Ticks.
Growing up as a young heathen out in the country, I used to run around all day long in nothing more than shorts (and, occasionally, shoes- if the grassburrs were in season). Part of my daily routine was to check for ticks when I got home- and I’d sometimes find six or eight. No problem- just pick 'em off, slather the bump with Calavera, and try not to scratch at it. It was actually kinda fun.
Nowadays, I think tick bites kill instantly, or something.
My wife pointed out that in the '50s, parents used to send their kids to the store to buy cigarettes.
I didn’t remember that one because I lived in one of the rare '50s homes where neither parent smoked.
I do remember helping carry the beer out of the grocery store and to the car for my folks. Another huge no-no nowadays.
And speaking of beer at the grocery store, how many states are like Nebraska and Iowa in that teen clerks can’t ring it up? The teens have to call for a “Code 18” or simply an “18” and get an adult over to ring the beer.
Peanut butter was introduced to our household by a backpacking relative from South Africa. They made sandwiches with that stuff blended with something called jelly. Fascinating to behold, but I wasn’t about to try it.
Party lines - we had one - our number was 300. Our village in Ireland had two phone numbers - the phone box was 2 and the exchange was 1 - there were A and B buttons in the phone box which got you from 2 to 1 and then the lady at the exchange would dial the number for you. You used the phone box for privacy but of course you knew she was listening in. The one of the village green wouldn’t work if it was full, so you had to bang it with your fist until enough coins came out, then keep the conversation going until you’d got them all back in again.
Latchkey kid here.
Suburbia in the 70s. Our single mom worked, so my brother and I came home from school and just played in the neighborhood with other latchkey kids until 5 or 6 when our mom got home. No babysitter, this was while I was from kindergarten until high school, and my brother was from 3 years old.
There was a stay-at-home parent or two in the culdesac who supposedly “supervised” and watched everyone, but is was only a cursory looking out of the kitchen window and wasn’t interactive or in person. We would frequently take off on our bikes or go exploring in the nearby woods for hours at a time, returning for dinner without worries. We only had a few “Lord of the Flies” moments, but we all lived through them.
The OP was right. These days it would be considered serious neglect, but it was routine life in the 70s.
I still feel really bad for my mom this one time when she sent my brother and me to the “candy store” for cigarettes. From the top of the hill we saw someone scary and didn’t go. We returned home and she opened the door in what I now know was a real jones for a cigarette, only to see us empty-handed. Poor thing, she never let on, but she must have been quite upset.
I was a teenager in the late 70s/early 80s.
showers after gym in middle and high school, you bet.
Spending the entire day, all summer long, out in the extensive forest behind our house. Built treeforts, pit forts and log forts. Also, exploring the abandoned, falling down, thoroughly dangerous pig farm.
Skating down the frozen creek in winter; only fell in a couple of times.
firecracker and bottle rocket wars, aiming for the head, of course.
Major stick fights which ended up with broken fingers occasionally.
Buying beer at 15 without getting carded.
A big 18th birthday party for me and my underage friends, where my parents bought us all a few cases of beer.
The High School had what they called the “Rap Room”, which was where students would go to smoke cigarettes.
I remember going to the store to buy my mother cigarettes. The place was at the end of our block in the house we lived in when I was 4 - 6 years old, from 1958 - 1960. The owner knew me and my mother and would sometimes give me a penny candy.
Mom gave me a quarter for her Wings cigarettes and a nickel for an ice cream cone. If I was lucky, I got two additional pennies to get a two scoop cone.
Ohio is one.
Vaguely related to former kid smokers- some parts of New York have raised the smoking age to 19 because there are many 18-year-olds in high school (and they could buy cigarettes for their friends), but not many 19-year-olds.
One more story, because they’re fun 
I always walked to school, about 1.5 miles. One summer, during 2nd grade on the walk to school there was a dog that was hit by a car an killed on the side of the road. One eyeball was hanging out of its socket onto the pavement.
We all oohed and aahed at the site for two or three days as we passed it. Finally, one of the kids had us gathered round and said, “Look at this! Closer, closer!” When about 5 of us had gathered around really close, he stomped on the swollen eyeball. It popped and sprayed goo everywhere on our shoes and pant legs.
I showed everyone at school all day the goo splatters that were on my pant leg, becoming a minor celebrity for a few days
I don’t get this one! It’s not like bathing suits were invented in 1985! Why insist on nude gym class?
Question: Do kids not shower after gym any more? I didn’t realize this.
