Kids these days... When WE were young...

The things you could do as a child!

We had an old and unused parts workshop just over our low-laying back wall, fenced off on either side with a high rise wall for the other neighbors houses. We used to climb over the wall and sit atop a mountain of steel beams and throw unlimited screws and bolts into the over-grown grass, pretending that we were fending off aliens and Russians. Or we'd go out back and take the cars from the machinery section apart, and fit them back together all broken up.

We used to play street wide cricket and baseball, as well as heads and volleys in the alleys! Then when it got dark (as I lived in a cul de sac) we'd play on the pole in the middle, climbing it and running away with it. We'd play knock-a-door-run too. Our fave though was pretend acrobatics over a high rise, rounded wall in one of the front gardens. We also used to wrestle on the roundabout and play trip-me-up too. Also called whippeups. Good times back then. Good times.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

When my "brother" came home from the military I was about 13-14...
He taught me about guns, rock n roll, hunting, smoking, drinking, and going away for long weekends all over the east coast!
That started my childhood #2…LOL

Wow, my best friends older brother filled that same role. I started smoking on his cigarettes. He was the mystery man, we used to sneak into his room and go through his stuff, he had a .22 rifle hanging on the wall, lots of squirrel tails, and heroin and needles in a drawer.

Once, after my friends and I being out in the woods for days...we were so hungry. The first time I ever ate squirrel. BLEK!
But, darnit, I didn't want to go home! So squirrel it was! LOL I was probably about 14 or so…

You reminded me of the boy scouts. Also 14, a days hike up a mountain, hungry as hell and burgers over a fire with flying ants covering it.

mmm… with relish.

I lived in the SIMPS world for 2years then I found this forum

originally posted by: crayzeed
We used to walk miles for pram wheels. You'd get word someone was getting rid of an old pramand we'd go immediately to scrounge it to make our own truckies. Also we'd save our pocket money up for a couple of months to buy a build your own balsa glider. 32 inch wing span. Take weeks to build it, play with it for about a week and always get bored with it and wonder what it would look like going down in flames. Silly now but fun at the time. And don't get me started about "adapting" fireworks, not very PC for today.

And there was me thinking that it was just me and my friends picked up spent fireworks in the hope of making a lot of noise/smoke and fire.
Happy memories

I was an explorer as a kid, lived in Copenhagen, i would travel the whole city on my bike and explore empty buildings, ruins, abandoned factories, hidden back yards, and the many green areas, making sure that no window was unbroken.

Anybody else think about how "back then" "trespassing" wasn't even a thing for kids?

We lived in the country, and I was a tomboy from the get go. We were always in the woods, either behind our house, or across the road, which was awesome, because way, way back, they had a sand pit, and a dump! We would be out from sun up, to sun down, and I don't ever remember being yelled at by other adults for being on their property.


Although I probably should have, when we would sneak out at night, and raid gardens.
I live in the country again now. And even at my age, I still climb trees.

I did a lot of hunting when I was a kid, shot way to many innocent creatures which I now regret, although I guess I wouldn't be myself without those experiences. I loved anything that flew... spent a lot of time designing and building parachutes for army men, even made a working torpedo once.

I use to build rockets, and lego was THE BOMB! I always had a BB gun and we had a huge yard at one stage... If I had a friend with enough balls we would have some BB wars in the epic garden... Building forts and shelters consumed my focus to the point where stepping on a giant thorn wouldn't bother me much, my attention was with the fort/shelter.

Me and my older brother would always make up fun games, rugby in the living room (with living room specific rules), cricket in the hallway or basketball in the pool. I was a real boy when I was a kid, made a lot of mischief, but always did my best to hide from any authority figure. Even punched out my brothers tooth once.. I still feel bad about that

Life as a kid was good... seemed more interesting with all the unknowns, now the world is shades of grey, where it use to be a pastel drawing..

When my parents still had the farm, I apparently was buddy-buddy with the aggressive bull that hated everyone else. I'm told I used to walk around the pasture with him & pet him. I don't remember doing that, but I've heard enough stories about "fearless" little me to believe it. I've also always been fond of high spots, so I climbed up to the top of the metal windmill a LOT. Totally remember doing that, it was fun. If I wasn't bonding with a mean animal or scaling structures, I usually was wandering the woods making up adventures. Or playing with the other livestock. Pigs were fun to play with

We moved to FL when I was about 5, kids biking or playing around the neighborhood solo was as common as common got. We lived real close to the water, too, there was a hidden beach in our neighborhood that most kids went to, parental supervision or not. It was probably around a mile from my house, but we'd hoof or bike it anyway. That was actually a cool trek to get to, through dense canopied (to a kid) FL coastal brush.

One time though, I got my first taste of being grounded goingtoo far from home when I was about 7. My dad was out of the country on a business trip, and my mom was at work. I decided my older brother was being a jerk babysitting one afternoon, and that I wasn't having none of it anymore. I tried to walk the 5 miles or so to where she worked, just slipped out the back door & off I went. I got about halfway before my older brother pulled up in his car, little brother in tow. He was not happy XD