Things we did growing up that kids today don't get?

[Floyd R. Turbo]

Duck and cover!

[Chasstev365]

1. Apparently, many Trump supporters have forgotten this as well!

Russian interference is OK! Augh!!!!!

[Floyd R. Turbo]

4. Unfortunately so!

[First Speaker]

2. Recess, walking around town on our own, doing much less homework...

...in short, we were allowed to be kids. Our childhood wasn't stolen from us, in the name of Good Intentions.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

3. True!

[FoxNewsSucks]

40. Almost everyone

was "free-range" kids then

[Still In Wisconsin]

71. We didn't take state tests-er, I mean ASSESSMENTS every goddamned month.

[Boxerfan]

5. Sliding down long grassy hills on cardboard box containers...

If a kid anywhere in the neighborhood got a new fridge we would purloin the box from the curb & make a toboggan out of it.

Major grass burns from ditching at high speed & wouldn't have had it any other way.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

6. Great one!

A cardboard box could be anything you wanted. I had one that was time machine! Beware of Morlocks!😏

[angstlessk]

25. My father's business got a delivery in a very large crate box

my grandmother tacked it between two large trees in the yard...instant fort!

At four years I roamed the neighborhood and took the mail from lots of mailboxes and brought it home...my mother informed me I could go to jail and we had to re-deliver said mail.

At four I also begged coins from my dads employees for 'soda and snack'..used said proceeds to catch a bus...ALONE..to the end of the route, at which time the bus driver said I had to exit the bus. I walked the neighborhood, crying, and some little girl who was home 'sick' from school was jumping rope in her front yard and took me in to her mother...she called the police, and the only thing I knew at the time was my name was kitty boo and my daddy owned a cleaners...they found the cleaners and my mother (who worked there) said my heels were slapping my fanny as I ran home. I have no idea if the bus driver was admonished?

My two twin cousins and I roamed our neighborhoods all summer in search for fruit trees..and found them all!

[flor-de-jasmim]

7. Oh, yeah!

[Luciferous]

211. My brother and I had a barrel we would use to roll down the hill by our house :)

[MyOwnPeace]

8. Be home when............

the street lights come on.
That was my summer rule.
NEVER a concern where you were and for how long - just be home "when the street lights come on!"

https://www.google.com/search?q=those+were+the+days+all+in+the+family&rlz=1C1AOHY_enUS708US708&oq=those+were&aqs=chrome.3.0l2j69i57j0l3.13135j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Floyd R. Turbo]

10. Yep!

[Jeroen]

18. Ha, same here in Holland

And the summer seemed to last forever!

[Binkie The Clown]

26. Yup. My friends and I would ride our bikes to the city dump and dig around for "cool stuff". n/t

[Still Blue in PDX]

33. Yup! We found a box of paperback books with the covers torn off.

I learned some words that I have yet to use in conversation.

[Hoyt]

79. Hey, I found a few caches like that. EOM

[jberryhill]

89. Who PUT those porn magazines out in the wild anyway?

[lunasun]

62. We use to look for cool broken rejects in the back of the glass factory 10-12 never a cut

But now days I don't think they would even leave that stuff in a bin with access
Had a whole collection of wild swirly glass blobs . So did other kids around the area of course it caught on!

[Still In Wisconsin]

72. I lived in a blue collar section of Milwaukee- every family had a bell.

You came home when you heard your bell. I'm 52 now and I can still hear the slow, rhythmic cling-clang of mine. Come to think of it I can just about hear all the other neighborhood kids' bells too.

[zipplewrath]

78. We had a dinner bell

Gong actually. Mom would step out onto the porch and call us all to dinner by ringing that gong.

[jberryhill]

86. My mom was from Austria

She used a cowbell. Seriously.

Crazy lady out on the porch with a cowbell.

[jberryhill]

85. We had neighbors who moved into the neighborhood from Wisconsin

And their mom would come out with a freaking referee's whistle and blow three sets of three long bursts. You could hear that thing for miles.

I remember thinking, so that's what they do in Wisconsin, eh?

[Still In Wisconsin]

95. No, no, no it's "... that's what they do in Wisconsin, HEY!"

[pansypoo53219]

148. AINA HEY! or YA der hey!

at least south eat WI. no bells in the outer hood tho.

[Still In Wisconsin]

150. Yes! AINA, the Milwaukee contraction of "ain't it"

[Wawannabe]

115. That is downright cool!

I have a very unique whistle.
Taught my son to listen for it in case we were ever parted or I could not find him.
It is very LOUD, too. So he would be able to hear it a ways away.
Only employed a few times but that kid showed up each time!

[moonscape]

206. Running inside when the fog truck (DDT for mosquitos) came barreling down the street n/t

[llmart]

212. Running inside????

We used to watch it go down the street! It's a wonder we're not all dead yet.

[moonscape]

220. LOL - and you didn't mind being in the middle of that smelly fog?

We kids hated it. We'd watch and then as the fog seemed like it was chasing us we'd run!

[AgadorSparticus]

221. Yep. Same for me! I sometimes wish I could tell my kids that.

I wish they could live in a world where they can safely have that sort of freedom.

