Exsplain to a "Nerf" generation kid just how dangerous things were....

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am trying to get a 12 yr old to believe how cushioned, sheltered and protected his life has been, compared to mine (I am 50). I am looking for your suggestions and examples. Feel free to go back to 1900, if you like or remember.

To start you off:

Toys: I had a chemistry set. It had Compounds of Mercury, Arsenic, and other toxic stuff that you need six permits or a gun to get today. I mention it first, because I actually put myself in the hospital with it. (Burnt when alchohol burner tipped over).

Many of the toys I had wouyld have small, sharp parts, were painted with lead paint, involved fire or combustion, or plugged into 120 AC.

School - The teachers had and used a strap. Just watching was tarumatic by today’s standards. Never actually recieved it. teachers would yell at, belittle, and generally bully students in ways that would get them soooo fired today. Homework took up to 2-3 hours a day in Junoir high, and by grade 12, I would often be 6 hours taking care of it. Before school, during recess lunch and after, extreme bullying and fighting took place. Teachers and parents were largely unconcerned unless the injuries were so bad it required a trip to the hospital.

Parents: My parents weren’t bad, but spanking and beatings were commonly experienced by my companions. Both parents smoked in house, car and restaurants. I have a scar on my hand from a baby sitter who neglegently allowed my (infant hand) to grab the lit end of a cigarette while she was changing me.

I wandered around the neighbourhood from dawn to dusk, checking in only when I was close enough to yell through a window. I rode my bike with out a helmet, it didn’t have a headlight or a chain guard.
Well, dopers, what I am looking for are examples or information about what dangers you faced as a kid that would be unimaginable to a kid of today. Thanks!

2

When I was a seven-year-old in early 70s Texas:

No rear seat belts. Me and my sister in the back of the station wagon when we got rear-ended by a truck; the tailgate bent inwards in the middle, missing us by inches. We laughed!

Rollerskating down the street, grabbing the occasional speed boost from cars as they went past.

Outside from dawn to dusk with no parental oversight. Being allowed out into the thicket to look for rattlesnakes.

With my parents’ approval my neighbor loaded all us kids into the back of a pickup and drove up to the lake. Once there we were given a load of cans, a shotgun and a musket. But it was OK - there was a nine-year-old there to make sure we didn’t shoot ourselves.

3

Growing up in the 70’s in Virginia Beach:

I got a woodburning set for Christmas one year, when I was about ten years old.

Mom and Dad taking the kids for a Sunday drive with a six pack of beer between them.

My fifth grade teacher used to have a running joke called, “Retarded Hand.” He would scream out “Retarded hand” and act like his hand was trying to attack him.

Being invited into my teachers office in grade school when she was smoking a cigarette.

Every boy over 13 carried a pocket knife everywhere. School, church, etc.

My dad used to let me share his cigarettes out in public when I was as young as seven years old.

SFC Schwartz

4

Lawn Darts, Water Wiggles, model rocketry, pen knives, Click-clacks, any so many more.

5

No one glanced up when six 14-year-olds wandered down the street when all of us were armed with multiple, rifles, pistols and shotguns.

Also, riding our bikes behind the DDT ‘fogger’ truck.

Metal dashboards and laying in the back window deck of a big Chrysler.

NO ONE wore bike helmets.

6

To be accurate, bicycle helmets didn’t exist until the mid 1970s and it was 1984 before the first helmet standards were put in effect.

Not only having a pocketknife at school but the teacher asking to borrow it.

Seconding REAL chemistry sets and sharp, pointy toys.

7

Yay, I had one of them too at the same age! And a soldering iron. And burn scars to prove it.

When I was about eleven I saw an article about match carving. I wanted to have a go so my dad gave me one of his old scalpels. First cut I had the blade the wrong way up and sliced my fingertip down to the bone. My dad just took a look and said “well you won’t do that again, will you?”

That’s simultaneously terrible and fucking hilarious.

8

At age 14, I was entrusted to “break” a Shetland Pony for my younger cousin’s Christmas gift. Helmet? What’s that" I was doing a pretty good job on the late-cut little bastard when he got stung by a hornet as I was mounting. Chased him for two miles before he wore out, and I was mad that Grandpa wouldn’t let me get right back up on him.

I do remember in the late ‘70’, when I was about 8, the local swimming pool wouldn’t let kids under 14 or so swim without a parent. Mom went down to the office to sign a release - I remember her laughing because they didn’t know what a “release” was and she had to type it for them - so I could go swimming while I was with the “babysitter”.

Riding in the back of pickup trucks - it was ok if you fell out, but don’t let go of the bales of hay!

