25 Things We Did As Kids That Would Get Someone Arrested Today

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Riding in the back of an open pick-up truck with a bunch of other kids
2. Leaving the house after breakfast and not returning until the streetlights came on, at which point, you raced home, ASAP so you didn’t get in trouble
3. Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the school cafeteria
4. Riding your bike without a helmet
5. Riding your bike with a buddy on the handlebars, and neither of you wearing helmets
6. Drinking water from the hose in the yard
7.Swimming in creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes (or what they now call *cough* “wild swimming“)
8.Climbing trees (One park cut the lower branches from a tree on the playground in case some stalwart child dared to climb them)
9.Having snowball fights (and accidentally hitting someone you shouldn’t)
10.Sledding without enough protective equipment to play a game in the NFL
11.Carrying a pocket knife to school (or having a fishing tackle box with sharp things on school property)
12.Camping
13.Throwing rocks at snakes in the river
14.Playing politically incorrect games like Cowboys and Indians
15. Playing Cops and Robbers with *gasp* toy guns
16.Pretending to shoot each other with sticks we imagined were guns
17.Shooting an actual gun or a bow (with *gasp* sharp arrows) at a can on a log, accompanied by our parents who gave us pointers to improve our aim. Heck, there was even a marksmanship club at my high school
18.Saying the words “gun” or “bang” or “pow pow” (there actually a freakin’ CODE about “playing with invisible guns”)
19.Working for your pocket money well before your teen years
20.Taking that money to the store and buying as much penny candy as you could afford, then eating it in one sitting
21.Eating pop rocks candy and drinking soda, just to prove we were exempt from that urban legend that said our stomachs would explode
22.Getting so dirty that your mom washed you off with the hose in the yard before letting you come into the house to have a shower
23.Writing lines for being a jerk at school, either on the board or on paper
24.Playing “dangerous” games like dodgeball, kickball, tag, whiffle ball, and red rover
(The Health Department of New York issued a warning about the “significant risk of injury” from these games)
25.Walking to school alone

[NightWatcher]

1. #22, I remember those days well

We also used to shoot bb guns at each other, but we were only allowed to pump them once.

[Phentex]

2. I loved penny candy!

I even remember when some was two fer a penny! I think it's where I developed my love for circus peanuts. And fire balls. And tootsie rolls. And caramels. And Mary Janes...

[angstlessk]

10. wax lips, pixie sticks, and licorice that was black!

My favorite candies

[sarge43]

54. The wax lips

Generated unnatural excitement among the teaching staff.

Penny candy: Guaranteed a good living for a generation of dentists.

[Kaleva]

3. Used to be able to take guns to school and smoke on the bus.

[RebelOne]

5. I went to a technical high school in Miami and we were allowed to smoke in the cafeteria. n/t

[mrmpa]

13. We had an outside smoking area and I........

went to an all girls catholic high school.

[safeinOhio]

4. Throwing snowballs at

brand new Model Ts

[femmocrat]

6. Yep. I think I did all of those things.

And I'm still here! LOL

I even let my kids do most of them and they survived too!

[Submariner]

8. #26 - Playing Lawn Darts

Especially fun at drunken backyard barbecues.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Eating your Halloween candy right out of the bag

without anybody checking it for razor blades.

Playing with blobs of mercury you got from a broken thermometer or stole from the science classroom.

Playing baseball in the street (manhole covers were bases).

Collecting as much gunpowder from caps and trying to blow stuff up with it.

Playing on those hot steel merry-go-rounds and slides that were situated on concrete playgrounds.

Eating picnic food that had been sitting out on the table for awhile.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Saving your money to buy and shoot off all sorts of fireworks

even the BIG ones, with no adult supervision.
Esp. the neighbourhood boys and my brothers were allowed to do that.
There were dozens of fireworks stands, sometimes 2-3 on the same street, and I do not remember limits on what you could buy.

[malthaussen]

35. I understand you can't even go "around the world" on swings anymore...

... so much for centrifugal force.

In fact, I read an article recently that said some playgrounds were banning swings altogether.

