I participated in another thread that reminded me of my childhood. The free and easy times, when we ran wild all over the place on our bikes.
I remember a specific time when we rode through the city in the drainage bayous on our bikes, all the way to the Houston Zoo. I think it was about 10 miles, but Google maps says 7.7 miles by car - on the freeway!
We had no money, and no water, but we had fun! (It was free to get in back then.)
Tell me about your free and easy childhood, running wild in the backwoods with your parents unconcerned about you.
We used to hike 3 miles through the woods, to play basketball at the junior high school. We did bring Mello Yello to drink. Oh, and my parents bought me a BB gun and Jarts, too.
Yeah, I remember wandering in the woods, fields and all over town from dawn until dusk and sometimes later. Once chores were done, my mother didn’t want us hanging around, so I would just go!
I used to ride my bike everywhere, and I do mean EVERYWHERE. I rode for miles and miles.
Sometimes, I would take my fishing pole and find one of the many little lakes that used to be near the home I spent most of my growing up years in. I always came home with something when I did that.
Sometimes, I would just ride to a different area of Tacoma just to explore.
Sometimes, I built tree forts and hung out in them with my friends. Sometimes, we built jumps for our bikes and just plain ol’ jumped our bikes from the edges of dirt hills and cliffs.
We also rode our bikes everywhere. I remember one time we rode a long way out in the country to a horse riding place, rode horses for a couple hours then rode our bikes back home.
We used to ride our bikes to the University swimming pool, I think we must have looked like ducklings in a row. The four of us are about 2 years apart each.
I loved being able to go trick-or-treating to Every House In The Neighborhood. Our street was kind of a U shape, where each end ran into the same major street. I lived on one end of the U. There was one neighbor on the bottom of the U, Mrs. Russell, who used to give out caramel apples every single year. We could eat them on the way home with no worries. She was an awesome lady, too.
We had lots of kids on our street, too. I could just go out, get on my bike, and just go. When I was little, grandma, grandpa and I would go to the store, and we’d get a cab back. We didn’t have a car, so we walked everywhere. When I got old enough, grandma would give me the money and the list and let me go on my bike. That was the best thing in the world to me.
About, oh, three blocks from my house we had a construction site, I don’t know if it was abandoned or what, but it consisted of several enormous piles of soft sand. By ‘‘enormous’’ I mean 10-20 feet high. There were also several steep ravines that were great for riding bikes. We spent pretty much every day there sitting on top of or riding over the sand piles or inventing elaborate games and otherwise nearly killing ourselves with fun.
We roamed over hill and dale; quite literally. Fights we had now and then but never much more than a bruise or a broken nose. We all had guns for hunting but shooting a person just never entered our brains. Some “football games” went on for days without anyone keeping score. We kids sort of looked after each other but all the adults of the region were looking after us as well. Which means if you did something stupid like crushing your finger in a railroad switch while crushing rocks, you may as well fess up and tell Dad that’s what happened - he would know shortly after you got home from the doctors anyway. We were poor and some of our toys and games came from a sharp eye and the local dump but we sort of liked it that way. And even today, as adults, my “old crowd” and I are as likely to make something we want as we are to buy it. It’s odd; we should have been frightened all the time but we weren’t. We were happy and for the most part still are. I wish I could bottle it and pass it around because its something missing today.
We pretty much stuck to the two blocks at the end of our street because all of our friends lived there. We played all kinds of games (kick the can, hide and seek, etc) and rode our bikes back and forth a lot, but not so much away except to school.
There are quite a few kids on my street here and they seem to spend quite a bit of time outside on their bikes or playing ball or generally running around.
We lived in an apartment complex near Atlanta and spent our days roaming the outdoors with the neighborhood kids and exploring the rest of the complex, which seemed huge to us back in those days. When we first moved in there were a lot of trees and grass, and a creek flowing around the place, and plenty of wildlife to keep us amused. By the time we moved out the place was not as nice as it used to be - litter everywhere and the creek was no longer safe to wade in.
Less than four weeks and counting til summer vacation. I got an email from the maid of honor (for the wedding I’m attending in June) and she says the theme of the bridal shower is going to be “domestic goddess”. I’m still brainstorming for gift ideas. Thoughts?
I grew up in the country. We rode our bikes everywhere. We used to go swimming in a lake about 10 miles from home in April (in the PNW) without adult supervision. I played in the 20 acres of woods behind our house, often alone.
My husband, on the other hand, wasn’t allowed to cross the street, so he ran away from home… three times around the block when he was 5.
Just popping in to say hi: I finally have internet access at work, don’t have the whole list of in-house programs set up so I can’t do any work right now, missed y’all. Last week was crazy in the family but we’re all alive and the one who got a pink slip has been told it’s for a month (his boss wants to be able to claim “hiring people from unemployment benefits” upon rehire… don’t ask me what I think about those benefits).