9

Thanks everyone - keep em coming - this is exactly the sort of stuff I am looking for!
FML

10

My three-year-old brother used to love the high dive. He’d climb the ladders all by himself and throw himself off the top. The lifeguards just looked on, bored.

11

BB gun wars.

Put on a heavy shirt and play ‘Cowboys and Indians’ or ‘Army’. Stung quite a bit if you got hit in an uncovered area or at close range, but we were using fairly weak Daisy BB guns and tried not to aim for the head. Every kid had a BB gun where I lived.

Usually nobody got hurt, usually…

12

Yeah, our pool (I’m 39) let kids older than 7 show up without parents, so this was what… 1979? I spent from about 9-12 every morning at the pool, and most days, would go back at about 1 and spend until 3-4 in the afternoon, at which time I’d come home, get a snack and go back out to play various games with friends, which were usually variants on tackle football (no pads), bike riding, tree-climbing, or wrestling/fighting in the front yards. When we could, we’d swipe every magnifying glass we could lay hands on and burn the shit out of ants, pillbugs, roaches, other people’s newspapers, etc…

Bike riding had it’s own excitements… any time we could get cinder blocks and a reasonably wide piece of wood, a ramp was created, and we’d see who could get the most air. It was generally considered best if we could set the ramp up to launch ourselves across some kind of low rise or something.

Personally, I think half the reason that Boy Scouting has such a first-aid emphasis is because until very recently, the boys themselves were getting hurt doing stupid stuff, and first aid was a good skill to know.

13

During hunting season, many of the boys had shotguns in the trunk of our cars during the school day.

No guy would have been seen dead in a bicycle helmet.

Kids worked for spending money, or as chores…drove tractors, lawnmowers, wielded chainsaws, used various sharp/pointy tools etc.

The chain drug store in town would sell me airplane glue or cigarettes as long as I had a note from a parent.

Summers, weekends, and holidays kids tended to roam in groups, largely without adult supervision, all day and into the evening, with breaks for meals wherever we ended up.

Fights were fairly common. One on one, just fists…noses were bloodied, eyes blackened, but no serious injuries.

Fireworks/improvised explosives were always fun…

14

I was born in 1985.

[ul]
[li]I ran around town by myself. First in the shady part of a bigger town and then I had free range in a small town.[/li]
[li]I never wore a helmet.[/li]
[li]I was allowed to be home alone at the age of 9.[/li]
[li]When I was older, guns were everywhere in the house and it never even crossed my mind to touch them. (Why do I have a feeling that kids who grew up in the sticks are less likely to blow their own heads off?) [/li]
[li]I took a Greyhound bus from Iowa to Colorado when I was 12. (My mother was fukkin nuts!)[/li]
[li]I regularly ran around with scabby knees and cuts and no one thought to put antiseptic on them. Kind of too bad, because I have scars. Not sure if that made a difference.[/li]
[li]Oh, and sunscreen. HA![/li][/ul]

15

Can I just point out that Nerf is over forty years old? Most of these stories are from the Nerf generation.

16

Yup, that too. I remember after Columbine, there was about a month of :smack: because the boys would forget to take out their various weapons from their trucks after a weekend of hunting.

No one gave up their Swiss Army knife keychain, though.

17

While I agree that nearly everything in this thread is correct, I don’t think this statement in the OP is generally true:

> Homework took up to 2-3 hours a day in Junoir high, and by grade 12, I would
> often be 6 hours taking care of it.

I’ve talked with friends with kids and they agree that the amount of homework that their children have is actually more than it was when we were kids.

18

When I was 13 or so (I’m 54 now), I had a horse but since we didn’t have acreage he had to be boarded elsewhere. The elsewhere was about a mile or so away, on the other side of a wooded area - no problem with me walking or biking over to ride the horse by myself, nor the fact that the rotten horse tended to buck me off at least once a day. Of course, I didn’t wear a helmet or anything that would protect me.

Also, as has been said, roaming about all day without our parents being really sure where we were, playing with unsafe stuff, etc. Fun times!

19

One of my favorite toys way back when was a Thingmaker/Vacuform combination. The Thingmaker allowed the user to cook liquid plastic (Goop) in what was basically a depression in a hot plate. Yes, a hot plate for kids. The Goop was put into molds made of METAL, the better to retain the heat. Both the appliance and the molds got hot enough to give you a pretty good burn. Vacuforms used the hot plate to heat up sheets of plastic until they were quite soft. Again, it was very easy to give yourself a pretty good burn.

And we LIKED it that way.

20

Yeah, but our Nerf was a lot harder, and had sharp edges.