-- Mal

[WinkyDink]

57. Halloween corollary: Throwing field corn at the neighbors' houses ("tick-tacking").

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

11. Free range for sure.

We put the ladder on the big swing to make a swinging sea saw.
The mailman used to lock us in the mailbox and pretend to walk away.
We made a tank out of a shopping cart outfitted with cardboard box armor and used chestnuts to attack the Lobdell boys.
My brothers made a mock battle in the backyard with all the models they had built and some gasoline.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. Every time we moved to a small town, we disappeared on our bikes to explore

We sort of had a 3-4 mile radius that was allowed. I remember doing this from the age of 8 to 12.
Bikes were FREEDOM!
No helmets.
No curfew.
And no quizzes about where we had been or what we had done.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

19. Parents didn't want to know.

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. I sometimes wonder if they were disappointed

to see us come home.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

21. Every family in my neighborhood had five or six kids.

So what if you lose a few.

[sarge43]

48. Rim shot. n/t

[magical thyme]

34. this ^^^

[sarge43]

47. Well, they didn't change the door locks

At least mine didn't.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

52. We were useful for chores.

[sarge43]

53. I always liked one of Bill Bryson's insights

He said that he noticed even when parents built a nice play room in the basement, the kids would never use it. He believed the reason was that the kids were afraid that they'd be locked in down there and never let out.

[hifiguy]

64. I loved our rec rooms and basements growing up.

I was deeply into slot cars and was always putzing around resetting the track and monkeying with the cars.

But I was an only child and could hog all the space to myself.

[Art_from_Ark]

29. When I was 8, I rode my Buzz bike to a neighboring town

I asked someone on the street in the other town how to get to Oklahoma (it was about 30 miles away). He said it was really far and I wouldn't make it before dark. So I turned around and rode back home.

[hifiguy]

63. Same for me.

I rode my bike everywhere.

Scared the hell out of myself once coming home from my friend Mike's house. His family lived at the top of a long hill and according to the speedometer on my bike I hit 50 mph on the way down. Of course I was trying to do just that.

In the min-late Sixties when I was a boy when summertime came I checked out of the house about 9 and unless I came home for lunch and cartoons around noon I stayed out until suppertime and then headed out again as soon as I was done eating unless I had to mow the lawn or something first.

Exploring, sandlot baseball, tramping around in boggy spots, shooting at cans with our BB guns (the only gun I ever fired in my life) biking everywhere just for the billy o' hell of it. I had a blast growing up. I feel sorry for today's kids.

[sarge43]

15. Except for #11 & #23, been there, done that. Good times. n/t

[NV Whino]

16. Oh yeah

And tire swings with genuine used tires.

Fishing in the local streams without a license.

Mostly it was disappearing all day to do whatever the hell you wanted with whomever the hell you wanted. The time to come home was when you heard your middle name.

Walking or biking to school. I have to say I hated walking or biking that mile or so to school, but these days I look back on it with nostalgia. No wonder I was a skinny kid. (Of course, my mother's cooking didn't help.)

Shit. I think I'm officially old.

[Kali]

24. !!!

The time to come home was when you heard your middle name.

[hifiguy]

65. Eeyup.

That was a sure sign you were in genuine Dutch.

[LWolf]

17. I did all of those things;

the gun play not so much, and when we played cowboys and indians I was always the indian with a bow. The pocket knife not often, but I had one and it ended up in my pocket at school now and then.

[rurallib]

18. Is that your own list? Very Thorough!

I pretty much did all that.
I lived in a major college town, so we were allowed to go to games by ourselves. Yep unaccompanied. Usually met our friends there. Then walked home alone in the waning light of an autumn afternoon

Bet I got one that no one else does. I am an old dude that reaches back to the '50s. We had a tavern a couple of doors down from us. My parents were shall we say very good customers of that tavern. Couple times a week my mother would write a note, sign a check and send me to the tavern to get some bread, cigarettes and beer.

Yes indeed. Today the whole damn family would be in lockup for that one.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. Got the questions from some site.

And your commented reminded me......we used to go trick or treating into taverns.
and got lots of money!!!!
My parents were related to yours, I think...

