What was it like, when you were a kid?

[OldGuy43]

I remember baseball cards for 5¢ a pack and there was some bubblegum with them. Comic books were actually funny and cost a dime. There were balsa wood airplanes for 10¢ and water pistols for a quarter. Water pistol fights were always a biggie.

Saturday morning cartoons at the movie theater for 50¢ that lasted from about 9:00 am 'til noon. While on the subject of going to the movies you got not only the movie, but Movietone News and a cartoon, and you could sit and watch it as many times as you wanted. Sometimes there was a double feature for the same price. Than came the drive-in's with "buck night", a whole carload for a dollar. We used to stick kids in the trunk. You could get a lot of kids in the cars of those days.

As someone already mentioned, you could actually seat 6 adults in a car comfortably. No automatic transmissions or power steering and the radio made a loud hum while the vacuum tubes warmed up. A heater was optional at extra cost. Convertibles were as rare as hens teeth, and it was a real rarity to see a motorcycle. The smallest engine in a car was a 6 cylinder. If you wanted a four you had to buy one of those funny little foreign cars from Europe.

More later;

 

[yomama]

Quote:
I am pretty sure if adults still played it, we'd all be skinny still. And whose idea was it to tell kids not to run everywhere? I still get that urge and some part of me fights it down! I'm 43 years OLD! Why walk out to the car, when you could RUN?!?!

I can't wait till I can run again. Haven't done it in years. Bad hips have kept me down for some time now. I keep telling my kids "you just wait till I get my new hips, I'll be able to chase you down!" lol!" Well, new hips are in, just a matter of time now. Who knows, maybe I'll take up jogging.

: (yeah right)

 

[Fierlin1182]

I always SAY I'm going to take up jogging...

I only like to run if I don't have to go beyond the point of it actually being called "exercise", lol.

 

[yomama]

Ooooh, I forgot about playing tag, at night. Man that was fun!

 

[BusyBlonde]

When I was a kid, I was responsible for my 4 younger brothers and younger sister. There were 3 channels on TV most of time (NBC, ABC. and CBS), but sometimes PBS would work. My parents called us their remote control and their dishwashers, LOL. When we lived in a 'neighborhood' (acre lots), I would ride my bike all over the place, and my mom never knew where I was - it was okay, as long as I was home by supper time. When we moved to a more rural area, we had a party line, a house that was heated by a wood stove (over 200 years old) with no insulation in upstate NY. We had gardens, raised pigs/chickens/cattle/rabbits, and they were all my responsibility. I had to carry water for all the animals in the winter, from the time I was in the 2nd grade until I was nearly done with high school. We were outside from early am until the sun went down. We kids were also responsible for the gardens, and picking fruit from the orchards.

We lived on a property that had an old rock quarry, so we naturally had rock wars, and in the winter would take our toboggan down the steep slope and hope we didn't hit any boulders left around the area. I taught my brothers and sister how to hang from their knees on branches, ride bikes, identify snakes, etc. There were no computers or cell phones. When I worked for Sears, Roebuck and Co (before it was just Sears), I bought my family an Atari 2600, and we played games like River Raid and Pac-Man. My dad taught me to drive our pick-up truck when I was 14, to gather wood and produce on our little farm. I mowed the lawn with a lawn tractor (a few acres, a lot of off-camber areas) when I was 10 years old until I left home. My dad would play frisbee, volleyball, badmitton, and basketball with us. We had annual family gatherings, and I knew most of my 70+ first cousins. (Yes, my parents had families with large families!).

My dad collected antique automobiles. My summer car was a '46 DeSoto. We went to car shows in the summer. Dad showed a '31 Dodge Brothers. My brother Jim had a '40 Chevy. We were antique car geeks.

Lots more memories, not so much time tonight.

 

[CarolJ]

My childhood years were the 1950s and early 1960s. I remember riding my bicycle or skating all day. Skates were metal and had a little bar that came up over the edges of our everyday shoes - frequently coming loose. And of course we had the skate key to adjust those bars - and also to adjust the length of the skates. The skates had a leather buckle that fastened around our ankles. I walked to school with my siblings - it was over a mile away.

My father was a Methodist preacher, and parishioners would often give us a live chicken and my mother would chop its head off - it would flap around the yard. We were fascinated by the headless chicken - then we'd have fried chicken for dinner. It never crossed my mind to be squeamish about killing or eating the chicken. We also had lots of fresh vegetables - although I think most of them were from neighbors and nearby farmers. At that times, Methodist ministers were transferred to a new church every 4 years. So we lived in various parsonages my entire childhood - and we usually didn't have room for a garden. Although in one north Georgia parsonage we had a huge garden. I would go with my mother to a "cannery" where we'd can the vegetables we picked. I thought that was pretty amazing.

I was one of seven kids. When my mother would make a cake - the nine of us would finish it off in one sitting. We usually had a girls bedroom and a boys bedroom. I slept in a bed with one or two sisters until I went to college. In one parsonage, the five younger kids slept in one room - the three girls in one bed, the two boys in the other.

When we misbehaved, my mother made us go out in the yard and pick the switch that she'd use to "switch" us. It's funny that I don't really remember the actual switchings - but I sure remember having to pick my own switch.

I don't recall watching TV at all. I'm sure we did - but it was apparently quite forgettable. Going to the public library was a big deal, and I read all the time. There was a Coke machine in my elementary school - and I'd save my money so I could take a dime to school to get a cold Coke from the machine. Each classroom at school had a long cloakroom beside it - and all kinds of mischief was carried out in those cloakrooms.

I wonder if the teachers had any idea of all the stuff that went on in there.

Recess was playing Red Rover - and on rainy days we played pick-up sticks inside. Evenings we'd play kick-the-can, collect lightning bugs in jars and play outside in the dark.

Halloween, all the kids would go all over town - never worried one bit about anything other than trying to get as much candy as possible.

When we drove anywhere, we'd all pile into the family car. My favorite "seat" was the back window ledge - a perfect place to curl up and sleep the trip away. There was no such thing as seat belts at the time.

 

[Baymule]

We played tag at night in the summer, then watched the moonflowers open. Sitting up at night to see a total eclipse of the moon was a big deal. No air conditioning, we did have an attic fan. TV was black and white, ABC, NBC and CBS only. Oh and TV went off after midnight, off as in NO picture, no programs, we were treated to a test pattern. Didn't have air conditioning in school until my senior year. Schools had windows that really opened. Did I mention that me and the Neandertal man were a hot item at prom?

We rode our bikes behind the mosquito fogger truck, playing in the fog, cough, cough.

Kids weren't fat. We played outside, we ran, we walked and we climbed trees. Do kids even climb trees anymore? My best friend had a sandbox, it was wonderful what we could do with plastic farm animals, trucks, cars and the occasional doll. I had a Chatty Cathy doll that talked when I pulled the string at the back of her neck.

This is fun.

 

[yomama]

ray's two cents :

I always SAY I'm going to take up jogging...

I only like to run if I don't have to go beyond the point of it actually being called "exercise", lol.

It's funny, my husband, who now jogs training for a new jog, used to say "the only reason to run if is somethings chasing you."​

 

[LittleLady98]

Quote:
How old ARE you?!?!

 

[Fierlin1182]

Quote:
It's funny, my husband, who now jogs training for a new jog, used to say "the only reason to run if is somethings chasing you."

Perspectives change, I suppose.
Totally off on a tangent, but Moulin Rouge used to terrify me as a child.

That's a good example.