[tazkcmo]

9. Saving and waiting versus credit and now.

I'm sure there are a few young people that do it but I get some crazy looks when I set aside 20 bucks every pay day for a future purchase. Credit used to be for high priced purchases like a house or car and even the car could be saved for. Now I know people buying food with a cc w/o paying off the balance before interest accrues. A loan for food? Things are pretty bad for a lot of families right now.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

11. Good one!

[LisaM]

51. Or layaway.....

I used to put clothes on layaway and look forward to the day I got to take the outfit home and wear it!

[tazkcmo]

60. Blast from the Past!

I remember lay away, too. Eegads. I'm my grandpa...

[LisaM]

63. They still have it....

I don't use it anymore, but I think KMart (and probably Walmart) have it.

[LeftInTX]

185. My grandfather paid cash for his house. He was 74.

They did not believe in mortgages.

[llmart]

213. There's a whole lot to be said...

for delayed gratification. Most people nowadays don't understand the value in that. You have to understand psychology to "get it" - that waiting for something makes it so much more special.

[bobbieinok]

12. NO PLASTIC TOYS!!

My brother's step-daughter's reaction 'What did you guys DO??'
Ñote: we were kids in the 40s and earely 50s.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

14. Excellent!

[MFM008]

13. No 24/7 phones

The parents of who you were going to see called to let them know you were there ok.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

15. Very good!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. Carrying fire from cave to cave. I mean, who knows when you'll see that again? NT

[Floyd R. Turbo]

17. We were too

poor to have fire!

[A HERETIC I AM]

43. The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

[TexasProgresive]

19. Spending as much time outdoors to get away from meddling adults.

Kids today, at least here, are only outdoors in adult regulated and supervised sports. How boring.

[LuckyLib]

34. Nobody wanted to be indoors. California --

running around with friends all day long. Acting out TV dramas, huge hide and seek games. Fun! No adults around!

[ailsagirl]

128. We slept out in the backyard when it was hot-- with or without a tent!!

Counted the stars, talked half the night.

Can't do that today-- that's for sure

[moose65]

203. That is so true

And most of these kids have every moment of their time scheduled and supervised by their parents. I used to go out "exploring" after school in the woods or would ride bikes with the neighbors and we would go like 5 or 6 miles away from home. My parents didn't know where I was and there was no constant contact via cell phones. We were free!

[Freddie]

20. Playing outside with the neighborhood "gang"

All day at age 5 and up with no grownups watching. I have a 6 year old granddaughter and can't imagine her folks allowing this. I let my kids play free outside with neighbor kids but not til 7 or 8.

[lindysalsagal]

22. I grew up with other kids running through the countryside. No one knew where we were.

We would eventually come home when hungry, filthy, bug-bitten, sun-burned, and exhausted. And happy.

One time we got so lost in the woods we were 2 hours late for dinner. No one even cared when we finally found the road and made it home. They were all eating dinner, having totally forgotten us. Awesome.

[Golden Raisin]

23. In the middle of the street. We moved

out of the way when the occasional car came along and the car slowed down too. Giant Steps! Rover Red Rover! Hopscotch (that was usually on the sidewalk!)

[Still In Wisconsin]

76. Kick the can, tag, freeze tag, hide and seek, squirt guns...

[lindysalsagal]

21. Talking on a phone that's attached to the kitchen wall by a cord, & Dad saying "Get off the phone!"

all the while. So much fun, everyone in the house hearing what you're saying and who you're talking with.

Mother: "Who's that?" "Why are you talking to him/her?"

[DBoon]

29. Tapping the family phone with alligator clips and headphones

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

99. There was a little broom closet off our kitchen, close to the phone base

so the cord would stretch enough for me to stuff myself into the broom closet with the phone and close the door most of the way. That was the only privacy I got.

[ailsagirl]

136. When I did that, someone in the kitchen would hang the phone up...

when it was deemed that I had talked long enough

[TexasBushwhacker]

24. Rolling curly hair on giant curlers or cans to straighten it

Lasted about 15 minutes in Houston's humidity. Now they just use flat irons.

[luvMIdog]

27. making home made fresh peach ice cream in a hand cranked ice cream maker on a hot summer day

and all the hot sweaty kids lining up for a couple spoons of it

[Wawannabe]

116. Nice one!

Got a second place one time with my hand cranked version of peach!
Yum

[luvMIdog]

117. I love to make homemade pumpkin now. :)

[rurallib]

28. staying up all night trying to catch 'skip signals' on the TV

from the big cities far away that had all night TV.

Now it is 24X7 on cable but back then TV shut down at midnight or earlier. Then we'd get to play with the signals that would bounce around when there was high pressure over our area.

In the midwest on a good night we could get some good to fuzzy pictures from Seattle, New York, Chicago, Louisville, Denver and many more.

What a thrill to see signals from around the country.

[Aristus]

48. Akin to that is when TVGuide listings stopped at around 3am, and picked back up at 6.

Plus, consulting printed matter for, well, anything really...

[rurallib]

49. there was a radio version where we would try to get the furthest 50,000 watt

station.

All these years later I think I could name about half of the 50,000 watt stations - or their cities at least.

