pleasent memories from childhood?

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Was listening to the song "Old days" by Chicago and got to thinking (usually a dangerous pastime for me)......what pleasantries from childhood do you remember and miss?

Here are a few of mine:

-Slingshots (home made, from inner tube rubber and the forked limb of a maple tree)

-home made bows and arrows

-building model airplanes, tanks, cars, ect.

-building and flying model rockets

-playing outdoors.....did it more so in the summer, but we bundled up in the winter and went out and built snow forts, formed teams and had snow ball fights, ect.

-Looking forward to large snowfalls for two reasons: 1.) school might close, and 2.) it gave us a chance to make some money shoveling snow!

-visiting my Grandparents, who lived in the country, during summer vacation.......got to go fishing whenever I wanted (as long as I walked to the creek or fishing hole), and being able to shoot my BB gun without fear of repercussions!

-Being able to go anywhere in the neighborhood without my parents fearing for my safety......just had to be home "when the street lights came on". I have to laugh at this one....I still remember playing baseball in the street one summer evening and everyone scattering for home when the street light came on; we must have looked like a giant heard of cockroaches or something!

-riding our bikes. "Banana seats" & "sissy bars" were the style back then; no one ever heard of a 10 speed back then....our bikes had one speed, and that was as fast as we pedaled them!
....and we didn't wear helmets back then, either.

-spying on our friend's older sisters....that would get your arse tossed in jail nowadays, no matter how old you are!

-catching frogs, crayfish, polywogs, ect.

-sand lot baseball, football, ect. First base was the old soda cup, second base was the old tire, ect. NO referees or umpires.....we worked it out ourselves. Nowadays, the kids have to have "organized" sports, and mommy and daddy act like complete idiots in the stands.

-building & flying our own home made kites; all you needed was a ball of string (5 cents at the local party store) and a sheet of newspaper and a couple of twigs from the local ash or maple tree.

-metal above ground swimming pools

-MAD magazine (What? me....worry?)

-fireworks

-Building "forts"....we didn't have "tree forts", but we made 'bunkers" (for lack of a better descriptor) by digging into the ground and using old Election signs for the top, and covering them with dirt. It still amazes me today that no body ever got hurt from a 'cave in'.

Well, there's a few.........anybody want to chime in?

[Adam Helmer]

Mr. 16 gauge,

Excellent thread! I guess our ages are showing. I made lots of bows and arrows as a kid. We flew kites, went fishing, played in the woods and the creeks near home. We liked snow and sledding on the blacktop road before the cinder truck came by and ruined it for us.

I never see kids playing outdoors anymore. I suppose they are too busy with video games and texting, etc. What a shame.

Adam

[Mr. 16 gauge]

I never see kids playing outdoors anymore. I suppose they are too busy with video games and texting, etc. What a shame.

Yes, Adam....I agree. Kids today have too much technology to "play" with.....I don't understand why my daughter has to text her friends 5 minutes after seeing them or 5 minutes before seeing them.....drives me nuts!

On the other hand, is it just me or does it seem like there is a HUGE increase in the number of child abduction/molestation cases in the news nowadays (as opposed to when we grew up)? I don't remember it being like that when I was a kid......there might be one or two cases a year of some pervert trying to get a kid to come to his car with candy or some such thing, but I don't remember anything like the volume of cases in the news today.
As a parent, it made me more than just a little paranoid.....I let my daughter play outside, but only if one of us (wife or myself) was out there with her. Shot hoops with her, or let her ride her bike/roller blade while I cut the grass, washed the car, ect.

I've thought of two more things to add to the list:

- Green plastic army men

- cap pistols

I know that the common belief by the liberal social scientist of the day is that if you let your kid play with cap guns, they will turn into monsters and shoot up the class room or mall......I had a Mattel "fanner fifty" and I used it to hold up the milk man (there something you don't see anymore nowadays, either!)....my buddies and I pretended he was the stage coach, and when we demanded all the money, he gave us a big chunk of ice! We thought it was great.....we pretended it was a diamond (until it melted!).
I must have seen the error of my ways & repented, because I haven't been in another stick up since!