[Snobblevitch]

25. Even though both of my parents were smokers

I was never asked to buy smokes for them. My best friend's mom however would write a note and give money to my friend for cigarettes.

We didn't always have money for candy. A few times we went out to the back of the store, close to the railroad tracks, and there were cases of empty soda bottles near the back door. We grabbed a few, returned them for deposit, and bought candy. I still feel some guilt over that. The 'old' lady who we duped back in the day just died a few years ago at age 98.

I think karma got us however. We used to buy ice cream bars and eat them while walking on the railroad tracks. We went out on the RR bridge over the road. My friend decided to drop a half-eaten ice cream bar on the windshield of the next car that went under us. When we got back to the house my friend's mom casually asked us about what we were up to that day. Our response was nothin' much. It turns out that car was being driven by my friend's aunt and she recognized us. friend's

[dixiegrrrrl]

42. omg! we did the same thing!

about the pop bottles. And we thought we were so clever to think of that.

But your comment raises another memory.....there was a deposit on those bottles, back in mid-late 50's in Wash. state where I was.
And somehow that disappeared, because we had to fight the whole deposit thing all over again in the 70's and 80's.

[Snobblevitch]

70. Our bottle return days were in the 70s.

I remember buying returnable soda in 16 ounce bottles when I was in college in the middle 80s.

We still don't have a deposit on bottles and cans in Minnesota. We have good recycling programs statewide.

[Art_from_Ark]

88. My friend who lived down the street had a garage full of pop bottles

He recruited me and another neighborhood boy to carry them to a mom-and-pop shop that was about a mile away. We got a Radio Flyer wagon, but that couldn't hold all of the bottles, so we carried the overflow in paper sacks. We got $4.20 for the bottles-- a small fortune in that day, especially at 2c a bottle (so 210 bottles!). Anyway, my friend and I got $1.00 each for our trouble, and we loaded up on Zero bars, Mounds, Almond Joys, peanut butter logs .and Butterfinger bars at 10 cents each.

Anyway, when we got back, my friend's mother was mad as a wet hen. Apparently, she had been counting on using that deposit money for something else. My friend wasn't able to sit down for a week

[hifiguy]

66. Holy crap!

My mom sent me to the store for cigs many times. I'd take the note and cash and bike over to the convenience store - my mom never learned to drive and my dad worked nights - and give t to the person behind the counter. They always gave me the smokes.

Tried to smoke cigs when I was a teen and hated the taste. When I got a bit older I came to prefer more herbal smokables.

[Snobblevitch]

71. My friend and I got busted smoking cigarettes

when we were still pre-teens. I remember we went into a bunch of big pine trees, unfortunately for us, we were seen from inside the house out the window, not from somebody outside in the yard. About the same time, we were busted by the same mom when we were swearing at each other over walkie talkies. For some reason, the frequency was the same as the TV sound. I remember we were trying to outdo each other in how bad we could insult each other using filthy language. I think we were finally busted when we got to the "your mama is so ugly...." insults.

[malthaussen]

36. Well, my father used to take me into the bar while he got drunk in the afternoon...

... could say I've hated ginger ale ever since.

But that's hardly nostalgic.

-- Mal

[neverforget]

23. Did all of those except #3. I HATE!!!!! peanut butter.

It's my kryptonite.

[Capt.Rocky300]

26. Got my first ticket doing #5.....

at age 10 from an asshole San Diego cop. The problem was, I was on our property, not public, and my mom (a lady you didn't want to mess with) went to court to fight it. The cop didn't even show up and it was dismissed. Pretty much set my opinion of cops for life.

[Wolf Frankula]

27. Taking a Gun to School

I remember seeing kids coming to school with rifles in gun racks in their cars.

Playing 'swords' with sharp sticks.

Wolf

[olddots]

28. all of the above

plus taking little " test drives " in parent's cars and don't forget trying booze , tobacco and what ever pil
s your parents had lying around .We lived thru it for the most part .