[Phoenix61]

30. Using clothes pins to put playing cards on the forks of our bikes

so they made a really cool sound when you were riding. Riding bikes behind the skeeter truck. That probably wasn't the best idea. I have no idea what kind of poison they were spraying back then.

[Phentex]

45. I don't know either

but I can still remember that smell!

[jberryhill]

55. DDT

Those clouds were great and I haven't had any lasting edddjjenenects

[lunasun]

64. Oh yeah I remember the card sound fitt fitt fitt . I think some kids used to spraypaint them too?

[asiliveandbreathe]

31. Listening to music with a 45 attachment to phonogragh..

I remember stacking the 45 records..we had 33 1/3 and 78's...Burl Ives, Georgia Gibbs, Bing Crosby - oh my....

[roscoeroscoe]

163. We had a kid in the neighborhood

Who had little dance parties... He had all these 45's like Jackson Five. Soul Train fun times!

[Skittles]

32. manually rolling down the car windows

[jberryhill]

56. No, use the triangular vent window

[Still In Wisconsin]

75. Yup, in the Dodge Rambler.

[ailsagirl]

126. I still do that!

[peacebuzzard]

35. Catching fireflies and polywogs, reading encyclopedias

those once abundant critters have been decimated. Encyclopedias always had their own bookcase in the house, and were great to read.

[planetc]

36. Being out alone (i.e.,without grownups) on Halloween

We were a group of three, my brother, and sister, and me, and nobody had put ground glass in candy in those days. So we put on our super costumes, hand made by Mom, and went out trick or treating. Being a whole block from home after dark, with the wind blowing the branches around and the street light shadows moving, and it would have been scary, except we were all together, and there was safety in numbers. Kids couldn't have that experience today. Also spending your entire summer in motion, in bare feet. To this day I regret the loss of calluses on the bottoms of my feet. Being allowed to stay up a bit late to hear The Green Hornet on the radio. It was an idyllic childhood.

[Lars39]

39. Running barefoot on gravel... :-)

[Laffy Kat]

84. LOL. Our bare feet got so calloused..

We could run down the street on the asphalt and sparks would fly!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

100. My feet often had poison ivy on the soles and up along my ankles.

So they were all pink with calamine lotion. I still remember the smell of that stuff.

[Laffy Kat]

106. Me too! nt

[Lars39]

107. Lol, weren't we wild things. :-)

[ailsagirl]

127. Ouch!!

I used to cut my toes up doing that-- I can still remember the blood

[Lars39]

129. Oh no!

I don't remember ever any cuts, and we had chert gravel. But I vividly remember getting my foot cut in the spikes of my bike.

[ailsagirl]

132. Triple ouch!! But we were young and resilient

[Lars39]

134. Too stubborn to be otherwise!

[llmart]

214. Or falling off your bike on gravel...

I still have scars on both knees from that and probably some old gravel deeply embedded

[Lars39]

218. Reminds me of my brother's wipe out.

Covered head to toe in merthiolate and bandaids.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

37. Being shooed out of the house after breakfast in the summer

with instructions to come home when it started to get dark. We'd go from house to house to see who was around to hang out with, then maybe take off on our bikes. There was a swamp not too far away and sometimes we'd go there to poke around in the mud and try to make boats that wouldn't sink. If it was raining we'd hang out in somebody's room or their basement rec room and play games or draw or make up stories. We rarely interacted with parents - they left us alone for the most part except a mom might make sandwiches and lemonade if we were in a house or a back yard. We were semi-feral. I can't imagine constant adult supervision and play dates and organized activities.

[irisblue]

110. Don't slam the screen door!

Said Grandma D...

Likely a thousand times

[ailsagirl]

194. Don't let any flies in!!

Keep those doors shut!!

[sarge43]

224. "We were semi-feral."

Love it! And so true.

[Doreen]

38. Running out the door while yelling where you are going or who you

will be with. I remember not having to make plans on where you were going and who you were going to be with. No appointments with your friends parents to be there with them. Also running in and out of each others houses all day to find which parent is going to feed you or give you money for the ice cream man.

[csziggy]

41. Taking a transitor radio outside to listen for the Sputnik signal

Watching the launch of the moon rockets on TV then running out to watch and listen as they got high enough to see from our backyard ninety miles away. Watching men walk on the moon for the first time.

I did spend most of my childhood outside. No one seemed to worry about us kids playing in and around the swamp/lake next to our house, even after my dog was killed by a water moccasin and another neighborhood dog was eaten by one of the alligators that lived there.

We were a feral pack of kids - and most of the kids in my age group were girls, but that didn't stop us from getting covered in mud, collecting wildlife, and generally getting into stuff. My Mom was pretty tough, too. Mom didn't freak out when my sisters and I brought home handfuls of ring neck snake babies. She did help us find out what they needed to stay alive and to recognize that we were not going to be able to keep them supplied with insects. That research convinced us to let the snakes loose before they starved to death. We learned that wild animals don't make the best pets despite our repeated efforts to find new species to adopt.

[jberryhill]

57. You had a transistor radio in 1957?

And were allowed to play with it?

