Posted on 08/09/2017 4:50:01 PM PDT by vannrox
Me too and my kids and grandkids.
Life’s little conquests so many snowflakes will never know and may be lost to the ages.
Good heavens, I did all that and survived. Resources depending, I’d add: keep livestock, ride a horse out into the country, use a hatchet safely, build a snow fort, mix and pour concrete, paint a wall, change a tire, drive a tractor. Scariest of all: learn freedom and pay for a few mistakes.
I got to do ALL that stuff and SCUBA diving too. I can still do most of it, it’s just a lot harder now, 50-55 years later.
For me, my childhood had everything listed but the penny on railroad tracks.
When did America turn into Milquetoast Nation?
I think there were only eight on this list that I didn’t do as a kid: no sledding (deep south, y’all), roof standing, cliff jumping, bow n’ arrow, penny squashing, ride a bike off a ramp, making a fire and explore a tunnel (mind you, if my friends and I had found one, we’d have checked it out).
I actually went door to door and asked strangers for candy.
Play with Mercury from the Chemistry Set you got for Christmas.
Build a Treehouse out of old lumber and whatever nails your Dad had in the Garage.
Build a Coaster with rope steering, only a 2x4 as a Brake and coast down a steep Street.
During the Summer, leave the House in the morning, be gone all day with your friends and get home in time for Dinner, or else...
Did all of the above. I have fond memories of my dad handing me his lit Marlboro to light off fireworks. Good times.
Quarters were better. I also did all the other stuff, and I did some things that were genuinely dangerous. I somehow survived with just a few broken bones.
Jumped off garage roofs just to see if we could
Jumping off a turning merry go round.
Had a “Flexible Flyer” (A Sled with wheels) and did a whole bunch of stupid, uh FUN things like ride it down the Flood Control Channel.
Did all of the above except the cliff jumping...no cliffs or quarries where I grew up...
My mother on a Saturday morning would make us breakfast and then kick us out of the house with a little lunch money and tell us to come home when it was getting dark...I was nine, big brother eleven, little bro 6!
All the kids in my neighborhood grew up like this...we’d be out all day everyday during school vacation...
What We did as kids...
I would add 5 or 6 things
That involved a ride
Home courtesy of the Cops.
Rode my Schwinn Stingray everywhere without a Bike Helmet.
Oh the horrors.
Mine, too. It was great to be a kid back then.
“My entire childhood condensed and visualized for your viewing pleasure.”
Well said. Heck, that’s just 25 out of countless things.
To be old and wise one must survive being young and stupid.
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