I remember segregation, as in water fountains designated for “blacks.” And at the movie theater, the “blacks” had to sit in the balcony (I always wanted to go up there).
I remember leaving the house in the morning and not coming back until dusk. Sometimes with guns (BB and .22s).
I remember staying away from strange people, not because Mom and Dad said to, but because they were strange.
I remember buying cigarettes for some of my relatives at the convenience store because they didn’t want to go.
I also remember going camping with friends and staying out all night, with my parent’s permission, when I was about 11 or 12.
Times have indeed changed. My son is almost 18. He has to check in with me if he stays out past 11. Is that good or bad? I don’t know.
When I was in grade school I took a gun safety course at school. When I was in High School I made a knife in shop class with an 8 inch blade. Wish I could find it. Solid brass fittings with a walnut handle. It looked like a bayonet. I used it as a bookmark between classes while working on it.
The strange thing is that only the boys had to swim naked. The girls wore swim suits and caps.
And one time, our swim teacher had to show us how to do something, so he stripped and dove into the pool. It was the first time I ever saw a naked adult. And how many of you can say that you saw one of your teachers naked?
Born in 73, for reference.
I used to hang out with my best friend all around the neighborhood, from age 8 to early teens. My next door neighbor had a pond behind his house, we’d play in the woods next to it.
I remember one day, (I think I might have been around 10 or 11) we were there, the neighbor was standing at the back door, watching us. My friend told me, years later, that he was naked (too far away for me to make out without expecting it.)
A few minutes later, he came out to the back patio (fully dressed, I think… or, at the very least in a bathrobe) to invite us in, for a glass of Kool-Aid or something. We were there a few minutes, when my friend rushed us out the door, claiming we were expected home soon. Turned out, as I found out years later, this neighbor was a pedophile, and had molested said friend, among others. My friend got me out of there to protect me! :eek:
On a slightly less morbid, although just as pervy, note, in high school, the gym changing rooms were right off the gym itself. Open the door, and you can see right in. When I discovered this, I would try to position myself by the gym stage, where, when the girls’ door would open, I might get a peek at them changing.
There’s no doubt that the biggest change has to do with smoking. It was everywhere; you simply could not get away from the smell. Store, offices, malls, you name it.
In high school they actually let upper classmen smoke outside after lunch - on school grounds. If you smoked in the lavatories, you got into trouble, but outside after lunch it was no big deal.
The other weird thing was, it was considered rude to not allow smokers to smoke in your house. I remember in church, an older gal (well, she was probably 25, but she was older than me at 15 or so) talking about having candles lit all over her house during a party to help get rid of the smell. I also had an asthmatic girlfriend who would complain bitterly whenever certain friends of her non-smoking parents would come over and smoke in their house.
BTW, lifelong non-smoker here , so I regard this all as very positive.
Huh. Y’know, I honestly don’t remember if they sold booze at the Californian box store when I was working retail—I don’t see why they wouldn’t, though I never looked—or if I ever sold any, but I wasn’t 21, then, and I know I there wasn’t any policies about what I couldn’t personally ring up.
I did have to check for IDs when selling “mature” games or music, though. Which, naturally, especially during the Christmas rush, with the managers not exactly looking over everyone’s shoulders, and I was tired at the end of an eight hour shift where I’d have to go straight to school afterwards, and it being a generally permissive and laid-back section of the country state and county to begin with, I dutifully did every single time.
How the hell should I know how so many people born on 8/6/45 and 10/4/57 ended up buying things on my lane, and getting their birthdays duly noted at the automatic birthdate prompt on the register screen? Do I look like a statistician or something?
In seventh grade- it must have been about 1981- a kid brought a gun to my school. He held the math teacher hostage for about an hour or so.
The thing that makes it completely amazing, looking back, is that the school wasn’t evacuated. Most of us didn’t even know what was going on 'til several hours later- we just went about our normal schedule (but I do seem to recall that the hallway was closed off). Nowadays, the school would’ve been evacuated immediately, the press would’ve descended like a plague of locusts, and all of the students would had grief counselors on hand to help them deal with the trauma. Then we would’ve all had book deal offers.
We had a kid (total redneck psycho slimeball) who brought a pistol to school and put it in his locker. The admin got an anonymous tip, found the gun, and suspended him- not expelled, but suspended. He was expelled later for something much lesser (which admittedly was due to cumulative buildup).
Today he’d probably have been not suspended or expelled but put in jail. (Which is where he ultimately ended up anyway.)
Here’s one that may blow your minds: our local school system still allows corporal punishment. The principal does need to get the permission of a parent/guardian before spanking a kid, though. I don’t know how often it’s been used in the past 15 years, but it still exists as a possibility.
I went to a high school with 2000-ish students and between classes (five minutes or so) over 500 kids would descent on the central courtyard for a few puffs. It was allowed and perfectly normal. I remember sharing a smoke with the principal over a casual conversation. All unthinkable today. We had an Australian exchange student who was absolutely blown away by all this.