[csziggy]

58. My older sisters did - I was only allowed to tag along

Because otherwise Mom would have made my sisters stay inside.

The radio was actually Dad's but that summer he was working eighteen hour days trying to start a new business so when Sputnik was launched he let them take it out to listen. We were living in a rental house outside the crossroads that passed for a town. Dad's business was in another little crossroads town smaller than the one where we were staying. We all lived in fear his business would take off since he had scoped out a house to buy near his business so we could live there year round. I think we kids were the only ones happy when he nearly went bankrupt when the business failed and we could go back home.

That summer sucked for anything fun - there were no kids nearby, no library, nothing to do. Mom sent us to Bible school at the local church but whatever denomination it was they taught a totally different form of Christianity than the Presbyterian Church in our hometown. It was confusing for a five year old and I argued with the teacher about some of the stuff that sounded wrong - mostly about the things they thought should send people to hell - so I was not very well liked by the teachers or their children.

The most fun thing was following my sisters around. My oldest sister hunted butterflies that summer and got a nice collection, but I didn't like that she killed them. My other sister found a stash of bottles from when our rental house had been a doctor's home and office. Those were pretty cool, but when we packed to go home there was no room for them so they got left.

So when my oldest sister heard about Sputnik, we got all excited because it was something to do in a wasteland for activities.

[WinkyDink]

68. I had a red one in 1962---I listened to "Sherry" while riding my (no-speed) bike!

[jberryhill]

80. There was a real break point around then

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio

[jpak]

168. Our entire neighborhood came out to watch Telstar fly over

We were not disappointed.

[csziggy]

177. By the time Telstar was launched we were back in my hometown

With street lights and more traffic. While the skies were still darker than they are now, they were not as dark as that rental house in the middle of nowhere.

[Major Nikon]

42. The Sears catalog

[Kaleva]

46. Found in many outhouses to be used as toilet paper

[Phentex]

44. Used an encyclopedia without plagiarizing

I mean there are only so many ways you can name the capital of state.

[earthshine]

47. Using power and hand tools to make and fix things.

When my grandfather died, and then when my father died, I inherited loads of useful pliers, screwdrivers, drills, sanders, and so much more. When I use one of these tools, I always feel the love that was there when they lived.

I have no children of my own. My nephews have no interest in learning how to use them. <sigh>

[wcmagumba]

54. This...

I'm currently living with my sister and 20 year old (soph. in college) nephew. He plans to major in biology but has no seeming interest in ever being outside (smart kid but always gaming). I have been doing a bunch of neglected yard work and minor repairs and every time he sees me with a tool (or even outside) he looks at me like I am crazy and often will ask "what are you doing", with that teen-20 something disdain and simply walks off...weird. I was always outside our little edge of small town house in the fields and creek (polluted from the nearby oil refinery, but I didn't know that at the time). I had a paper route I delivered by bike and could go anywhere in town. There used to be local stores in the neighborhoods where the operators/owners lived in the back or upstairs. I used to ride to the local drugstore just to buy a superman or other comic book. Great fun...all gone now...

[lunasun]

66. Plenty of people would still like to get those . A friend was after my fathers planners and my

Grandfathers coal shovel. As you said I'm not done feeling the love of using them yet. The coal shovel is not used for coal of course
A lot of folks like old tools maybe hook up with someone when you think you are probably not going to use them much anymore . They will love the history I bet and you will be part of it by then!

[LeftInTX]

97. My boys did. They still do

One is an architect and the other a mechanical engineer.

We used to have issues with them getting too into my husband's stuff. The engineer - LOL even had a battery collection. He collected C and D batteries. When we needed a battery, we would just bug him about it.

[Grammy23]

50. Running around the yard in our bathing suits with the lawn sprinkler going wide open.

In the hot Mississippi summer time, that was a top hit with the neighborhood kids. When the heat got to be too much and we were tired of running around, we retreated to the screened porch of the family across the street. One time we started a marathon Monopoly game that went on for three days and only ended when a big gust of wind came along and scattered our money and property cards all over the porch. Other favorite games were Go Fish, Cootie and War (card game).

Those were some happy days....

[roscoeroscoe]

162. Seconded

We played those long Monopoly games labor day weekend during the Jerry Lewis Telethon - remember how that was a big deal?

[Grammy23]

173. Yes, and I remember how Jerry Lewis was on the ragged edge by the end.

I never understood how he held up. He was all but hallucinating at the end!

Oh, and I also remember looking forward to the Miss America pageant every year. Seems like it was around Labor Day, too. I lived in Mississippi when our contestant won two years in a row! 1959 and 1960. Mary Ann Mobley and Lynda Lee Mead. My younger sister and I would watch, totally involved in it and cried at the end when Burt Parks sang the theme song. The talent has definitely changed since then. Baton twirlers, dramatic recitations and even a fashion show where the contestant wore clothing she designed and sewed were typical. There was not the emphasis on the academic achievements or asperations of the contestant like we see today. The bathing suits were modest and, if I remember, all were from Jantzen or Catalina. Not a two piece in sight!

[livetohike]

52. Wearing a roller skate key around your neck.

Going into the woods in the morning and playing there all day until supper time.Sleeping out in the backyard and making a campfire to pop corn and bake potatoes.

