Sucking the nectar from as much honeysuckle as you could collect.
Playing in the really cool cloud left behind by the mosquito truck
Carefully doctoring the paper transfers from Houtran (the bus service). If you tore the top off carefully enough, the bus driver couldn’t see the date and would just wave you on…that saved you fifty cents!
Playing in the P-farm (penitarary farm) right on Mykawa Rd (I’m not not why they thought it was a good idea to put a P-farm in the middle of a neighborhood) until the prisoners working the field ran us off.
Babysitting a pair of neighbor’s kids for 9 hours a day for $25 a week when I was twelve…and I was expected to fix them a hot lunch and clean the house.
Making the littler kids stand by the tv adjusting the rabbit ears (or the wire hanger after the rabbit ears were destroyed) because Speed Racer came in better on the UHF channel if someone actually stood there and held it.
Finding my uncle’s Redd Foxx and Dolomite albums up in the attic, and setting a lookout so we could listen to the whole raunchy thing. Up until that point, I only knew Redd Foxx from Sanford and Son…it was something of a shock.
Knowing for a fact if you missed a TV show, you were shit out of luck - it would never be seen again
In the winter when the streets were icy, we’d go bumper hitching, or shagging as we called it. Some of the better rides were when the driver would fishtail it down the road and you’d try your damndest to hang on.
Fridays nights were great TV nights. First there was That Girl with Marlo Thomas, Then Nanny and the Professor, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family then bedtime :-((
When we’d go to our friends house, we wouldn’t knock on the door or ring the doorbell. We’d call them out on their front porch in a sing songy yell: “Caaaaarrrie!! Naaaaanccyy!!!”
It was a huge event when The Wizard of Oz played on TV once a year or any of the Peanuts Specials with Dolly Madison snack cakes commercials. .
Most moms we knew in the 70’s were stay at home moms and we were lucky to get a home cooked dinner every day, but a couple times a year we were allowed to have McDonalds. That was a big deal.
Word would get around fast that an impromptu baseball game was happening at the local field and every kid from miles around showed up with mitt ready to play.
We wouldn’t think of asking our parents to drive us somewhere. We rode our bikes everywhere, no matter how far. As a kid in the 70’s, your bike was your life!
Saving my money and running to Korvettes department store to buy the latest album. Racing home to tear off the plastic cover and the little thrill you’d feel as you opened the gatefold album cover to check out the cool pictures. It was extra cool when the album had lyrics printed on it.
In my day, we played to win. It did not matter what we were playing. Whether it was football, baseball or who could climb the highest in the tree all that mattered was that you won and someone else lost. There was no trophy for losing and there were no awards just for competing. Sometimes life sucked and you lost or you did not make the team or you were not picked to play but that was life.
There were no lawsuits because little Johnny did not make the team or because little Suzy did not make the team or cheerleading squad. Parents would ask why and the coach would tell the parents that your little boy did not make the team because he could not catch or throw and that your daughter did not make the squad because she was not fast enough or did not know how to do cartwheels.
Life is not fair and I think we learned that lesson a lot earlier in my day.
We rode the school bus and sat on the steps right by the door. Every now and then, the bus driver would open the door while we were driving down the road just to scare the crap out of us.