rather die a year younger than live in a society where government dicates every aspect of our lives from craddle to grave and children are suspended from school for merely pointing their finger like a gun.
And riding in the car while laying across the back shelf of the car under the back window.
I agree completely. References such as those in the cited only dilute the impact. Truth is universal; it needs no attribution.
Poor Barbie! LOL
I remember being four years old and following my older (by a few years) brother all over the neighborhood. My neighborhood was in the process of having many new homes built. So we played in the dug out ground. We had an old farm field next to our neighborhood which was also our ball diamond. The railroad tracks were one block away. We walked the rails many times despite being warned by our mothers.
We climbed the bluffs near our homes...where every year kids fell off and died. Including one kid from my neighborhood. We did all the things mentioned in the article...all without parental supervision. No parents watched either our sandlot games or our city rec league games. No kid wore a helmet when riding his bike. Things were a lot different then.
On the matter of blood brothers.
I am half Irish, 1/4 Welsh,1/4 German and 1/4 Tard
we played in the crik that was basically below the dump and caught minnows...no body has died from that exp...
we stayed thin because we were up early and played outdoors all day unless we had work to do....at supper, we 6 kids would eat several ears of corn at a setting along with other stuff....we didn't get fat.....
I hate the times we live in now....but at least most of us got to grow up as children....
Supervised instruction with stuff like that isn’t a bad thing. Letting your 8yr old have a bagful of leftover fourth of July goods will probably not turn out OK.
It’s not a certain thing but ups the odds. Kind of like wearing seat belts. Or motorcycle helmets. You play actuary with your health and safety.
My friend had a lot of ongoing health issues related to his injury while we were growing up. And he has been prevented from doing a good many things because of it as well. His brother joined the military. He wasn’t able to. etc.
Given my druthers I wouldn’t let kids play with something that might, in fact, kill them until they are old enough to comprehend ‘danger’ and ‘safety’ and ‘common sense’. My friend danged near burned his house down that day as well. The fort was under the carport.
BTW
If you have never seen it, watch the film “october sky”/”rocket boys”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udHB3tftPz4
How can kids ever become adults if you won’t let them grow up?
” I still have scars in my shoulder and back from my idiot friends who broke the “3 pump” rule !”
LOL.
We had the “2 pump rule” but it was easy to get around...pump twice. wait for a few other guys to shoot and pump another two. Sometimes you could get away with that two or three times, really building up the pressure before somebody caught on! Of course we were lucky nobody got seriously hurt but kids used to be allowed to be kids and we did risky things.
These days, even if everyone obeyed the “two pump” rule the cops would get involved and all the kids would be arrested.
Society now operates on the “No fun rule”.
Life was different then.
We would have sent Barbie to the moon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP_OM5VVcSo
1925: and i also survived all that food that was ez to get outta containers w/o injuring myself in so doing; i also managed to buy merchandise w/o detailed assembly involved and w/written instruction obviously written by the enemy.
one thing, though...i can no longer write correctly nor spel rite!
Semper Fidelis
Dick G
*****
Best time to live in America the 30s, 40s, 50s, and early part of the 60s, the 70s, was, well, sort of OK, the music was best in the 70s.
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