Playing with handfuls of mercury in 6th grade.
Oh, yes, and in 1987 I was forcibly thrown out of my chair in the library of my high school by the short-a-few-marbles-and-nearing retirement librarian for knitting a pink mohair sweater. He said it was disruptive and inappropriate and sent me to the Assistant Principal’s office. The A.P. gave me the chance to laugh it off and I did. Damned if that would happen again. The laughing it off, or the pink mohair.
I’d like to know what high school football is like nowadays.
Some of the standard field drills have been banned. The standard punishment was “reminders”, where we ran from one end line of the practice field to the other and back, doing a swan dive onto our chests at the goal lines and every ten yard line. It was a given that the coaches would cuss at the players. They also slapped players, grabbed facemasks and threw them to the ground and would physically throw guys through drills if they were too tired to maintain proper form. For major infractions the coaches had a paddle with air vents drilled in it so that there wasn’t a cushion of air to soften the blow.
My first head coach in high school was promoted to athletic coordinator of the district after the coaching staff beat up a receiver during halftime of the homecoming game (One coach hit him and he came back at him.) The varsity was down by a few points at halftime; they lost the game by over thirty points, and they ran “reminders” from three o’clock to sundown for every day of the next week. His replacement’s opening speech was about how football should be fun. While he was talking about how we were going to have fun in spring training, all of the players were sneaking looks of disbelief towards each other. Some guys transferred to other schools that were more “serious” about their programs.
As a child growing up in suburban Baltimore in the early 1960s, I walked 1.2 miles to (and from) elementary school practically every day for all six years.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have “play dates,” we just went out and played with the other kids in the neighborhood until our parents called us in.
Many people on our street left the keys to their cars in the ignition all the time. I don’t think most people locked the doors to their houses at night.
Moving closer to the present day, in 1992 I flew Air New Zealand from Auckland to Singapore in a 767, which was then a relatively new plane. I was in the front of the coach section and after takeoff I could light coming through the curtains at the front of the plane. So I walked up through first class and, sure enough, the cockpit door was open. I stuck my head in, the flight engineer said hi, and we started talking about the plane. He and the pilots were impressed that I knew about the “glass cockpit” and the plane’s autolanding capability, and by the fact that I worked at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
So after chatting a few minutes, the captain said, “We’ll be at top of descent for Tuvalu [I think, or some other refueling stop] in 20 minutes. If you want to come back then, you can sit in the jump seat for the landing.”
I went back to my seat, and at the appointed time the chief flight attendant came back and said, “The captain’s compliments, sir. Would you care to join him in the cockpit?” She didn’t have to ask twice. I grabbed my camera and went up to the most interesting landing I have ever had in a commercial plane.
Don’t believe me? Hereare a couple of the shots I took.
Ah, the good old days, when flying was fun!
I remember now the one I wanted to add to my OP. Late sixties/very early 70’s, my mom had one of those prototypical station wagons with tons of room behind the front seats. Well my sister (in kindergarten) and her classmates had some sort of party at someone’s house or something, and my mom volunteered to haul her class to the event. So imagine about 20 little 5 year olds sitting on the folded-down back seat and in the far back section. Imagine what would happen if the car came to a sudden and catastrophic halt. Imagine our family (remember I’m the spawn of a surgeon) living in the poor house for the rest of our lives after we get sued to hell and back by 20 families. Fortunately my mom was and is one of the most safe/defensive drivers out there, and they all got to the party and back in one piece.
As a teenager, I joined the local volunteer fire company. That consisted of filling out an application, paying $2 dues, and sitting in a smoke filled meeting room until they read your name out and voted to let you in. After that, the Chief pointed to a pile of gear, and instructed me to find something that fits. If you find out that your boots leak, get another pair. When the whistle blows, come down here, get on a truck, and do what you’re told.
That was it. No type of formal instruction for months. Everybody smoked everywhere. On the back of the truck, driving the truck, on the fireground. There was a beer machine in the station. If you were a teen who could be trusted not to screw up and get folks in trouble, you could have a cold one now and then with the over 21 crowd.
Oh Lord-the lawsuits that would arise from any of that if practiced, now.
In my junior high and high school in Indiana in the mid to late 70s, we had a unit in archery every year in PE…not only did the school not ban weapons, they provided them! In that same public high school, the choir performed a series of *Sacred * concerts each spring in prominent Protestant churches. :dubious:
Ditto, but in the 1980s and not in Baltimore. Loads of kids still do, it’s nothing out of the ordinary.
What’s a “play date”?
Neat! Although, these days, I would probably find it a bit concerning to see a pilot studying a paper chart. “Er, shouldn’t there be a computer for that?”
Freaks could never be made today.
My divorced dad was my soccer coach and was frequently alone with upwards of ten 11-year-old girls.
In the 60s, my dad and his father were driving around in rural VA in my grandad’s ford pickup drinking beer. My brother was in the car he would have been around 10. My dad and grandpa would chuck the empty beer cans out as they drove. A state trooper pulled them over and said that if they were going to drink and drive, my brother should have his seatbelt on and they shouldn’t chuck the empties out the window. I have a classy family.
Mid-70s, my church at the time, the Christian & Missionary Alliance, a fund’ist but not (IMO) fundy church, would host at the end of October- NOT a “Harvest Party” or a “Hallelujah Party”, but a honest-to-goodness, complete with scary costumes & a haunted house, HALLOWEEN Party! gasp
Then one year, without any explanation, it just didn’t happen. Fortunately, it wasn’t replaced with any denunciation of Halloween- just nothing.
In retrospect, that was about the time that Mike Warnke was getting popular on the Christian circuit, with his bogus tales of being an ex-Satanist & warnings against Halloween.
Play dates are scheduled play times that parents set up for their children. I used to think they were bizarre, but when people don’t let their kids out unsupervised to play (which they mostly don’t around here) you have to schedule these things, 'cause your kid can’t find her own friends.
Although I can’t claim to be expert about conditions throughout the U.S., my sense is that it is quite rare here in the States for kids (under 11-12) to walk that far to school anymore, or indeed to be allowed to be out unsupervised on their own for any length of time. Since the 1980s the country has been gripped by (IMHO) an unreasonable fear of child abduction, sparked by a few highly unusual, but very high-profile, cases. Since they started putting pictures of missing kids on milk cartons, just letting your kids outside to play without constant supervision is seen as akin to child abuse.
Hence “play dates,” play times arranged and watched by parents, and the incessant scheduling of every moment of a child’s free time with organized activities such as soccer, music lessons, etc., to which they are usually driven by a parent. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with these things, per se, but kids these days don’t know how to occupy themselves and have fun on their own, except with video games.
And get off my lawn, you kids! [grumble, grumble]
[/old fart rant]
The schools here frown on it as well, but that’s because of ‘student management’ issues more than anything else. They discourage even the older (Jr. High and High School) kids from walking home - I think the school administration wants to have the student in their ‘custody’ up until the minute the child is released to the parent, or gets on the bus going home. It’s kind of a weird environment.