# How were things different when you were a kid? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2026, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032 "2026-04-04T22:45:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2026, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/282 "2026-04-12T18:08:05Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > When I was a kid, we played with guns (cowboys or army) that looked real. There was no big orange marker on the end to make it clear that it was a toy. Paranoia about guns wasn’t a thing. Lots of adults had guns and people weren’t hyper-focused on gun violence. I saw an Alfred Hitchcock, from about 1960, about a kid fixated on cowboys and guns grabbing his visiting uncle’s revolver and ammo from his suitcase and heading for town with it, loading more and more bullets in the gun after he fired it at people with an empty chamber. Billy Mumy played the kid. It was a masterpiece of tension, but Alfred came on after and said no jokes, kids with guns is a problem. So, they were starting to see the issue. ---
**Author:** ![sunacres](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@sunacres](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunacres)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/283 "2026-04-12T18:53:29Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > …kids with guns is a problem. That was about the time I got a Fanner 50 and spent hours trying to perfect the process of loading the red paper roll caps (we looked down on the green ones) and slapping the hammer tail with just the right angle to advance the caps so each slap got a good bang and a nice long curl of burnt paper came out with few if any duds. It felt like craftsmanship at the time! ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/284 "2026-04-12T19:33:00Z")
> [@sunacres](#): > > the time I got a Fanner 50 and spent hours trying to perfect the process of loading the red paper roll caps (we looked down on the green ones) The green stikum caps were a pain in the ass! ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/285 "2026-04-16T19:40:13Z")
Litter everywhere. Pull tabs, bottle caps, cig butts, cig wrappers, straws, etc. Curbs and medians were deep with them. I recall my parents just pitching their fast food bags and cups out the window when driving, it was common. As kids, we would marvel at when the street-cleaning trucks would come through and for a brief week or two we’d have bare streets to play/bike on. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/286 "2026-04-16T20:15:35Z")
growing up in STL, there was a guy with a pushcart who would walk the town sharpening anything with a blade–knives, scissors, lawnmowers, whatever. now it’s hard to find somebody to sharpen things. It’s almost impossible to sharpen a pizza cutter at home ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/287 "2026-04-16T20:24:35Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Litter everywhere. Pull tabs, bottle caps, cig butts, cig wrappers, straws, etc. Curbs and medians were deep with them. Boy, you’re so right. I mean, there’s still litter but nothing like it was in the 70’s. You’d be on the highway and see fuckers throw fast food garbage right out the car window. Pull tabs and cigarette butts everywhere. People would finish a soda or chips and just drop the can or bag on the sidewalk. People would leave the A&W or Dairy Queen drive in and dump all their garbage out onto the parking lot. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/288 "2026-04-17T01:27:57Z")
At least for the convenience store nearest my house, trash is strewn for a 1-2 block radius in every direction. I think making tossing litter from a car a ticketable offense was what reduced that. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/289 "2026-04-17T02:31:18Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > When I was a kid in central Indiana, there were five apple orchards within an eight mile radius of our house. Each had at least a dozen different varieties through the season. From early September through late October my dad and I would hit at least one of them every weekend. None of those orchards exist now. I particularly liked Winesaps and King Davids, both varieties with tastes and textures Granny Smiths weakly aspire to. > > I miss apple orchards. We have a local apple orchard (in NJ) we take our kids to every year for apple picking. They don’t seem that uncommon in the Northeast. . > [@Tibby](#): > > When I was a kid in the 1960s, after school meant one thing: go outside. The neighborhood was full of kids, cats, and dogs. Yeah I think that’s one thing my kids haven’t really experienced. Just being able to go outside and “explore”. Like getting together with a couple of friends on bikes and just sort of wander around your neighborhood or push the envelope for how far you want to travel from home. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/290 "2026-04-17T03:58:18Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Yeah I think that’s one thing my kids haven’t really experienced. Yeah, I grew up in a neighborhood with many kids older, younger and the same age. We would go to the park or whenever, and the older kids would (more or less) keep an eye on the smaller kids. When my kids were small, pretty much all the kids had parents hanging around them in the parks. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/291 "2026-04-17T04:49:10Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > > [@Tibby](#): > > > > When I was a kid in the 1960s, after school meant one thing: go outside. The neighborhood was full of kids, cats, and dogs. > > Yeah I think that’s one thing my kids haven’t really experienced. Just being able to go outside and “explore”. Like getting together with a couple of friends on bikes and just sort of wander around your neighborhood or push the envelope for how far you want to travel from home. Very true. My parents were very protective but had no problem with me walking or biking around the neighbourhood wherever I wanted to go, and nothing bad ever happened. In fact at one time a man in a car stopped beside me and told me he wanted to talk to me about delivering newspapers. I got in, but was cautious enough to leave the door open. It turned out that he wanted to talk to me about … delivering newspapers. It turned into a (mostly) fun job that paid well by the standards of a little kid, especially with generous tips. The nice thing in those days, too, was that newspapers were still a big thing and not in the decline they’re in today, which meant that a high percentage of households had subscriptions to what was then the city’s leading newspaper. Which, in turn, meant that my allocation of papers could all be delivered within a relatively small area – no bicycles involved, just my little wooden wagon, piled high with newspapers! I mean, I did have to walk a fair number of blocks, but it certainly wasn’t miles! And yes, allow me to submit “newspapers” as something else that was very different when I was a kid. Daily newspapers and magazines were dominant print media, instead of just barely staying afloat or entirely failing to do so. ---
