Things that would never "fly" today

[two fingers]

I would ride with my big brother in tue back of my dad's pickupnall the time growing up.

We also had BB gun wars. Yes, we went out in the woods and shot each other with BBs.

Metal lawn darts. My brother and I would throw them and trees and other things to make them stick. We would also throw them up and catch them.

 

[bobyoung53]

 

[sleddogn]

BB wars here too. We used ww2 helmet liners with strips of shag carpet protecting our necks. Goggles. Daisy pals, or crossman 760's with max 2 pumps allowed. We each had smoke bombs and pvc pipe with straps for launching bottle rockets (with report ) bazooka style. Shot one of my friends in the wrist, hit his pac man digital watch, it leaked something, he was mad

 

[Ooba Tooba]

I have a newspaper from the Dempsey Willard Heavyweight Championship fight in Toledo in 1919 and in it a writer talks of how biplanes swooped the black only section between rounds for entertainment. Imagine that. Wyatt Earp collected guns at the gate.

 

[Mike N]

Our HS had a designated "smoking lounge" in the back of the school. They even provided ashtrays so the students wouldn't throw their cigarette butts on the ground.

Back in the CB Radio craze we used to divide up into teams of two, buy a six pack of beer, get in the car and drive around during a snow storm playing automotive "Hide-and-go-seek"!

Smoking "bones" on the School Bus on the ride home from school.

Hanging out in front of the Liquor Store until you could find a cool enough Dude of age to buy you beer!

Do I know you??

 

[Wood and Wire]

My friend got given a chemistry set, and became incredibly skilled a turning jam jars into bombs.

With a simple cocktail of fertiliser, and an expendable kid brother, to light the fuse, we used to blow up everything from trees, to dog turds (everybody just let their pet dogs run wild back then, and that was when you required a license to own a dog), all in public spaces.

After a few fun summers of that, the chemistry set got handed down to the middle brother.

Whilst learning the craft of fertiliser bomb making, he managed to trigger a small explosion, that set off a chain reaction, when a flaming particle landed in the large tin of fertiliser (he'd forgotten to put the lid back on).

Fire brigade.

House almost burnt down.

Fireman handing him back the chemistry set, and telling him to be more careful next time.


A couple of years later, the chemistry set secretly got handed down to the kid brother.

He was a little more diligent, mainly because their Mum had banned the chemistry set, and thought it was long gone.

His way of covertly learning the trade, was to crawl under his bed, and perform experiments by torchlight, on a tea tray.

Their Mum called him in to the living room, because their were rabbits on the TV.

When he eventually returned to his room, his bed was on fire.

Fire brigade.

House almost burnt down.

Fireman handing him back some of his burnt toys, and confiscating the chemistry set.


I think these days, the building of fertiliser bombs is somewhat frowned upon.

 

[Bob_Ross]

I seem to remember C. Thomas Howell wearing a dealer hat and smoking a cigar for sure.

C. Thomas Howell was in ET?!?! Geez, if so that would make, what... four movies he's ever been in?

We also had BB gun wars. Yes, we went out in the woods and shot each other with BBs.

Oh man... I still vividly remember the BB gun war we had in my neighbor's back yard the Spring of my senior year in high school. I had seen my buddy -- not just a buddy, but truly one of my best friends at the time -- duck behind the above-ground swimming pool a few seconds earlier, from my perch behind a tree maybe 20 yards away. And I just knew that he was gonna pop up over the edge of the pool eventually, I knew it! He wasn't gonna keep running out from under cover of the pool, he was gonna pop his head up over the edge, I could just sense it. So I casually took aim right at the top edge of that pool, and waited...and sure enough, his head appeared and I squeezed off a round without thinking twice.

Shot my best friend in the face. Direct hit, he had to go to the hospital, the BB was embedded in his cheek an inch-and-a-half below his left eye.

WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH ME?!?!?!?!

 

[Honkey tonk]

 

[buldog5151bass]

After school and on weekends - "be home for dinner" and being free to take my bike anywhere in town, without parental supervision.

Playing with friends in the neighborhood totally without parental supervision. Taking said group to another neighborhood to challenge them in baseball/football.

Playing tackle football.

Dodgeball or kickball where you were supposed to hit the other player as hard as possible.

Kids solving their own disputes.