[Manifestor_of_Light]

30. This looks like thinly disguised Libertarian Bullshit.

The message this seems to be saying is "We didn't have helmets and seat belts but we lived through it because we are TOUGH!!! Mean old government regulations and mean old personal injury lawsuits ruined our fun!!! WAAHHH!!

Typical libertarian whining disguised as nostalgia for good old days that weren't really that good.
Death rates and injury rates have fallen dramatically for children since then due to accidents.

I get really sick of these posts about the good old days because I did not have it good.

There were no caves to explore where I lived on coastal prairie with postwar suburbia built on it. There weren't any rocks. The dirt was black clay that soaked up water and held it. I was not thrown out of the house to play. My parents were jailers. I had no allowance and no "pocket money". Never went to a "candy store". Don't remember ever seeing a candy store. No money to buy vinyl records with. I couldn't work when I was in school because I was too tired all the time from going to school and practicing music. I slept a lot because I was very busy as well as ill.

The other kids tried to literally kill me at red rover by tripping me so I would fall on my face, full body slam. It's a wonder i didn't get serious concussions. I was a lot smaller than the kids who tried to kill me that way, or bounced basketballs off my head in PE when the probably lesbian teacher wasn't looking. I absolutely hated PE because of the six foot tall stupid female bullies. I still hate sports. The other kids decided not to interact with me and the teacher would have to step in and participate with me.

I didn't fulfill the fantasy of growing up and getting huge and strong and beating up the bullies. I never learned to fight, and knew if I tried to fight I would probably be seriously injured, and outweighed. I'm still a small person with small bones.

I never tried booze or cigarettes or illegal drugs as a minor. My parents smoked when I was little and I have them to thank for scar tissue in my lungs from second hand smoke. I had a lot of sinus infections and allergies from the general filth level in the house as well. Blew my nose constantly at school. The other kids got annoyed and yelled at me but nobody bothered to take me to the doctor and do anything about it. I don't think they had allergists back then. Didn't sneak off and do anything I was ashamed of. I went to school and studied like I was expected to.

I have forgotten large chunks of my childhood because it was not fun.

A whole lot fewer kids are injured and dying from childhood accidents now thanks to helmets, seat belts, car seats, and personal injury lawsuits against makers of dangerous toys such as lawn darts. And yes, I am a lawyer.

I think a lot of this is rosy nostalgia that is not realistic.

[blueknight]

31. oh it was very realistic

Maybe not for YOU, but it was realistic. I did most of the things on the list, and would love to go back and do it all over again.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

38. It was real. I clearly remember doing many of these things.

I don't think anybody is spouting "libertarian bullshit" - just remembering how things were (for me, it was the '50s). And yes, some of what we did was dangerous, and kids did get hurt. I don't disagree that there have been huge and welcome improvements in product safety, or that bicycle helmets are a good thing. But we didn't have those things then, and the prevailing attitude toward child rearing seems to have been that you just turned them loose and let them run as long as they came back by supper time and didn't do anything terribly illegal.

I'm sorry you had such a crappy childhood, but your unfortunate experience does not negate the reality of my childhood or other posters'. Nobody is calling for a return to unsafe toys or the abolition of product liability litigation (I'm a lawyer, too (retired), and so was my dad), but I think it's fair to say that a lot of kids are now so overprotected that they don't know how to do much for themselves.

[bigwillq]

41. Great post.

I grew up in the 80s, and this list was very real for me.

[sarge43]

45. Yes, it was

Children can be overly protected.

I used to work in a pet store. More than once people would bring children and start the "Don't touch it!" "They'll bite!" "They're dirty!" Then wonder why their little squib had hysterics if a parakeet so much as looked at them.

Yeah, we got hurt. I scored a broken arm falling out of a tree and a broken nose from an icy snowball. I was always covered with scabs, cuts and scratches. Upside, I learn not be afraid of everything that existed and a sense of independence. Came in handy later on.

[Orrex]

49. That's actually quite similar to arguments in favor of corporal punishment

Yeah, we got hurt. I scored a broken arm falling out of a tree and a broken nose from an icy snowball. I was always covered with scabs, cuts and scratches. Upside, I learn not be afraid of everything that existed

Right, right. It toughened you up. Sure.

