# Things that were done in your childhood that would never be allowed today **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 2, 2020, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650 "2020-09-02T23:00:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![ElDeLuxo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@ElDeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElDeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/261 "2020-09-15T04:55:26Z")
from Dr\_Paprika: _I had a Creepy Crawler Thingmaker II. Although I never burned myself, I always wondered about the Creepy Crawler Thingmaker One. It probably was just a hotplate with a few inset insect mounds._ I had the original Creepy Crawlers Thingmaker when I was in the first grade and the Fright Factory the next year. The Thingmaker was indeed a mini hot plate but you got a _lot_ of molds with it. And several squeeze bottles of thermo-set PlastaGoop. They were some of the funnest toys I ever had. I used to spend hours holed up in our bathroom making bugs and spiders and shrunken heads–and yes, I got my fingertips singed a few times. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/262 "2020-09-15T11:06:39Z")
You could smoke at my high school _if you had a note from your parents giving you permission to do so_, or you were 18 or older (we had a few 19-yr-old seniors). So there was a student smoking area. I never saw an administrator go out there with the permission slips in hand, and check that all the smoking students actually had one on file. But I remember getting the note with all my beginning-of-the-year papers. Student smoking was no longer permitted at the school 10 years later, when I worked there (I was a student 1980-85, employee 1994-1999). I don’t know when it was actually eliminated. Of course, it wasn’t totally eliminated-- kids just had to sneak around to do it. At some point while I was there, it was eliminated on campus altogether, which meant it was eliminated in the teachers’ lounges as well. I think that had to do with a municipal statute-- any place with the primary purpose of serving children, or providing health care in some capacity had to be completely smoke-free. I remember the controversy over whether this included the school ad building, and they finally decided it did. ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/263 "2020-09-15T11:58:16Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I don’t think it remotely occurred to any of us that somebody might actually blow up the school. That brings to mind at least one bomb scare at our school. Might have been junior high - we were all herded outside just like a fire drill. ---
**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/264 "2020-09-15T12:06:45Z")
Back in the day we never lived far from creeks or open land. Now everything is tightly fenced in. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/265 "2020-09-15T13:23:57Z")
There aren’t any less creeks than there used to be. In many places, there are less fences than there used to be. For instance, I have notice that farms in northwest Ohio where I grew up have taken down their fences between fields to allow them to grow more crops in a given acreage. I don’t think there is any less open land than there used to be. It’s just that more people live in urban areas and not in rural areas. The number of trees in the U.S. bottomed out in the early twentieth century and has increased slightly since then. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/266 "2020-09-15T14:16:20Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > I had a wood burning kit which was basically a metal rod that got very hot. As I discovered a few months ago when looking for a wood burning kit for myself, these are [totally still allowed for and marketed to kids these days](https://www.amazon.com/NSI-7733-Wood-Burning-Kit/dp/B00000JB9N/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=wood+burning+kit+for+kids&qid=1600178948&sr=8-2). [Here’s another](https://www.walmart.com/ip/T-S-Shure-Wood-Burning-Creations-Kit/38579647?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0) ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/267 "2020-09-15T15:08:36Z")
During the Korean War the Navy flew damaged aircraft into Alameda Naval Air Station. They dropped a lot of stuff in the residential area. Live 50 cal rounds were a valuable find, especially tracers. The shell was full of cordite pellets, little rods about a quarter inch long. We rolled these in the foil from cigarette packs to make rockets. Three to five pellets was optimum. Fewer not enough power and more too heavy. We filed the magnesium out of the tracers but I do not recall that we ever did anything with it.That is perhaps fortunate. We avoided adult supervision. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/268 "2020-09-15T15:44:01Z")
> [@Rebo](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > I don’t think it remotely occurred to any of us that somebody might actually blow up the school. > > That brings to mind at least one bomb scare at our school. Might have been junior high - we were all herded outside just like a fire drill. We had a couple of them. It was treated like a fire drill, even though no one really believed there was any threat. The suspicion was that someone was just trying to get out of class. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/269 "2020-09-15T15:49:00Z")
I remember doing drills where the class would actually walk from the school to somebody’s house. I recall this clearly because it happened to be my house. I don’t know if this was a bomb threat drill or some other reason. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/270 "2020-09-15T15:50:28Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > We had a couple of them. It was treated like a fire drill, even though no one really believed there was any threat. The suspicion was that someone was just trying to get out of class. Same. And this one would have been in the mid-late 1990s, right before the school shooter phenomenon really kicked off. I think the student who called in the threat was suspended for a couple days, and that was all. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/271 "2020-09-15T16:20:41Z")