[Tater]

And by no means all-inclusive:

Camping with my family

Helping my Grandpa reload shells for the trap and skeet range

Going to the trap and skeet range

Pot lucks at the Isaac Walton Club

Hunting and fishing with Grandpa and my Uncle

Listening to my Grandpa talk to people on his CB base station

Snow forts

Weekend trips with Mom and Sis

The summer I spent in Montana

Feeding the ducks at the Isaac Walton club pond with my Grandpa

Walks and bike rides with Grandpa

The week spent road-tripping up the Cali coast, all the way to Crescent City

That's about all I can think of now

[skeet]

Spending my time in the summer on the Chesapeake bay and tributaries..literally. I had MY first boat at the age of 9..almost 10. It had a Palmer hit and miss marine engine in it. Time at the dump shootin rats..when I had the money for ammo(bottle deposit). Playin baseball every day it seemed like...we had a great little league team. fishin as much as humanly possible and it was pretty much as some others have said..be home at dark. We usually made it too. And not to forget..if we did something wrong(bad)... when we got home..it was already known by our parents. D**N LOL

[Gil Martin]

Riding bicycles all over our rural neighborhood and having a job cutting grass from a young age. The nearest store was two miles away and that was a long bicycle ride for a soft drink. We grew up with Uncle Dick and Aunt Dorothy who lived in a tenant house on the small farm my parents owned. Uncle Dick never drove a car, but had a horse and buggy. We often went with him as he drove around doing different things like taking trash to the dump. One afternoon, an older cousin ran Uncle Dick's wagon down a hill and crashed into a fence row. As far as I know that old wreck is still there. All the best...
Gil

[MtnMike2]

I grew up in VA. Catching crayfish in the creek, making "forts" in the woods, catching box turtles, lizards. BB gun, treehouse, shooting blue jays (they got other birds eggs!), .22 shooting squirrels. Fishing in the summer: Would get up at dawn or just before, go to the lake and fish for blue gills with bread or worms until it started to get hot, go to breakfast and get on swim trunks. Swim until lunch then after. Fish in the evening. Parents didn't watch us... Also baseball. Lemonade, fried chicken, .... I could go on and on.

Heavy sigh...
Mike

[Jack]

The fancy bicycle back then was the English bicycle, with skinny tires and a 3 speed shifter on the handlebars.
Wax lips
Fireballs

[GoodOlBoy]

Buying shotgun shells at the local grocery store (at age 8)

Playing all over the county (at age 10)

Riding my bike all over the county and country roads without my parents (at age 10)

Riding a Murray BMX bike down a country road to go fishing (imagine carrying a 6' pole, bait, etc on a bicycle.)

Driving my '82 Chevy Silverado 3/4 ton short wheel based truck all over the county without a license at age 16.

Getting stopped by the Sheriff at age 16 driving my truck without a license and just getting told "Boy you better be careful until you get that license"

Working cattle with my grandfather at ages 12-20.

Hauling hay for gas money at age 16.

Fixing fence for gas money at age 17.

Spending 99% of my time hunting, and fishing when I wasn't working.

Coon hunting at age 6-8 with my great grandfather who hand no sense of direction whatsoever.

Wiener roasts by my Uncles stock tank age .5-14 (yes .5)

Camping with my grandparents and aunt ages 2-26.

So may great farm, ranch, hunting, and fishing memories I can barely remember them all......

Dang I miss me.....

GoodOlBoy

[Catfish]

I was raised on a farm so I spent alot of time working. Picking up rock, bailing hay and straw, feeding live stock ect. But I also spent wandering the country side with a 22 rifle or going fishing. I made my spending money in the winter running a trap line, I rolled out of bed at 3:30 am to be able to make the sschool buss at 7:30. Everyone new everyone and I could hunt any where I wanted. Nite hunted coon too. Funny thing, about 75% of the woods I used to hunt are eather cleared or have houses in them now.

[Rapier]

I grew up on a small ranch on lake Okeechobee, the big lake, in Florida. My grandfather operated a pumping station on the lake. Those pumps kept the surrounding area that was below the water level, above the water table. We lived a mile from the Pahokee airport and the airport (crop duster airfield) was a mile long, so our nearest neighbor, the airport owner, who lived at the opposite end of the airstrip was two miles away.

I got my first 22 rifle for Christmas when I was 9 and had learned how to shoot when I was 5, about the same time I started running a boat, tractor and a jeep on the place. I hunted and fished the lake by myself most of my young years.