Of course, that same argument ("It happened to me, and I turned out all the better for it.&quot appears in every DU discussion about corporal punishment, and invariably it's condemned as if it were a savage manifesto by a deliberate sadist.

Funny to see it embraced repeatedly in this thread as a wistful and romanticized call for a return to the good ol' days.

[sarge43]

50. Exactly where did I say it "toughened" me up or made me "better"?

You don't build straw men very well.

For the record, I can count on one hand with three fingers down the number of times I was spanked. I screwed up and I was grounded - much worse punishment for an active kid.

[Orrex]

51. Hyperliteralism is the hallmark of a weak argument

I was summarizing the attitude expressed both in your post and in pro-corporal-punishment posts.

If you'd care to offer a different summary of this statement:

I was always covered with scabs, cuts and scratches. Upside, I learn not be afraid of everything that existed

then I will address that instead. Regardless, the point will be the same in either case: what you fondly identify as a rite of passage that made you a better adult, others identify as a damaging attitude toward child-rearing best left in the past. Clearly, YMMV.

There's also a curious air of self-superiority in your post, implying that a childhood not covered in scabs, cuts and scratches will incline one to timidity and cowardice. Hmm...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

73. Yes, Orrex.

The subtext is, "I'm tough and I survived all that reckless stuff! You're a wimp!"

This libertarian bullshit is very much like, "I got spanked, or got the shit beaten out of me for minor things, and I'm just fine with it. In fact, if you want your kids to be good, go ahead and beat them up. I'm a healthy adult, so it's fine."

I've gotten a couple of concussions in car wrecks. I didn't die from the car wrecks, because they had 3 point seat belts in Japanese cars in the late 1970s. Otherwise, I would be dead. Not wearing a seat belt would have only proven that I was too stupid to wear a seat belt in the first place, and I would be DEAD. Straight through the windshield in a head-on collision.

I refused to do anything in P.E. that would cause a jammed finger or a broken bone because I was a musician and the idea of breaking a finger or spraining a wrist was horrible to me. If I had been unable to play music, my whole world would have practically shut down. Classical music was the only thing that gave me hope in my shitty restricted childhood.

I don't think broken bones, or scratches etc. prove anything except that you were probably not smart enough to avoid things that caused major injuries. I've never broken any bones. I was once a very active bicyclist and wore a helmet. This was when ten-speeds started to get popular in the 1970s.

[Throd]

82. Maybe you're reading too much into this.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

87. what I am doing is relating my experience.

Other people are saying "Oh no this happened to me, you weren't part of the majority so your opinion doesn't count."

Also, I pointed out that I was in a head on collision in the 70s which most certainly would have killed me if I hadn't worn a 3 point seat belt.

It was bad enough that even though I stayed in place, I bounced around inside the seat belt, got a concussion from the roof, tummy bruises from the steering wheel, banged up my knees from hitting the dashboard, and sprained my right ankle. I laid around the house for a month with bruises all over me. I would have certainly died at a young age but for seat belts.

That's why I am not impressed with all this talk about being "toughened up" and macho from getting childhood injuries that are sometimes easily preventable.

This sounds like the libertarians who hate that that mean old government makes them wear seat belts because they don't want that big bad government to tell them what they can and can't do. However, motor vehicle accidents, injuries and deaths cost society a lot of money, and the government has the right to tell you you have to wear a seat belt when your failure to do so results in uncompensated medical expenses at the emergency room. I took torts so I am well aware of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits from dangerous products like lawn darts.

[Throd]

89. Nobody is discounting your right to be a fun-suck.

Lamenting the over-protective mentality that is so pervasive these days isn't advocacy for not using seat belts or common sense.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

92. Where's the line?

Where is the line between "fun suck" as you call it and serious injuries and deaths?

It's usually where a lawyer files a lawsuit to prevent the serious injuries and deaths in the future. Money is all corporations understand. You have to hit them in the pocketbook.

I wasn't the "fun suck". My parents were the "fun suck" who tried to make sure I had no fun as a kid.