 

[Honkey tonk]

Pimping beer in the 6th grade , seriously who the shag would buy beer for a kid in 6th grade

 

[bobyoung53]

Me and my buddy used to buy pieces of 1/2" copper tubing and cut it into varying lengths and fill them with match heads we had laboriously cut off earlier and seal the open end end with a hammer, then bring it to the "big rock" across the street, put it on top and drop another big rock on top of it, boom! These things were as loud as cherry bombs and would spray you with copper, I had some little scars on my stomach when I was a kid from doing this.

 

[bobyoung53]

View attachment 4034287

They were a buck a pack in a machine when I quit.

 

[bobyoung53]

I was somewhere around 10, 11, 12 not sure but my father decided he was going to make sure I didn't start smoking so he brought home a big cigar and had me light it up and start smoking it, I liked it and he looked a little puzzled but told me to put it out in the ashtray. Right then one of his mailman buddies came walking along delivering his mail and my father went out in the front yard and started talking to him. You should have seen their faces when I went walking out in the front yard in front of him and his friend smoking the lit cigar. My father never appreciated my sense of humor.

 

[Ostie]

Kind of inspired by another thread....

Seeking stories, memories, anecdotes etc of younger years. A lot has changed as far as what "kids" are permitted to do (and see / hear ). A couple examples: ET, a "classic" family movie with a PG rating, opens with a group of teens at the kitchen table smoking cigars, cussing, and playing poker while "mom" is right there whipping up dinner not even questioning it; another: my HS had a student smoking lounge, an open campus and allowed drinking for those over 18 (in the parking lot) during free periods... Even captured and published in the yearbooks.

Please please please don't take this the wrong direction and get it locked. Lets behave here, folks and have a bit of fun nostalgia for days past. TIA.

When I was in school we had a “drop in center” where you could get a pass from a teacher and go hang out because you were having a bad day....or more likely, just didn’t want to go to class. We could smoke in the parking lot, but drinking wasn’t allowed. The principal explained this to me....in his office.....

My school was in a pretty rural area at the time. I used to ride my non-street legal dirt bike to school every day. Nobody ever said a word. In fact, my shop teacher used to let me work on my dirt bike in class. He was a dirt biker as well and we used to ride trails together after school.

 

[bobyoung53]

National Lampoon magazine. Or even Mad and Cracked from the earlier decades.

Funny, I was just recently thinking of some Lampoon stuff from the late 70s/early 80s when I was an avid reader, and how they 'lampooned' everybody and everything. Some great articles, comics, jokes, insults, etc, all about as un-PC as one could get, but funnier than heck. No flipping way on earth that would happen today...no need to elaborate further.

I loved National Lampoon and one little thing they printed still makes me laugh today when I think of it and I'd get banned here forever if I ever posted it.

 

[Honkey tonk]

They were a buck a pack in a machine when I quit.

They had a machine in an apartment complex next my buddies house, I wana say they cost a buck 25

 

[bobyoung53]

When I was a teenager me and my buddies thought nothing of each buying a six pack and driving around all night, if you got caught the cops would either take the beer or make you dump it out and let you go on your way.

 

[5StringBlues]

Many threads that lurk in TB's past.

 

[bobyoung53]

I was quite a punk when I was a kid, hated by almost every teacher I ever had. I got thrown out of one class one day when I was either in the 7th or the 8th grade and the principal told me to go sit in the science/gym teacher's classroom, now Mr Graham did not like me at all, he told me to go sit way in the back all by myself away from everyone else, he knew........I started making noises, he put up with it for probably 5 seconds, stomped back to where I was sitting in my chair, grabbed me by the hair and pulled me all the way to the front of the room...... while still in the chair..... by my hair. I can still hear the gasps from all the girls in the class. He then pulled me out of the chair, dragged me out in the hall and slammed me against the lockers by my shirt while telling me what else he would do to me if I ever made another peep in his class. I think I was quiet for the rest of his class that day. Another time I got my Junior High school principal so mad he reared back and punched me right in the mouth and knocked me on my butt. I could see the fear in his eyes as I went down (Oh no, my career is over), I never told anyone except for my friends, I knew I deserved it.

 

[Camaro69]

BB wars and the Ditch bring back memories

We played hooky in 5th hour and drank beer at the pool hall before going back to high school to catch the next class