From the last MMP: gt, I won’t be trying the puddings until Tuesday but I doubt the Mumpers will want the recipe. It’s essentially stewed fruit and ginger, with a topping made from flour, sugar and margarine. Nothing special about it but the quantities for the topping mean it’s quite stodgy. I’m not anticipating it being anything worth writing home about.
Great OP, Rebo - when I was a kid, we spent our summer outside with friends. We would go out first thing in the morning and come home for dinner about 8-10hrs later! My parents had a rough idea where we might be, they basically told us where we weren’t allowed to go and then pretty much left us to it. We never went anywhere alone, there was always a group of us, the local kids from the neighbouring houses on our street, and I think at the most there were a dozen of us. We roamed a few miles, depends whether we took our bikes with us or not, there was a large area of wasteland that was partly wooded and partly just overgrown, we played all sorts of games over there. At the top was a small park/playground we used to go to, and that was on the edge of a housing estate where some of my schoolfriends lived, so we used to meet up with them and play games in an even bigger group.
It’s hot again today, the office is already stifling. I wonder if anyone will complain if I start opening windows?
My childhood neighborhood was street after street of row houses - pretty obvious from the aerial view. Mostly we played in the alleys behind our houses, or roller skated on the sidewalks. As we got older and more responsible :rolleyes: we were allowed to bike in the streets. My mom got tired of yelling for us, so Dad hung a bell outside the back door, and when we heard the bell, we’d durn well better get our butts home!!
We walked all over the place (look both ways before crossing!!) and there were several playgrounds or elementary schools with playgrounds within a mile radius. Sometimes we’d pack a lunch, and we always had waxed paper for waxing the sliding boards (metal, of course!) Sometimes we’d go exploring the “streams” - OK, they were drainage ditches, but there were bugs and trees and if it had been raining, there was water. We had adventures.
As we got older, the destination of choice was the shopping center that had EJ Korvettes and Woolworth’s. Mostly what we bought were records, and my girlfriends and I loved going to the restaurant part of Woolworth’s and ordering a plate full of fries, to be eaten with ketchup. It suddenly occurs to me that we probably never tipped. Apologies to the servers back then…
I also used to ride my bike to my friend Denise’s house, with my guitar strapped to the basket of my bike. Denise, her neighbor Jeanette, and I were going to be a band. We called ourselves Uniquely Exclusive. Denise’s sister took our publicity photos with my mom’s camera, They’re in black and white - very arty. The only problem was I was the only one who could play an instrument and Denise was tone deaf. That’s why you won’t find our albums in the Vintage Vinyl rack.
Like others here, we’d be gone for hours. As long as we were home for supper, we were good. Then after supper, we could play in the immediate neighborhood till bedtime. Hide and seek after dark was always popular. And catching lightning bugs. And just being outside trying to stay cool because no one had a/c back then.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’ on what promises to be another hawt day!
We played in a big open field behind our house. My neighborhood also contained many kids and we’d have softball and football games a lot back there. We could also walk or ride bikes three blocks to a local swimmin’ pool, a local library (everybody participated in summer readin’ club at the library, where I was Book King the summer of my 5th grade year, meanin’ I read the most books!), and go to the drug store that was also right there for some of the best hamburgers and grilled pimento cheese sammiches evah! OOOH, and the lemon sours which were lemon juice, carbonated water and crushed ice with a lot of salt in ‘em. YUM! There was also a rec center where the older kids would go to play the jukebox and dance. We could also ride bikes or walk to downtown, bein’ as this is a small town I grew up in. We’d go to the movies, go to the local 5&10 stores, go get burgers at the little grill that also had good burgers and just goof all day. Like MOOOOOOM we’d play hide and seek and catch lightnin’ bugs and generally make nuisances of ourselves in the 'hood after supper until dark. We had slingshots and bbguns even! :eek: I always loved the fact that I had a summer bday cause I got to go do whatever all day and then come home and get ice cream and cake and presents! Tell me that’s not a way to celebrate a birthday!
My childhood? What everybody else said. Roaming the earth without a care. fcm, thanks for reminding me of the Woolworth’s french fries. They were Teh Nom! We spent a lot of time perusing the stores in downtown. Back then we had our unique department stores and boutique shops. Some of my favorites were the Bakery where we could watch the cakes being decorated, the Planters Peanut store where you could smell the roasting peanuts from down the block, and the multi-floored department store where the elevators back then had operators who would sing out the goods available on each floor. Oh, and the decorated store windows were something to see. Everybody got real excited when it came time to change them out…especially at Christmas.
I had a great but tiring weekend with family come to town. The festivities included trooping to the theater to see Ironman II which I like a lot. Scarlet Johansson has one smokin! body. I am so jealous.