[LanternWaste]

90. As is the fallacy of free extrapolation.

As is the fallacy of free extrapolation.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

93. You talking about slippery slope?

[hifiguy]

67. Egg-zackly.

[dixiegrrrrl]

43. I am so sorry you had such a difficult childhood.

Judging from the response to this post, many folks do have memories that are realistic, based on the commonalities in the list.

[bigmonkey]

46. It's realistic, but the sample is skewed.

I grew up in the 60s, and virtually all of that stuff was "normal" in my life. I have a lot of sympathy with people who are fighting against the tendency to suffocate childhood with safety.

But, I always have to remind myself that the small, but real, minority of kids who died from the stuff I obviously survived never get to speak up, and that those who were horribly injured have a very faint voice in the conversation.

Wild fun can turn bad, and just because it didn't for me or for someone else doesn't change that. The world can be a dangerous place. As someone I read recently said, "The human body is the result of 3.8 billion years of destructive testing."

[WinkyDink]

56. Ummmm....WRONG!! I did ALL OF THEM BUT #1. In a small PA. town.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

76. That's exactly where I usually see this "reminiscing" list...

attached to an email that laments for the "good old days" and yet ignores that everyone who lived during that time made the rules that exist now that (supposedly) get people "arrested". (Arrested for camping? Who seriously thought that was something one could get arrested for?)

Usually the list also has some sort of slam against "Xbox or Playstation". Also ignoring that these people who lived these lives were the generation that invented video games.

I can look at that list and see some things that I did, yes, but I thought I was invincible when I was a kid. I never thought of what would happen if I wiped out on my bike, and the times I did wipe out I was lucky. Other kids I knew weren't as fortunate. I didn't understand why playing a "politically incorrect" game like cowboys and indians was bad until I learned more of the past. I also never wrote lines for "being a jerk" either at school. I was the one who was always bullied.

I can understand the shiny gloss of the "good old days" on this list but I do agree with you that this list is a bit hyperbolic.

And seriously? Who gets arrested for "camping"?

[Arugula Latte]

78. Yep. Self-congratulatory stuff like this keeps circulating on Facebook and elsewhere.

It's really pretty sad. Lots of kids survived things like helmet-less bike accidents and seatbelt-less car accidents, but many did not. Stupid "look-how-awesome-and-tough-we were!" crap like this is so disrespectful. If you survived a 50s/60s/70s childhood (as I did, taking many helmetless spills from horses) without being maimed or killed it was due to dumb luck, not your own inherent pluck and superiority. ... I wonder if the people who keep posting stuff like this would put their own child on a bike in traffic without a helmet. I know I never would.

[MicaelS]

84. It's perfectly realistic.

I was born in 1957, and did most of these things. So did my friends. I survived, so did they. And just because you did not have it so good, does not mean the rest of us did not.

And you're a lawyer. That explains a lot.

[raccoon]

32. Being driven around in a car by a parent who was drunk. Being

driven by said parent to store to buy them more booze.

Not exactly the "good old days."

[magical thyme]

33. horseback riding. no helmet. no saddle. no bridle. sometimes not even

a leadshank. Just climb aboard and we're off and running!

The infamous trail ride with a group of friends on the 1%er trails of the Radnor Hunt. We led our ponies across the highway to a tavern, and held them in the parking lot while our "guide" went in to vist her friend, the bartender, and came back out with him and some other friends carrying drinks for us all. Finished the ride in true 1%er tipsy fashion!

Got up by myself and made my own breakfast. Didn't walk a mile to school though. Walked a mile alone to the bus stop. A few more miles to school.

Yeah, I've done most of the things on the list.

Those were the days. I can't believe the way kids are today. It's frightening they're so dependent and...wimpy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

59. Halloween has disappeared from here.

Last 2 years zero kids, in a neighbourhood that has kids. Several years before that , may be 1-2.

The churches are holding Halloween "events" and parties, age appropriate, and everyone is done and in bed by 9.
Town has a curfew of 7:30 on Halloween.