[Grammy23]

174. I also remember tightening my skates tight enough that they wouldn't slip off!

After a day of that, my toes would be soooo sore. But of course, that didn't stop me from strapping those skates on the next day.

[byronius]

53. Parent-sanctioned, school-delivered child abuse with wooden paddles.

Still in five states, I think. Trump states.

[mercuryblues]

59. Polio

measles, mumps, chicken pox. Which is why some millennials are anti-vac.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

65. I remember the pre-polio vaccine days.

My mom was a nurse and she remembered taking care of kids in iron lungs. We weren't allowed to go swimming in public swimming areas or pools on hot summer days even though pools were chlorinated by then. As soon as the Salk vaccine came out she hustled our butts to the doctor to get the shots, which we were not thrilled about. We did get measles, mumps and chicken pox because there were no vaccines for those things then; but we did get the smallpox vaccination (and now smallpox is effectively eradicated). Anti-vaxxers are idiots.

[jberryhill]

88. GETTING YOUR VACCINES IN SCHOOL!

I do not understand this "You can't enroll your kid in school unless they've been vaccinated" stuff.

School was where we GOT vaccinated!

WTF ever happened to that? All the kids need them and, hey guess what? They also need to be in school.

Why is this no longer freaking obvious as hell?

Oh, yeah, AND an annual physical exam, hearing tests, and vision tests.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

94. I don't remember injected vaccinations in school,

but I do remember getting Mantoux tests and the oral Sabin vaccine at school, and hearing tests at some point.

[jpak]

169. The teachers would line us up for a Dixie cup of sugar water and polio vaccine

There were n objections

[enid602]

61. May pole

One of the kids in my neighborhood had a 30 foot may pole in his back yard with about 8 or ten ropes with a sling at the end of each rope. Each kid would sit in a sling and run as fast as they could. Each kid would go flying. Too dangerous for today. Liability and all.

[jpak]

170. May baskets

We would all pitch in to make one - and would hang them on teacher.

The older teachers were more fun as they were not fast enough to catch us.

[WinkyDink]

67. Not having "helicopter parents." Walking to school. Playing "Cowboys and

Indians" with toy guns. Having Teen Idols who never went naked or had a sex-tape.

Non-electronic music.

[Laffy Kat]

87. The smell of gunpowder from the pop gun caps! nt

[WinkyDink]

108. Yes! And popping them with stones! I'd forgotten that!

[Wawannabe]

119. LOVED

Doing that.
Never liked guns but I bought rolls and used all kinds of stuff to make em pop!

[Zorro]

109. As a kid I whacked an entire roll of caps with a croquet mallet

Sounded like a real gunshot. Got all the neighborhood parents to come streaming out of their houses.

I won't forget that for several reasons...

[irisblue]

69. Chores first, be home when the street lights come on, drinking from the hose rather then going insid

I am the oldest of 6 kids, and the first born & a girl, going inside to get a drink, for sure meant changing diapers, watching a littler one or something less fun.

[TeamPooka]

70. Filmstrip lessons in school.

[Still In Wisconsin]

73. *DING*

[jberryhill]

81. lol

Did you get to work the projector?

Or, better, actual films.... "Play it backwards, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaassse!"

[Still In Wisconsin]

74. Playing baseball in the summer. All day, every day, unless we were swimming.

[redstateblues]

158. I lived for that

[stopbush]

77. Yes, the best way to survive the heat and flames of a nuclear explosion

was sit on a varnished wood floor while hiding under a wooden desk.

[jberryhill]

83. Varnished wood floors?

No, the only way to survive a Communist first strike on the critical facilities of your elementary school is to sit cross-legged on the linoleum floor in the hallway, while facing a cinder block wall with your hands clasped on the back of your head.

The rest of civilization will be incinerated but, god-dammit, you will emerge from the rubble as long as you can uncross your legs afterwards.

[stopbush]

93. I was born in 1954 - my elementary school had varnished wooden floors

in the old building, linoleum in the newer annex.

[llmart]

215. That's the way I remember it...

I can clearly remember being about 7 or 8 and thinking "What good is this going to do?"

I was a bit precocious

[Laffy Kat]

82. We would play outside all day long w/o the ubiquitous water bottles you see with everyone nowadays.

If we got really thirsty we'd wander into someone's back yard and drink out of their water hose. We lived.

[Kaleva]

90. When the school bus driver lit up a cigarette, it was okay for the kids to smoke too.

[jberryhill]

91. Smoking lounge in high school

Can you freaking imagine?

[Kaleva]

92. And the doctor's waiting room had ashtrays for the smokers.

[JenniferJuniper]

101. Could smoke in the HS cafeteria until 1975 and

the kids had an actual riot when they were told they could no longer smoke inside and had to stay out on the patio.

[Wawannabe]

118. 2nd grade

Principal smoked a pipe in his office.
Windows open in early fall and the smell of cherry pipe tobacco wafting through the rambling three story brick building.
Can still smell it too!