I spent a few of my elementary school years in Amsterdam and at the time it was completely normal for the boys and girls to shower together after gym class. We were around 8 or 9 at the time. None of the kids gave a flying f**k as they had always been naked around each other when the situation dictated. There was zero “OOOhhh!! I can see your thingy!!” going on. Gym teachers of both genders would stroll through the showers and change rooms hurrying us up and generally supervising as they always did. One could tell they had zero perv factor going on, they were simply doing their jobs. Nobody cared. I don’t know if The Netherlands are still like this (this was back in 1980) but can you imagine the same setup in North America, then or now?
I’d guess that’s because teenagers have such horrendously bad judgment when it comes to bending/breaking the rules for their friends that management doesn’t want to tempt them to sell beer to their buddies, so all beer sales have to be rung up by an adult. Of course an adult could sell beer to minors and a teenager could simply skim money out of the till or something, but neither probably has the temptation level of slipping a six-pack to your buds.
Someone mentioned spanking upthread which made me remember something from my Catholic elementary school days: Once a month Father Jordan come to the lunch room and got all the kids who were having a birthday that month to come up to the front of the lunch room, then they would have to run through the “Spanking Machine”…all the teachers would line up and pop the kids on the butt as they ran by. They would get a spanking then at the end Father Jordan gave each kid “a pinch to grow an inch”!!! We all though it was hilarious and fun. Something tells me the “Spanking Machine” has been dismantled.
Also, regarding the mosquito spraying. We had those in our neighborhood too, back in the mid 70’s. My mom, though, did not like them at all and made us come inside and close up all the doors and windows when the truck came through. We would always look outside longingly at all the kids who rode their bikes right behind the truck and got to be outside playing in the chemical cloud!! Mom probably bought us an extra 2 or 3 years on this planet by making us come inside!!
I am surprised at all the people who were allowed to smoke in school as late as the 1980s-1990s.
My first high school (San Antonio 1967-1969) tolerated no smoking, but there was a designated smoking area for students outside. This was a special area off the cafeteria that was close to the loading zones. You had to have a signed slip from your parents to smoke there. I don’t know when you were allowed to smoke, as I never noticed anyone there,but I doubt there was a dozen kids that used it. Of course, there was still the occasional smoking in the restrooms going on for those kids who didn’t have permission slips.
In my second high school (1969-1971) there was not even the option of a smoking area. Occasionally someone would smoke in the restroom, but I always thought it was more for the risk and show-off factor than anybody actually needing a smoke.
In my chemistry class in my senior year (1970-1971), one of the students brought to school a huge switchblade knife. The thing must have been a foot long closed, two feet when opened. It was more a novelty item than anything else, but it was a real operating switchblade.
He was joking around while we were doing experiments, and the teacher, kind Mr. Evans, came by to see how everybody was doing. This guy starts joking with the teacher and pulls out the knife, opening it up with a big CLACK, looking more like a sword than a knife.
He says, “Look out Mr. Evans, I got a knife with me today!”
Mr. Evans feigns surprise, backs up a step, puts his hands up and says, “Whoa,. I better watch myself today. Jack has a knife. Guess he gets an ‘A’!”
Everybody has a good laugh and it nothing comes of it. No ig deal, really. Just a joke.
Imagine trying to joke around like that today.
About a year ago I was listening to In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3 by Coheed and Cambria (having listened to it dozens of times in the past 4 or so years,) when it came to the song that mentions “pull the trigger and the nightmare stops.”
Back in the day (up until the mid-80s) it would be assumed that listeners would be able to figure out that it’s just a song. And I had vaguely had, on previous listens, the guess in the back of my mind that the Coheed lyrics had probably been considered controversial by some today. But this time it dawned on me that today, there’s no way those lyrics had gone undisclaimered (to avoid lawsuits and more importantly infamy if someone had taken them up on their “advice”).
So I promptly opened up the lyrics and sure enough at the end of that song there is a disclaimer that “these lyrics are part of a story and should not be taken literally.”
Hey, you’re from my neck of the woods! Where did you go to school?
I’m still a little baffled that my 4 foot 3, 70lbs, 8 year old nephew is not legally allowed to ride in the front seat. I’m pretty sure that as soon as I was out of a car seat, I was in the front, unless someone older had dibs.
I’m another ‘walked home from school, latch key, played outside until the sun went down’ kid.
We had a guy who lived across the street from us named Phil - early thirties batchalor who always invited hoards of neighborhood kids into his house for ice cream, cartoons, and toys. He worked in advertising for the Kools cigarette people, and would sometimes give us pens or cups with Kools written across them. As far as I know, nothing untoward ever went down, but eventually my parents said I shouldn’t be playing over there anymore. Imagine how people would react to him today.