[magical thyme]

61. I live on a state road, so no trick or treating here either

although I doubt there's any on the side streets either; the town holds a halloween party.

When I first moved to my condo back in 84-85, trick or treaters would be out. But within a few years, that stopped. The schools and churches held halloween events as well.

[malthaussen]

37. Never heard of the urban legend in #21...

... but if we had, we would have done it hoping it was true.

We always threw rocks at the rich Catholic School kids in their fine uniforms on the way to school. I came from a pretty tough working-class neighborhood, and it was taken for granted that those kids were rich and stuck up. Lacking non-whites to hate, we improvised.

-- Mal

[eppur_se_muova]

39. Ah, the unbridled curiosity of young children's minds !

[hifiguy]

68. I remember wondering that

when I was but a small lad.

Gads, I miss Calvin and Hobbes.

[NewJeffCT]

60. I remember back in the 70s

the legend was that Mikey, the Life Cereal kid, died from eating Pop Rocks and drinking soda at the same time. I'm sure most kids tried to do it at the time (pop rocks & soda together)

[malthaussen]

74. Ah, that would explain it then...

... the legend became current after my kidhood.

-- Mal

[bigwillq]

40. Did pretty much all of these things.

And I think I turned out OK.

[hay rick]

44. Did most those things.

I couldn't do 13 because I never saw snakes in the river- but I skipped stones and threw stones a lot.

[WinkyDink]

55. Missed only #1! #26. Cutting through yards! #27. Diving/jumping off the high board (don't exist).

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

58. I can relate to both views of this list.

The freedom was great, much better than the over scheduled, over sheltered smothering so many kids deal with today, but there was a meanness that went with it at times. If we could combine the free range roaming of yesterday with a generous helping of anti-bullying education, we might find a perfect balance.

[RobinA]

77. That's Interesting

I had the opposite impression. While there was certainly bullying back in the day, I find things much meaner today. The stuff my niece and nephew would report from middle school 10 years ago was way nastier than anything I ever experienced or heard of when I attended the same school district.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

79. You may be right. The internet provides endless material to use to taunt.

[hifiguy]

62. Today's kids are in for an extraordinary shock

when they finally leave their cocoons.

[benld74]

69. Guilty on all 25

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

72. I'm 25 for 25!

[MrScorpio]

75. Greatest list ever.

[Jokerman]

80. Well, since childhood friends of mine died doing numbers 1 & 4, I'll skip the nostalgia.

Not to mention the fact that several of these things still happen every day.

[Divameow77]

81. I was born in 1977

and did a lot of these things.

[MicaelS]

83. Going out on Halloween with just another group of kids.

For 2-3 hours. No adults, no parties, totally unsupervised. Coming home with a paper grocery bag full of candy.

Fireworks...woo-hoo. Spending today's equivalent to $200 on a bag of stuff. Blowing up cans, and ant hills with them. Being able to shoot them off right in the city in your own front yard and no one said a damn thing because EVERYONE was doing the same thing. And you know, I never heard or knew of a single kid who got injured back then either. One year, circa 1968, during Vietnam, our next door neighbor brought home some ARTILLERY Simulators (think an M-80 on steroids) from his Air Force position as a War Dog Trainer. Holy shit. Someone did that today they would find themselves in prison.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

85. Does it make me bad that I thought you had written --

"No adults, no panties, totally unsupervised" and smiled with impish remembrances?

[MicaelS]

86. Oh that is great, got a big chuckle. Thanks. n/t

[LanternWaste]

91. Ten speed bikes, R2D2 t-shirts, tube socks that nearly covered the knees, seriously competitive air-

Ten speed bikes, R2D2 t-shirts, tube socks that nearly covered the knees, seriously competitive air-hockey competitions, feathered hair, muscle cars in the back parking lot (the "Cool Lot&quot of the high school just around the corner from the smoking hill (only bit of school property students could smoke), sibling fights over who gets to use the one phone in the house, bogartin' a joint during lunch hour (again, in the Cool Lot only where teachers would look the other way), afros, concept albums, pull tabs covering every parking lot in America...


I had far too much fun...