[jberryhill]

96. Bill Cosby as a childrens educator and entertainer

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

199. Yeah - go figure.

I saw him do a live comedy act, late '60s, it was hilarious. Who'd have thought he'd turn out to be a total perv?

[LeftInTX]

98. Homes for unwed mothers

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

102. Sonic booms, early '60s.

Cold War stuff, military jets operating out of MSP. They were very startling; they made the windows rattle.

[ailsagirl]

137. Those things scared me to death!!

Sounded how (what I imagined) a bomb going off would sound

[unblock]

103. Sober, objective, content on the nightly news

No hyper-partisan lying.
Republicans and democrats went out of their way to show the points where they agreed.
No "what common thing in your kitchen can kill you? Find out on news tonight!"
No screaming or interrupting.
Just "and that's the way it is."

[JenniferJuniper]

105. I think I miss this most of all

[Eugene]

104. Cursive writing.

Penmanship class brings back lots of memories.

Also no in-school lunch. In my elementary school
kids went home to eat except during winter.

[cwydro]

111. Polio vaccine given in a sugar cube.

In the cafeteria.

[cwydro]

112. No bike helmets.

Hell, my first bike had no brakes.

[Wawannabe]

120. Still didn't get a helmet

After my first cuz was killed by head injury riding a bike and hit by car.
I made sure my kid had one!
Helicopter? No, I love him.

[LeftInTX]

187. I had a bike mishap because I didn't know how to use the brake

I had just learned to rid my bike in Japan.
We moved to Seattle, but the move took several months.

When I finally got my bike from the movers, I rode down the hill on our block.
My dad kept yelling, "Put on the brake"

I had no idea what he was talking about.

The bike gained speed and crossed a street.

I finally just jumped off the thing.

I was probably going at least 10 mph.

[sakabatou]

113. That dial-tone when you connect to the internet

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

114. Internet? LOL, whippersnapper!

How about the test pattern that was on TV all night after midnight, when the stations played the national anthem and then went off the air? Internet! Pffft!

[Wawannabe]

121. I got that memory!

Damn. Must be old.
I for sure remember 2400 bd modems too!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

123. I'm so old I remember 1200 bd modems.

And the kind you'd attach your phone headset to, called an acoustic coupler:

[Eugene]

161. I remember when that was considered fast.

The senior engineers had the VDT's with the 2400 baud modems.
Support people like me had portable 300 baud printing terminals.

[sakabatou]

122. My parents, I think, remember that

[rurallib]

124. Having to get up, walk over to the TV to change the channel & sound

not to mention B&W TV

[ailsagirl]

125. Yes!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

131. But there were only 3 or 4 channels!

[CottonBear]

219. UHF channels like Ted Turner's Channel 17 from Atlanta, GA.

I watched Star Trek reruns on Channel 17 back in the 1970s.

[Lars39]

130. Burma Shave signs, circus tents

[ailsagirl]

133. Loved reading those signs on lo-o-o-ng car trips!!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

135. I remember looking for Burma Shave signs during car trips.

We loved them. I even remember a couple:

Don't stick your elbow
Out too far
Or it may go home
In another car.
Burma Shave

Free! Free!
A trip to Mars
For 900
Empty jars.
Burma Shave

[Chipper Chat]

179. this one was educational and unforgettable :

Around the curve likkity split.
It's a beautiful car
WASN'T IT

[Mopar151]

201. 'Nother one

DON'T TAKE THAT CURVE
AT 60 PER
WE HATE TO LOSE
A CUSTOMER
BURMA SHAVE

[demosincebirth]

138. playing on original Monkey Bars. They wouldn't pass muster in this day and age...toooo dangerous.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

140. And if you fell off you'd land on concrete, blacktop or gravel.

Lots of scraped elbows, knees and butts. And then there were those merry-go-round things - big round flat hunks of painted sheet metal that pivoted on an axis and had handles to hang onto while you ran along and made it go as fast as possible, then you'd jump on and hope you didn't slide off the other side onto the concrete, blacktop or gravel. They also got really, really hot out in the sun. I loved them.

[demosincebirth]

144. ...and we're still here, intact. Amazing!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

146. Not entirely intact. I did lose patches of skin fairly regularly.

Actually, some of that playground equipment did cause some pretty serious injuries, which is why it's all made of plastic now.

[jberryhill]

171. Except the ones who aren't

Children who were killed by unreasonably dangerous toys and playground equipment are not around to say, "What's all the fuss about, we're still here!"

It's like marveling at medieval architecture and saying, "They knew how to build stuff that lasted hundreds of years!"

Ummm... because you are looking at the structures which didn't fall down.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

189. Some of that playground equipment had very sharp edges.

I was never badly injured on a playground, though I got my share of scrapes and bruises; and I don't know anyone who was, but some of those things were obviously dangerous when you think about it - even though they were fun. I'm not sure why more people didn't notice some of those hazards at the time, like lawn darts, which were a pretty dumb idea in the first place. That stuff is much safer now, which is a good thing. But those merry-go-rounds were a whole lot of fun, and I don't know if there is anything like them any more.

