# Exsplain to a "Nerf" generation kid just how dangerous things were.... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 13, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764 "2011-11-13T03:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/141 "2011-11-21T01:11:32Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > Also, fights part and parcel of recess time. Two kids duked it out and when it was over we all went back to playing smear-the-queer. Ah, smear the queer. My mother didn’t like us playing that, because of the name. So we changed the name of the game to “kill the man”. She was OK with that. Same game. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/142 "2011-11-21T02:45:45Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > I made “gunpowder” from a chemistry set (potassium nitrate and charcoal). It never burned well, because I couldn’t get all the water out of it. We made our own gunpowder too. Saltpeter and sulfur were available at the drugstore, and carbon we got from ground-up charcoal briquettes. We used the proportions that the encyclopedia in the school library told us, and we ended up with something that would burn. Watching it flare up on a metal trash can lid got boring fast though, so we put our homemade gunpowder in the little glass paint bottles we had from painting plastic models (remember those little bottles of Testor’s paint?), added a fuse from a firecracker, and lit it. Naturally, we ran like hell. The explosion was impressive–“fragmentation grenade” doesn’t begin to describe it, as bits of glass fired out from the resulting explosion. Surprised nobody was ever injured. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/143 "2011-11-21T02:54:16Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > the little glass paint bottles we had from painting plastic models (remember those little bottles of Testor’s paint?), And being able to buy the paint and the glue without trouble no matter what your age. ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/144 "2011-11-21T02:55:49Z")
In third grade after-care (in the mid 90s), they would always take us to this big, vacant field on one corner of the campus to play. Not sure why we couldn’t use the playground at the time, but we were okay with it. Most of the kids played whatever they could with soccer balls, either makeshift soccer games or smear the queer. So yes, they still had that. My friends and I, though, had different plans. There were a lot of bees in the field - a lot. Could find them anywhere. Mostly just honeybees with an occasional wasp or yellow jacket. (Nearly every building had paper wasp nests on it, though). Anyways, my friends and I would go bee-hunting every day in the field. I was the spotter, because for some reason I was the best at it, and I was also kinda afraid of bees. Then one of my friends would stomp on the bee, and we’d stick pine needles through their bodies and feed them to the ants. Overall, we still got in to the same playground antics as you old folks did, although I didn’t have toxic chemicals or fireworks until I was a teenager. The worst injury I ever saw was when one kid pushed another in to a chain link fence post, and his leg got caught on a jagged piece of metal, ripping it open to the muscle. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/145 "2011-11-21T03:09:07Z")
Every summer, we spent a week at a cottage on a lake in northern MI, along with various relatives. Keeping yourself afloat in the water was something you pretty much figured out on your own: you swam or you dogpaddled. The oil drum raft was moored out where it was over everybody’s head. My two older cousins and I took the motorboat out to the middle of the lake regularly to fish: I was about 8, oldest cousin was 12. Lifejackets not included. I also have a photo of several of us bouncing around on an inner tube being pulled behind a pontoon boat. I’m the oldest kid in the photo, and I was 12. Not one of us had a life jacket. (Also, none of the adults on the boat could swim, and most of them were drunk, IIRC). I cannot even imagine now taking a kid out on a boat without a life jacket, much less sending them out in the boat on their own! Imagine the possible lawsuits. And yet…those were great summers! ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/146 "2011-11-21T03:11:06Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Ah, smear the queer. My mother didn’t like us playing that, because of the name. So we changed the name of the game to “kill the man”. She was OK with that. Same game. We called it “smear the queer” too, but my husband called it “kill the guy with the ball.” I have a theory that it’s the oldest playground ball game. Probably existed in the Pleistocine as “get the guy with the rock.” ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/147 "2011-11-21T03:11:56Z")
> [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](#): > > 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. Geez, are you me? That sounds like my childhood growing up. In addition, my dad gave me a rifle for my 9th birthday. And for a while, I thought it would be cool to be a bus driver. My folks thought nothing of giving me a couple of bucks and letting me get on a bus and riding it all the way around its route until I got back off at the place where I got on. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/148 "2011-11-21T03:23:23Z")
Born in '62. Lawn Darts. Toy guns. Lots of toy guns. Candy fake cigarettes. Most adults smoked. No bike helmets, no seat belts in older cars. No infant safety seats. Hearing from friends how their dad would punish them with a belt. My dad, being an atheist Jew, punished us with sarcasm. Which he regretted as soon as we were old enough to understand what sarcasm was. Mom always threatened to beat us with a hairbrush. Never did. Really, a hairbrush. Ooooohhhh! I lusted for a chemistry set in vain. Mom had heard of children hurt by them. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/149 "2011-11-21T04:50:25Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I grew up in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia. When I was 11 or so, my friends and I went to the forest outside the city (hitched a ride on the freight train there and back), and found an unexploded mortar round from WWII. I brought it home and cleaned it, when parents came home from work they found it. Hilarity ensued. Thank God the explosives in that thing were probably completely degraded. > > Or, of course, the fond memories of gathering live rounds from WWII (there were literally millions of them still in the ground in countryside) and throwing them in a firepit, then dropping on the ground immediately and waiting for the bang bang bang and bullets whizzing around. That was at the 11 or so age as well. Well my older brother in '69 was a boy scout and with my dad in the USAF we lived in the Philippines. They went off base on a camping trip and Tom brought back some unexploded Japanese shells. They took them away from him when he got off the bus. ---
**Author:** ![NDCompuGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b4bc9f/32.png) [@NDCompuGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDCompuGeek)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/150 "2011-11-21T08:15:03Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > We called it “smear the queer” too, but my husband called it “kill the guy with the ball.” I have a theory that it’s the oldest playground ball game. Probably existed in the Pleistocine as “get the guy with the rock.” So I played the game \ “guy with rock die” \. So what? 😉 Malthus, I hope there were no permanent physical injuries to your brother. I’m sure if anything would have gone slightly different with me at my school, I may have been in his condition also. Or even dead. One more story of how things were as a kid: one evening at dinner, I had the audacity to back-talk and be sarcastic to my mother. She nor my dad were not amused, and since I was sitting across from my dad, he couldn’t cuff me like he so obviously wanted. He did the next best thing in his eyes at that moment: he threw his fork at me. It stuck in my right arm. I’ll say that again. The tines of the fork stuck in the bone of my right arm, right in the middle of the humerus bone. I looked up in shock to see the look on my dad’s face, and after it registered that I was lucky to get away with only having a piece of tableware stuck in my arm (as opposed to the alternative of a spanking, and his spankings were not to be trifled with!), I quietly asked if I could be excused to wrap my arm. He said no because he didn’t want me to disturb his dinner anymore. A few minutes later my mom excused me because I was dropping blood on her good tablecloth. If I remember right, it really didn’t bleed all that much though. Sure did hurt, and I NEVER sassed my mom again, whether around my dad or not! ---
**Author:** ![perfectparanoia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a5b964/32.png) [@perfectparanoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perfectparanoia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764/151 "2011-11-21T15:40:09Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Mom always threatened to beat us with a hairbrush. Never did. Really, a hairbrush. Ooooohhhh! My grandma had a hairbrush for that purpose. Large and made of hardwood. Believe me, it hurt like the dickens (and she only did it once and frankly, I deserved it). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exsplain-to-a-nerf-generation-kid-just-how-dangerous-things-were/602764.md?page=7)