Things that would never "fly" today

[kesslari]

I grew up in a South Jersey suburb of Philadelphia. When I was eight my best friend and I started taking a Saturday class at the Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia. My mom took us to the High Speedline station, rode with us the first time, made sure we knew the route from the station in Philadelphia (16th and Locust) to the museum. After that we went on our own, every week for several years.
Eight year olds riding by themselves on the subway and then walking (again on their own) through downtown Phila.
It was great. The world is different now and I would not have done that with my own kids.

Associated memory - Bruce and I had pleather kids' motorcycle jackets. On one of our first trips into Philly by ourselves we approached a man walking to ask him the time. As we approached, before we said a word, he started mumble-chanting "no money, no money, no money". Bruce and I looked at each other in shock, then cracked up once we past him.

 

[bassdude51]

Blazing Saddles

Ain't that the truth!!!!!!!!!

 

[bassdude51]

Today, we'd die if we had to use these again.

 

[Tom Bomb]

Unmatched master of the mystery meat, creator of the redoubtable Robber's Dog, Rex Jackson, once Minister for Corrective Services in the NSW government, was a fixture at one of our favorite hangouts, after he got out of prison.

We never missed the opportunity to savor a couple of Rex's rascally robber's dogs and a quick cone, whenever we were within cooee of the Park.

He's gone now, old Rex. Took his recipe with him. Try as they may, they'll never top the Robber's Dog.​

Old Rex on the job, way up on Bald Hill, NSW, back in the day.
​

Life will never be the same without Rex Jackson. We press on, reluctantly settling instead for a run-of-the-mill sausage sanga and a gloopy Golden Gaytime. We count our blessings.
​

 

[basscooker]

Yup certainly had our share of equipped gun racks in the parking lot and pocket knives in my HS. Interesting never a shooting or stabbing. Plenty of bb gun wars, car tag, downhill sled races on cafeteria trays during lunch. Dodgeball with the 6" inflated (or mostly inflated) balls. Horse or 21 with the "no blood no foul" rule.

 

[Richland123]

We used to ride the bus to go downtown by ourselves as kids to go shopping.

 

[kesslari]

We used to ride the bus to go downtown by ourselves as kids to go shopping.

You didn't just go to your computer to shop?

 

[Richland123]

You didn't just go to your computer to shop?

Hey, my phone was two cans and a string.

 

[knumbskull]

When me and the kid next to me were messing around in maths class, the teacher grabbed us by the hair and banged our heads together.

Another time a different teacher threw the whiteboard eraser at a kid’s head, hitting him quite hard. He was a bit of a sadist, now i think about it.

 

[sleddogn]

We had a history teacher, big guy, was notorious for hitting kids in head with erasers. If you laid your head down on desk, you could expect one coming your way

 

[Wood and Wire]

At my school kids used to have their guns and rifles on gun racks in the back windows of their pickup trucks all the time. So did the teachers. Most times we didn’t even bother to lock the doors. We didn’t even roll up the windows.
On Thursdays, our Texas History teacher had a “trading post” day, where kids would trade things like Rodeo trophy belt buckles, school supplies, and guns & knives. No one even blinked an eye to say it was bad or wrong. It was just accepted as commonplace.
We never had anything more violent than a fistfight ever occur. Whats wrong now - is you can’t trust people to behave decently.View attachment 4034367

And there was me, reflecting on how nuts it was that we used to get away with making nunchakus and shurikens, in the school workshop classes, and then spend playtime engaged in Ninja Dodgeball.

Holy cow!

Your school wins in a fight.

 

[Wood and Wire]

tear-gassing a high school and saying it was a prank gone wrong

View attachment 4034548

Do kids still burn their schools down nowadays?

That happened twice at my school.

I have to admit that I had a certain degree of admiration, for the level of commitment, disdain, and disenfranchisement it took, for those two kids to lash out in that way.

That's the ultimate punk statement.

 

[Wood and Wire]

Dumbo, Fantasia, Song of the South, Peter Pan, Aristocrats...

Practically everything on the Disney+ service, made prior to the mid-90's seems to now feature an introductory statement, warning that the presentation features insensitive / outdated views / language / representations.

 

[Wood and Wire]

When I was in Junior High School, there was a history teacher/football coach who was a real tough guy. He actually put a kid's head through a slate blackboard. I ended up in his class and I saw the hole in the blackboard. When I went to Senior High School, the same teacher went to that school and h treated me great.

There were several male and female teachers at my Senior High School who dated students and nobody said anything. One teacher even got a student pregnant and she walked around school like that and everybody knew he was the father but he never got in trouble or lost his job.