[ailsagirl]

139. When "hell" and "damn" were considered swear words

Actually, I rather miss those innocent days in certain respects

Oh, and Fizzies!!

http://lh3.ggpht.com/ShermCohen/SAZ0GRP3F6I/AAAAAAAAA1Y/7TjUvLkDtk8/Fizzies-Happy-Family[3].jpg?imgmax=800

[blue neen]

141. OMG!

My brother and I LOVVVEEDDD Fizzies!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

145. "Hell" and "damn" were very bad words.

So were "poop" and "butt." I never even knew the word "fuck" until I was in about 7th grade, and I didn't know what it meant for quite awhile afterwards. I only knew that it was a very, very bad word that you must never under any circumstances say in front of a grownup.

[luvMIdog]

154. when my friend told me what it meant and that my parents did it I was enraged. I told her

" You're a liar! My parents would never do something that filthy!" And then I stopped talking to her for a long time

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

160. LOL! Finding out what it meant was gross enough,

and then you figured out that *your parents* must have done it... the horror...

[lunasun]

149. Root beer flavor please!

http://greatbutforgotten.blogspot.com/2011/04/fizzies-drink.html

[LeftInTX]

188. I made my own Fizzies with Tang and baking soda

[ailsagirl]

191. Very resourceful!

I thought Fizzies were actually fruit-flavored Alka-Seltzers at one time (when I was a kid, of course)

[blue neen]

142. Digging up the roots of Sassafras trees.

Then we take them home to Mom. She'd boil them and make tea for us!

[yellowdogintexas]

143. growing up in a very small town in Kentucky was so much fun

There were four girls all the same age and some others who were a couple years younger We pretty much roamed as a pack, moving from one house to another. We made mud pies, picked fruit, slid down hills, hopscotch, jump rope, Red Rover, swinging statue, "Mother May I" and on rainy days, marathon Monopoly games or canasta. Lots of canasta.
When we hit our teens, we spent a lot of time sunbathing or camped out on someone's front porch where we could see and be seen by the local boys.

Creek swimming, running through the hose spray - anything to get wet and cool off.

I did a lot of reading too. I had one friend who was a reader and both our moms were too. The four of us passed around a fair number of books

We also had the lightening bugs, junebugs, porch swings and porch visiting at night. Oh and before whole house air conditioning, we would put breeze boxes in a couple of windows blowing out, and crack all the windows in the rest of the house so the hot day air would get pulled out. Then when we went to bed, all the windows except the bedrooms were closed and that would kick up some cool sleeping.

Of course that wouldn't work so well here in Texas, since it does not cool down at night here.

[First Speaker]

147. Having open space...

...when I grew up outside New Haven, CT, our town still was more of a small town, as opposed to a suburb. My relatives owned over 100 acres of woods and farm on the outskirts of town. Gone with the wind. Now it's developments and malls. A Stop and Shop is right where their cow pasture was. CT is still green and woodsy in spots, but it's green suburbia. Genuine "countryside" is virtually a thing of the past, and that's true for most of the Northeast Corridor, and increasingly in other parts of the country, too. I can't believe this is a good thing for the country, and feel that today's urban-suburban kids are missing something precious...

[tblue37]

151. Collecting and playing with marbles. Cat's eyes, boulders, peewees, etc. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

155. And jacks!

[tblue37]

165. Oh, yes. I LOVED jacks! And 3-D viewers. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

190. Oh, yeah, the View-Master. Loved it.

Now there's virtual reality headsets.

[benld74]

152. Saturday morning cartoons!!!! 7-12!!!

Not like today's cable cartoons 24x365

[The_Casual_Observer]

153. Having a mom and dad that lived the depression.

[citood]

156. There was a body of water we swam at...we called it 'the lake'

Whenever I go home, I can't imagine swimming in that black water. It seemed perfectly normal growing up though. I also remember being puzzled when my mom would insist we takes baths after swimming in the lake - we thought we were clean since we had just been in water.

[redstateblues]

157. In FL we chased the mosquito spray trucks at dusk

[iamateacher]

159. Candy cigarettes, wax lips, and 5 cent cones

And A&W Root beer, and Shakey's Pizza Parlors. Up until then, pizza was out of a box and not very good. Shakey's had a player piano.

[roscoeroscoe]

164. Okay here's one for you

We played 'tree dodge.' All the kids would be up in the tree except the kid with the ball. If you got hit, you had to go down and be it.

Grew up on Navy bases, kids everywhere so we could get enough kids together for 9-on each team baseball.

[ailsagirl]

192. We had such fun playing at things like that!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

195. Our "baseball" field had bases consisting of trees and a manhole cover.

The manhole cover was home plate. IIRC, the tree in our front yard was third base. When cars came down the street we'd just move out of the way.

[ailsagirl]

196. Yes! And ping pong

I never was very good at it but it was still fun

[Yonnie3]

166. Going outside in the summer in order to cool off

Reading books in the shade of a tree on the days it was just too hot and humid to play.

Acting respectful to all adults (at least to their face).

Getting yourself to and from extracurricular events by walking or riding your bike.

Agreeing on the ONE TV show with your siblings you were allowed to watch. This became much more difficult when there were three(!) stations.

Reading (and explaining) the Sunday funnies in the paper to the younger kids.

