I had the creepie crawlies both plastic and food sort =) I also had the pretzel jetzel, an ez bake oven, a snoopy sno cone maker … and the prize of them all - a cotton candy maker =)
I had the big chemical set, the little curated rock collection that had uranium ore and asbestos =)
My mom would shoo my brother and I out after an early breakfast in the summers to go play with a random roaming troup of kids and cousins, and the only thing was to be back when the YMCA camp blew evening chow call at 6 pm, no fixed bedtime but dinner tended to be between 7 and 8. After I hit 12 I could go out after dinner as long as I was back by midnight, we determined i could find the place based on the visual profile of the hills and trees profiled against the night sky =) Lunches tended to be mooched from whoevers parents we ended up closest to at lunch time, bathroom breaks for girls wherever we were near. The summer residents along that quarter of the lake tended to be all locals, and frequently were relatives or friends of the family =)
Sopranos had the son of Ralphie Ciffaretto get hit by a lawn dart and ended up in a coma. Not long after that Tony sent Ralph to sleep with the fishes.
Some of us were play circus, trying to do stunts. Benny stood on the end of the board while Jeff jumped on the other end, launching him in the air. That went on until the tape holding the fulcrum pieces together broke and Benny did a really scary looking half-flip, landing hard on his back. Came out of it ok, though.
Some of our most dangerous toys were not manufactured.
This may go back a little further than the 70s, depending on where you live, but up to about the early 60s around here firecrackers were readily available to kids. Surprised this wonderful way for kids to permanently injure themselves hasn’t been mentioned. I recall a transition point where they became illegal, due to new laws at some level of government, but some stores – like one hardware store in my neighborhood – continued to sell them under the counter. Including some fairly big fat ones a few inches in length. All the kids knew about it and I had lots of fun with them.
Some of the crazy stuff we did must have precipitated parental interrogations of their respective offspring, and word was that the police had paid a visit to our favorite hardware store. I went in one day to buy more firecrackers, and the man shook his head sadly, in the manner of one who has been through something of a legal ordeal and had no wish to go through it again.
I grew up in a state where fireworks were illegal. Oh, you could light sparklers and smoke bombs but nothing as dramatic as a firecracker. We were jealous. But apparently it paid off.
Somewhat related to this topic, somebody(I believe it was the National Lampoon in their Sunday Newspaper parody) put out a fake Red Ryder ad where the mother was telling her older son that he could put someone’s eye out, and they was a small illustration of the younger brother crying with a hand other one eye, the older son replying something like “You bet I could, mom!”
I would love to be able to find a link to that ad.
60 this year. Nobody ever shot anyone at my school. And we had shotguns and rifles in our cars.
But that wasn’t the 70’s as specified by the OP. I had the Johnny Eagle version. Those Greenie Stick’um Caps were a pain in the ass. Had to sit half the day and load up bullets if you wanted plenty of reloads. And I kept losing those stupid bullets on top of it.
What about swing sets. Anyone here almost kill themselves on a swing set? We had the largest backyard version I think possible. My cousin broke his arm jumping out of the swing on 2 separate occasions. One time there were 6 of us on it. Rocking the glider, the sky glider and the swings. Tipped the entire sonovabitch over frontways. Ripped the stakes right out of the ground. All 6 of us on the ground pinned by the top metal bar of the set. Good times, folks.
My cousin, 2 years older than me, had some sort of chemistry set. We stunk ourselves out from under the stairs a few times. The fake blood was cool.
I had the microscope with the needle and scalpel, as was mentioned elsewhere. Mom took the scalpel away until I was about 13. I got it back so I could work on models with it.
I also had a few woodworking kits over the years. These had real saws, hammers, and screwdrivers, but everything was sized for little hands. Potentially dangerous in the wrong little hands.
When my father was a kid, everyone had a pocketknife. Much less so when I was younger, but I always had at least one. Aside from being practical, we’d play stretch. My English teacher in high school used to borrow my Swiss Army knife regularly for the scissors. Nowadays, carrying a knife in school will get you arrested. What a shame.
Yes, exactly. When you were young, you’d hear about people getting shot at your school. Nowadays, you hear about people getting shot at any school anywhere in the nation.
I beg to differ. I took up candy cigarettes at the age of 7 and I have never been able to quit for very long (I squirreled away a life-time supply before they went off the market) . They have ruined my teeth and caused me numerous debilitating health problems, yet I can’t do without my two packs a day.
I had one of the wrist rocket slingshots. I never shot them at anything living, unless there was a big flock of blackbirds in the corn field. Shooting anything that wasn’t going to be eaten was frowned upon at our house, and I had a shotgun for that before I had the slingshot. I found rocks too inaccurate unless they were small and shaped just right. Pieces of corn cob were fun to shoot at targets that weren’t far away, but I had my thumb sticking up too far one time and hit it. Lucky I wasn’t using a steelie or a rock.
I didn’t think using pennies instead of discs hurt much unless it was extremely close range. Pennies were just too heavy. I’d use them once I lost all the discs, though.