Sounds like we went to very similar schools - although the only student I remember a teach getting pregnant, was in the early 90's. By that time the school finally started clamping down on teachers dating 6th formers, so that teacher was politely asked to resign, before the student was actually pregnant.

The funniest interaction I remember (that won't get pulled by the moderators) was when a student teacher joined my class, to shadow our teacher.

He was maybe 30, and very handsome, so the girls loved him - except that he was barely 5 feet tall, so the girls towered over him, and he took a lot of flak for that, especially from the boys.

He was always very calm, and took all the ribbing in a good natured way.

After about 3 months, he became our form teacher, and our previous teacher moved on to somewhere else. We'd got used to him, and like every other teacher, was just part of the furniture.

One day, the two class tough guys - proper psychopaths, and of course, the two kids who had that early growth spurt, and were twice the size of everyone else - got into a serious brawl during morning registration.

There was total panic, with kids screaming, and trying to get out of the way.

All of a sudden we hear this kind of "Keyaaaagh!" scream, and we all spin around to see the teach flying through the air, like Bruce Lee, both feet stretched out in front of him. Shirt off, totally ripped torso.

He ploughs straight into the two tough kids, and proceeds to put on this incredible display of martial arts, completely wiping the floor with these two idiots.

Turns out he had recently returned to the UK, and taken up teaching, having had enough of the years of violence being in the Bangkok police force.

Funnily enough, nobody ever gave him any grief after that day.

 

[Flashback Bass]

Do I know you??

Well if you grew up in the 70's we are kindred spirits!

 

[Wood and Wire]

We had a history teacher, big guy, was notorious for hitting kids in head with erasers. If you laid your head down on desk, you could expect one coming your way

You just reminded me of my technology teacher, who amongst other things, taught us about the difference between series, and parallel circuits, by having us stand in a circle, all holding hands, with the kids at each end putting their finger on the contacts on a starter motor.

Another kid turned the motor over, and we all got a hell of a jolt.

Electrocute the kids into passing their exams.

 

[Flashback Bass]

With a simple cocktail of fertilizer, 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.

My friends Father worked for a trucking company and he was always buying fireworks from the drivers for his two boys. Therefore we had an endless supply of fireworks in Central Jersey where they were illegal.

We used to play a fun game with dog turds left on the curb in the neighborhood. We would stick a firecracker under the turd and we all had to stand around while it was lit. Once the fuse was sparking you were allowed to run. When my friends little brother stumbled as he turned to run the firecracker went off. His Mother ended up having to take him to the Doctor to have the turd particle removed from his ear!

The other firecracker game we used to play was "Catch The Cork". My Father invented this game. He took a 6" length of chrome thin wall sink drain pipe and filed a triangular notch in the edge. Just enough to allow a firecracker fuse to stick out. He then took a rubber stopper (he was a Chemist), and jammed it in the other end. Then he stuck a firecracker into the pipe and placed it stopper end up and notch end down on a piece of steel channel in the yard. The firecracker would go off and the stopper would go up about 60-70 feet. You had to call it and then catch it with your bare hands. We used to play this for hours on the front lawn. One day while we were playing, my Father came out of the garage with a cherry bomb that had been siting on the shelf above the work bench since we had gone to Florida about five years before. He said: "Let's see ya catch this S.O.B.!" That cherry bomb went off and that was the last we saw of the stopper! Somebody finally found it a couple of weeks later about four houses down the street!

Ah yes, those were the days!

We also used to ride our single speed "Sting Ray" bikes from our neighborhood all the way to Red Bank (about 3-1/2 miles) which to us at 11 or 12 years old was like going to the city. We would hang out there the whole day at Red Bank music and Mr. Pizza Slice.

Also at 13 or 14 we used to take the public bus from Lincroft to Asbury Park for the day! That was about 13 miles. My Parents were either very trusting or very dumb! (Although nothing bad every happened to us.)

We also did BB gun wars again with the Daisy lever action "one cock" guns and the two kids with the Crosman 760's were supposed to only use two pumps. That didn't last long!

You can tell how old everyone is here by them saying "Junior High School". No "Middle Schools" then.

 

[Bass4ThePublic]

Kids today don’t know about duels of the good ole days!

 

[Pimpernel Smith]

I'm so old that, we used to smoke in the classrooms at university.
But pipes were the standard for laboratory work.

 

[WI Short Scaler]

Ain't that the truth!!!!!!!!!

According to an interview I saw with Mel Brooks it almost didn't "fly" back when they made it.

One of my favorite flicks. And I consider it an added bonus that it makes fun of everyone.