My mother used to take us blackberry picking in the woods around our house where the wild blackberry bushes were abundant. (My mother and several of the old women in the family had tried many times to cultivate blackberry bushes- mainly replanting them in gardens closer to the house- always failed, but their wild relatives still flourish.) We never had anything worse happen than some thorn and brier scratches, and came back with bushels of blackberries (man what I’d give for some real bonafide blackberry cobbler “hand made by old maid aunts cutting the flour with tin cups” and some ice cream right now…).
Anyway, today picking wild blackberries is a big No-No because rattlesnakes supposedly look on blackberry bushes as “1BR lofts with exposed beams and chrome kitchen appliances overlooking the park”. I won’t dispute this, but between my own experience and that of the people I knew my family members did this for well over a century and never had a problem.
In addition to the modesty factor it also just seems really really unhygienic (among other things a whole lot easier to pee in the pool).
Peanut butter bans aren’t rampant everywhere. My kids have gone to several public California schools and camps and only one has forbidden peanut butter. Good thing, too, because my son was largely built out of peanut butter, at least for the first 5 or 6 years.
One thing I was thinking of around this time of year: Woolworth’s and other similar stores would have big containers full of real baby chicks and ducks to buy for Easter presents. My mom was a farm girl and we lived in an open area of suburb, so we actually got to raise some a couple of years. The ducks went off to a farm (yes, really) and had been quite affectionate. The chickens went away, too, but I’m not sure where and we really didn’t care by that point because chickens are pretty boring after they get to be teenagers.
What kind of swimsuit do you wear that inhibits peeing in the pool?
From about the age of 8 all through high school (graduated in 87) I’d sling my rifle across my back, drop a brick of ammo in my bag, hop on my bike 3-5 miles out into the country to go shooting.
Can you imagine the horror that would cause today? It would likely make national news: 12 Year Old Boy Caught with High-Powered Rifle. Authorities Say Arrest May Have Stopped a Near-Certain Massacre.
Early to mid 70s: My (morbidly obese) pediatrician always smoked during my appointments. I got allergy shots for asthma. There was a fishbowl of Dum Dum lollipops (with sticks in them!) in the waiting room; you were allowed to take one per visit.
Always walked to school without adults, usually by myself most of the way, though it wasn’t very far, less than half a mile. I was a latchkey kid from age 5 on, like GargoyleWB – the lady across the street was available for emergencies. I mostly played in the woods by the creek with my friends. If I went with my best friend to her house, we had to either go the long way around to the bridge, or cross the creek where it was maybe 30 feet wide using a fallen tree… we fell in a lot. We often picked and ate wild chives and Indian strawberries, and sucked the nectar out of honeysuckle blossoms.
In the mid 80s, when I was in high school, only a few students smoked, but they were allowed to do so outside. Some teachers smoked in their lounge. But a LOT of boys, especially jocks, chewed tobacco. (Wikipedia seems to think they were actually “dipping” rather than “chewing,” but that’s not what we called it.) The drinking fountains were often unusable, plugged with used chaw. Once I spilled somebody’s abandoned Dixie cup of brown spit all over my books by shoving them into a desk without looking first.
In high school photography class, we mixed up vats of developing chemicals without any kind of safety equipment, not even gloves. Stop bath, incidentally, is hell on hangnails. The instructor’s hands and lower arms were stained from doing this for years. He was a recovering hippie who may have smoked too much dope back in the day, and loved to sing “If I Had a Hammer… I’d Hitcha on the Head!” full stop. Repeatedly.
The 30-something high school art instructor (different guy from the photo teacher) carried on a series of (consensual) affairs with female students. The two I knew personally stay in contact with him to this day. He was apparently a decent boyfriend to them, if you disregarded the statutory rape part; he was still considered a good and fair teacher and didn’t play favorites in class. I’m not sure how many adults knew he did this, but quite a few students did.
My family has two sets of contraband lawn darts that come out during family gatherings. We live on the edge, we do.
Riding in the station wagon, all the kids in the back rattling around, completely untethered.
The peanut-butter-and-jelly station at summer camp, there at every meal for kids who didn’t like what was being served.
Do they still make chemistry sets? With dangerous stuff in them?
Also at camp, being enlisted to go drag a drunk counselor out of the woods before anybody found out. I couldn’t have been more proud and honored to be trusted with a grownup secret!
No helmets, no padding, no playdates, we just went out to play.
We (class of 2000) only showered after swim class, and that was done over our suits.