So my fond memories come from mostly hunting, fishing, good country food (whole milk, fresh butter, bread, smoked meats) with church dinners, all night sings and seeing real country groups playing and singing. Heavy quilts in the winter over ice cold sheets. Working on the ranch is a fond memory. Wearing cowboy clothes and boots (my toes still point inwards from both sides of each foot), going to rodeos and branding.

It was a tough life at times, no indoor plumbing and no electricity, but it was directly rewarding as what you got out of life was what you yourself made of your life. We never asked for anything and never were given anything. We were poor and we were very rich, we had only what was ours, made from our own hard work and we were beholding to no man.
Ed

[Larryjk]

Mr. 16 gauge, There are more child molestors out there now because we "rehabilitat" them now instead of " changing their mind from a-- to grass". That was done with a sharp pocket knife. If they struck once, they left the area so they would never get caught. If they got caught and sent to prison, they usually died from some terrible accident in the prison. Child molestors were looked down on as the lowest form of life.
Convicts had children and scorned those guys.

[Johnny Reb]

Grew up on a Farm in the country. My favorite toys were my Gi joes, and my green army men ( I liked blowing the army men up with fire crackers)
catching frogs and turtles in the creek behind my house,
playing football in the rain,
riding my bicycle to the country store,
spent countless hours just sitting in the woods watching the wildlife.
Some of my fondest memories were picking strawberries with my Grandfather, although I ate more strawberries than I put in the baskets.
Things I don't miss:
1) Shoveling Manure
2) bailing straw & hay in 95 degree weather

[Mad_Jack]

Fri night TV shows, Saturday morning westerns, going to the theater for matinee movies. Going to the YMCA on a Saturday afternoon in the winter to sit through a religious program just so we could swim for an hour. Walking 3/4 of a mile along the railroad & crossing the tracks to go to school and the same returning home. Going across the RR tracks to play Cowboys & Indians, War Games (today we reenactors call that tactical events){come to think of it; that's what the military calls it.} We'd pick teams, take our toy guns and cross the RR and head into the pine groves there; about three acres; to play our war games. We'd save our tiny penny candy paper bags so we'd fill them with the black, powder like RR dirt. These were our live fire grenades. Our moms' likely wanted to disown this group once we came marching home....from our war. We'd ride our bikes up, down, along and over the RR bank, this before X-games was an idea. We'd throw things at the RR Bums we'd see. But that backfired the day he turned out to be a "RR Dick" (Detective){at's what da was called den} That's how we learned. We have the scars as reminders but most of those guys are still around. A couple gone and a couple are incarcerated, but still alive. Those two didn't learn well. WOW Like Bunker said. Ahh! Them was da days!!! 66YO in a couple months, I'll just close and sit here reminiscing. like Bob Hope sang, "Thanks for the memories."; Red Skeleton said, "Bye, Bye! and God Bless!" etc.

[VaRedneck]

Military brat here....lived all over...for no more than a coupla years ata time. Missed out on some of the stuff y'all did. Got to do a few others...

Visiting the grand parents in North Dakota.....one summer...the smell of the dirt...rich...black. The smell of the equipment quonsets/barn/sheds. the dusty oily machinery smell...the potato house...buried in the ground...only roof showing above...walking right up onto the roof. the cotton woods...never silent...always the leaves rustling. Going to a small lake in Minn. skiing, fishing, sailing, bon fires...marshmellos. One winter....snow mobiling...learning what cold really was.

Living on the economy while stationed in Italy. At the age of 8-9, walking unsupervised 4-5 miles with my sister, to and from our apartment and a small wine distributor where a bus picked us up for school on the base, and carried us back each evening. The beaches on the Med...the white sand...the food...oh God..the food. Running down the white marble hall way in our apartment and sliding into the kitchen with sock feet. The Appian Way. The Trulli houses. The Alps and Lichtenstien where I had fondue for the first time.

Back in the states...Little league baseball, swimming pool passes at the neighborhood pool. The diving boards...high dive platform...swimming laps. Pretty life guards. canoeing on the Shenandoah...walking Bull Run. Tubing instead of sledding in a rare snow. Every nice sat...walking 3miles through the woods with a fishin pole, small tackle box and a coupla dollars. Getting to Occoquan early...buying a dozen night crawlers, a pepsi and dill pickle...fishing all day being back by dark. On the colder wetter sat...watching the bugs bunny roadrunner hr...laurel and hardy...abbot and costello...tarzan. Sun evenings..watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild kingdom...then the wonderful world of Disney.