**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:** [April 17, 2026, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/292 "2026-04-17T05:29:10Z")
Newspapers! Oh gosh yes. Our city had a morning paper, and two afternoon ones. We got the morning paper and one of the afternoon ones. My Dad would take the sports page out of the morning one, and read it on the subway when he went to work. (Grumble, grumble, grumble, thanks, Dad.) One week, when I was in Grade 4, we had a lesson every day on How To Read A Newspaper. One of the afternoon papers donated a classroom’s worth of papers to us, and we learned how to read them: news (local, national, international), opinion and editorials (and how to relate opinions to the facts reported in the news), sports, entertainment, and features (recipes, comics, horoscopes, crosswords, etc.). Very valuable lessons that I carried forward to the point where I was reading the _Globe and Mail_ thoroughly and knowledgeably before heading off to what would likely be a tough day of high school. I doubt very much that today’s high school students could do the same. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/293 "2026-04-17T14:32:08Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Yeah, I grew up in a neighborhood with many kids older, younger and the same age. > > We would go to the park or whenever, and the older kids would (more or less) keep an eye on the smaller kids. > > When my kids were small, pretty much all the kids had parents hanging around them in the parks. Yeah, my kids and their friends mostly had parents and nannys always watching them. Nothing like when I was growing up where you just hop on your bikes and ride around town Stranger Things style. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/294 "2026-04-17T15:06:48Z")
and don’t forget all the monthly magazines that disappeared–remember Look ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/295 "2026-04-17T16:04:53Z")
My kid is 13 and his peer group is just reaching the point where parents are willing to let them wander the neighborhood independently…although they all have trackers on their phones. Fortunately we live in a dense enough area that his friends mostly live within easy walking distance, in a suburb that wouldn’t even be an option. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2026, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/296 "2026-04-20T01:47:30Z")
The ecology here has changed. I moved here as an adult but that was over half my life ago. On the plus side, there isn’t as much pollution emptying into the lagoon so it doesn’t stink as often. On the down side, since it is connected to the ocean but has minimal tides, you can really tell in places that the water level is higher. But what really struck me is that the invasive iguanas finally came. Life being a circle, it seems like they are slowly driving out the invasive brown anoles that themselves drove out the native green anoles. (Driving out in relative terms, since all 3 of them still exist.) But they are disturbing to me because when I see them out of the corner of my eye, my mind interprets it as a smaller lizard only to be shocked at its size when I see it clearer. The first time I saw one it was so fast that I couldn’t decide if it was an anole or a squirrel. It’s the same uncanny feeling that I get when I am in a canyon or near a mountain that is twice as large as I am used to but other context clues lead me to believe that it isn’t. So when I am still, it feels normal, but when I move, the lack of parallax stuns me into remembering that it is twice as large as I thought. But the _existence_ of invasive species hasn’t changed from my youth. But back then we had a good looking invasive species: _Alkekengi officinarum_, or the Chinese Lantern plant, as opposed to meh things like carp or uncanny things lik iguanas. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/297 "2026-05-03T19:41:28Z")
Ohhh, boy. My FIL (before he was my FIL) was being given a tour of the Colorado high country. He was in the passenger seat drinking beers. Stopped for a bathroom break and the FIL dumped the beer cans right there. There was a trash can not 15 feet away. He got an earfull from my wife and she made him pick them up and dispose of them. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2026, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/298 "2026-05-04T11:07:38Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I was hoping for things like “phone numbers were 4 digits”, My family phone number, which my parents made me memorize, was 3915. I only know from memory only three numbers - my childhood home, my ex-wife’s 10 digit cellphone, my own cellphone. Aside from phones, it is kind of hard to talk about things that might interest the largely USA-based users of SMDB. Growing up in Zimbabwe was so incredibly free and wild. I mean, like at age 8 or so, I walked (alone, aside from a dog) 10 km though rough bush - no paths - to get to my ex-kindergarten teacher’s house, just to say “hi”. She just gave me some cake, phoned my mother to let her where I was, then sent me walking back home. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2026, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/299 "2026-05-04T15:08:28Z")
growing up,when we rode the bus in the city, the driver had a coin container, and paper transfers were punched by driver for time ---
**Author:** ![sunacres](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@sunacres](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunacres)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2026, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/300 "2026-05-04T15:41:38Z")
> [@fedman1](#): > > growing up,when we rode the bus in the city, the driver had a coin container I vividly remember being mezmerized by how quickly the bus driver could make change using the manual metal change dispenser on his (sometimes her) waistband. I wanted one of those so bad. Apparently I wasn’t alone, when a crappy budget version appeared at the five and ten toy section I saved for weeks to get one. Despite have zero need for it, which I only really appreciated _after_ buying it. Not the only time that happened. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2026, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/301 "2026-05-04T15:46:35Z")
Once upon a time quarters, dimes and even nickels were worth something. Remember those plastic coin pouches? They used to be in every drug store, now you have to order them online. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032.md?page=16)