Someone called one in when I was in school, around 1983-84. They evacuated, and had the bomb squad come by to check out the building, with the fire department standing by-- it was taken very, very seriously. The rumor going around the student body was that there was no bomb threat, and it was an excuse to search our lockers. Fortunately, it was a warm day, because we were outside for about 2 & 1/2 hours. People were napping on the lawn, and lighting up cigarettes, and teachers weren’t saying anything. It totally messed up the lunch periods, and I think we ended up missing some more class as lunch ran into an afternoon class. IIRC, we went to our first period class, then our afternoon classes were redone so we went to 45-minute versions of them. There were so many different rumors over the next week regarding who phoned it in, that even though I recall them catching the person who did it, I don’t recall who it was, nor what the whole story was. I do remember that at the time, we all thought it was weird they were taking it so seriously. Any of us could imagine calling a threat in for a joke, so we were all sure that’s what had happened. And it did turn out not to be a real threat, but it wasn’t considered a joke. I’m pretty sure the person who did it got into some serious trouble. I sort of wonder if taking it seriously like that was intended to discourage copycats. I know some people were sure that at any time, we’d just get dismissed for the day, but nope, they kept us outside, on the lawn, with nothing to do all that time. And when A lunch rolled around, they wouldn’t even let people with that lunch leave, since no one could prove they had that lunch, so no one could walk over to McDonald’s or wherever. It was really kind of an ordeal. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/272 "2020-09-15T17:07:22Z")
> [@ElDeLuxo](#): > > > We had a concrete slab for smokers in high school… **students** that smoked.\< > > Teen smoking was strongly frowned on by adult authority figures, while also being tacitly permitted–witness outdoor smoking areas like _most_ high schools used to provide for the student body right up into the late 1970s. I might be talking out of my ass but school administrators may have been opposed to student smoking because of the rebelliousness of the act, not for health reasons. During the sixties and seventies, conflicts seemed to ramp up between students who wanted to challenge authority and adopt new cultural mores and school officials who insisted on maintaining more traditional levels of “morality” and conformity. These things went on before and have continued since but it just seems to me that the conflicts were more intense during that time period. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/273 "2020-09-15T20:35:04Z")
Has anyone in American history ever called in a bomb threat at a school only for there to be an actual bomb? The tail end of my high school years were post columbine but despite that the annual bomb threat call had us all leave class in orderly rows and stand outside in formation for hours on end. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/274 "2020-09-15T21:38:26Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Has anyone in American history ever called in a bomb threat at a school only for there to be an actual bomb? Maybe? One of, if not still the largest ever, US school casualty events that wasn’t due to a natural disaster or an accidental gas explosion or an accidental fire was the [Bath School massacre](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1927-bombing-remains-americas-deadliest-school-massacre-180963355/), which was a school bombing in 1927. I don’t know if the man responsible called in a threat, though. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/275 "2020-09-15T21:49:56Z")
Andrew Kehoe did not call in a threat AFAIR. He wanted to kill as many as possible. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/276 "2020-09-15T22:07:38Z")
When I was five or six years old, the local National Guard (in West Virginia) held an open house. They let the citizenry come into the armory and see the weapons and stuff. They also let us kids take rides in a tank outside. And, _on_ the tank. Since you had to wait in line for a spot inside, lots of us opted to climb up on the tank and hang onto whatever we could, as the tank took a brief ride around the rough, hilly terrain. We had to hang on for dear life. It was scary like an amusement park ride. When it was done, we all wanted to do it again. When I remembered this incident as an adult, I concluded that I must have imagined it (or at least embellished it). There’s no way the National Guard would have let a six-year-old kid ride on the outside of a tank. Right? Wrong. One day many years later, my older brother was going through old family photos he’d taken, and showed me a pic of not just me, _but also our younger brother (who would have been about four years old)_ riding on the tank. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/277 "2020-09-15T22:40:58Z")
[Ka-Bala: The Mysterious Game That Tells the Future](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka-Bala) My first introduction to Tarot at age 8. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/278 "2020-09-15T23:00:19Z")
Not at my HS. But certainly at the junior college. Some of us were still 17. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2020, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/279 "2020-09-16T05:20:31Z")
When I was in elementary school every year our school went on a field trip to a museum in Charlotte, and at lunch time we went to a park to eat our bag lunches. At this park there was an old steam locomotive on display, and after lunch we got to go play on the locomotive. It was completely open; we could go in the cab, climb on the catwalk type platforms around the boiler, even climb up on the roof. It was the coolest piece of playground equipment ever. Then at some point in the 1990s the city decided too many kids were getting injured playing on the locomotive and fenced it off. I was in high school by that point, but even then I was sad for future generations of kids who wouldn’t get the experience of playing on it like I did. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2020, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650/280 "2020-09-16T07:51:27Z")
When I was 11, I flew from NYC to Indiana to visit relatives by myself. No one blinked an eye. No particular fuss was made over me, and I wasn’t treated differently from the other passengers. Granted, I didn’t have to change planes, or anything. I flew more times that I can count by myself when I was in high school, and yes, then sometimes I did change planes, I was 14, 15, 16 and flying by myself. I understand that today, so-called “unaccompanied minors” can’t even be left alone, and that includes those who are 17-yrs-old and just a little shy of 18. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-done-in-your-childhood-that-would-never-be-allowed-today/919650.md?page=15)