[DrivingOnThe Left]

167. Being entertained by b/w movies

One of my saddest moments was trying to introduce my 6-year-old niece to Laurel and Hardy and her first comment was "Urgh - it's in black and white" Kids want everything in 4K HD these days.

[MosheFeingold]

172. Things I remember growing up that kids don't

1. Fleeing home because the Nazis had come to power and my father saw the writing on the wall.

2. Learning English on a boat.

3. Earning money by polishing shoes, selling newspapers, and acting as a runner for some shady guys who hung out by the coffee shop (mom put an end to this)

4. training to go to war with Nazis

5. Fighting Nazis

6. Being a cop, walking the beat in Crown Heights, and using a wooden billy club and a .38 revolver

7. Going to law school without going to college

8. Being excluded from the DC area country clubs for being Jewish.

9. Honest politicians, both parties

10. Bipartisanship

[LeftInTX]

184. I'm only 60

One of my first memories is Dennis the Menace.

We are worlds apart.

[Eugene]

175. Rotary dials on telephones.

Not to mention television sets with channel dials and rabbit ear antennas.

[underpants]

176. and prank phone calls.

[LeftInTX]

183. I did a survey when I was in college:

This was 1975 when bikini underwear was the newest thing for guys:

Called all the guys we knew and asked them if they preferred bikinis or traditional

I'm sure they didn't know who was calling.

[jazzcat23]

197. Party lines!

But prank phone calls were the best fun! If you could get a free line, usually long after dark.

[underpants]

200. That pre-dares me BUT Hand held landlines used to pick up other phone calls

not that long ago either

Welcome to DU

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

198. When I was a little kid we had one phone, a big black rotary desk phone

that sat on a little table next to the stairway. There was no extension cord - you just stood there and talked.

At my grandma's house there was a party line system where if the phone rang once it was for the other person on the line; if it rang twice it was for Grandma. But you could pick up and eavesdrop on the other line, though we never did.

[llmart]

216. Hey, now...

I still have rabbit ears! I refuse to pay for cable. Sometimes I get about 20 stations.

[Chipper Chat]

178. hanging tinsel on the Christmas tree

You could be artistic and apply one strand at a time or you could be sloppy and have more fun by just to sing globs of it as high as you could and let it land where it wanted. But you had to keep an eye on the floor so the cat or crawling baby wouldn't ingest it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

180. It was the heavy stuff that draped nicely.

The reason it draped so nicely is that it was made of lead. Lead tinsel was outlawed years ago (the '70s, I think), and now tinsel is made of shiny plastic, which is safer but it's light and flimsy and just doesn't drape as well. And you can't throw it at the top of the tree because it just flutters away.

[Chipper Chat]

182. Maybe that is why my brain is going.

Damn tinsel!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

186. Did you eat a lot of it?

[AmandaRuth]

181. the skating rink

oh jr high. good memories. i can still here The Smiths Baby its You. All Skate! Couples only! The races

[ailsagirl]

193. We just roller-skated (with skate keys!)-- and fell down and skinned our knees

Another ouch

[chia]

202. Lying in the back of the station wagon (no seat belts) counting street lights

... late at night while dad drove us home from vacation (usually camping - there were six of us kids, no money to do much else).

No one wore seatbelts then, so during the day we kids were usually hopping up and down, holding on to the back of the seat right behind mom or dad's head.

[murielm99]

204. The whole family would go out to the drive-in

to see family movies. We would bring our own food.

Or, going to the Dairy Queen in the back of the station wagon to get ice cream cones.

I had two brothers. We would bring our friends sometimes, taking turns. Then, the friend would stay overnight at our house.

[crazycatlady]

207. I'm an 80s kid

And I remember those station wagons that had the rear facing 3rd row seat.

The other day, I crammed a 6 people into my Subaru (2 illegally) and 2 sat in the back end (Forester, so no trunk). I immediately had a flashback to being in elementary school and sitting in the 'way back'

[chia]

208. OMG...here's our back seats (we had 2 facing each other):

That's a 1968 Ford Country Sedan - boy does that take me back!

They'd fold down and then we could lie in the back, 2 or 3 across (I'm one of 6 kids).

[Mosby]

205. Having company come over

https://vimeo.com/150434291

[llmart]

217. Isn't that an interesting concept?

As kids we were always so excited when we were getting company. Does anyone get "company" any longer? We'd have to clean the house and my mother would bake something special for dessert. The adults would talk and us kids would eavesdrop.

[doc03]

209. The smell of mimiograph ink

on test papers.

[doc03]

210. Being on a party line with 7 other

neighbors our ring was a long and a short.

[MyOwnPeace]

222. "Yelling" outside your friend's house......

"Joh-----nny - can you come out and play?"

Sometimes Johnny would come out, sometimes his Mom: "Johnny's not allowed out today - maybe tomorrow."

We'd go to Billy's next.................

[sarge43]

223. Sunday morning funnies

Took up one section of the newspaper, full page spread, beautiful artwork, exciting stories - Prince Valiant, Terry and the Pirates, Tarzan, The Phantom and more. A whole Sunday morning adventuring and didn't have to leave the living room floor.