ONLY Read this if your were born in the 40's 50's or 60's

reply to post by xyankee


Great stuff xyankee!

Ahhh the mighty BIKE...didn't get my first one until my 12th birthday (Dad found it at the dump, cleaned it up and gave it a paint job with a brush) lol

- We used to sneak into orchards, steal some apples, or home brew if we could break into the shed!

- We had REAL fireworks (big bangers, red jackets and of course zillions of tom thumbs) and though we sure suffered some injuries, it was jolly good FUN.

- We'd make our own slingshots out of some old tyre inners, shoot-out some street lights, and arrange slingshot wars with the kids down the street...shooting real stones across a creek at each other. Should have lost an eye or two but must have been born under a lucky star

I feel my 9 year old now, that he's not got the freedoms that I had, but probably just as well as I was a real risk taker!

born in the 80s... rules are made to be broken...
But seriously reading your op, i seems like i did/had all of those things as a kid, apart from 24 hour t.v ( which i didnt stay up till)... where the fudge are all the mister whippy's. (ice cream truck) its the middle of the summer and i want an ice cream delivered to me... Genuises is the person who thought of delivered ice cream


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

I grew up in a small, rural town during the 60's. We didn't lock the doors at night and no one had a car alarm. For spending money, I shoveled sidewalks in the winter, baled hay in the summer and delivered newspapers year round.

We had three channels on the TV. On Saturday night, we had TV dinners and watched Bonanza. I didn't know "Wizard of Oz" was in color until I watched it at a friend's house when I was thirteen.

If you were short on grocery money, the grocer would just "write it down" and you paid him back when you could. No one used food stamps. I'm not even sure there was such a thing then.

The police were a couple of local guys doing it part-time in the evening. If they came across a group of kids hanging out on a street corner, they knew everyone and would ask how Mom and Dad were. They might jokingly warn you to behave yourself, then went on their way.

I remember sitting in fruit trees and eating the fruit right from the sorce.Mangos,avos,guavas,grinadelas,oranges,lemons..............Hardly ever got sick,only went to doctor when jou got hurt playing

I can confirm that the makers of Band-Aid and iodine made a friggin' killing off of my childhood days.

And I'm still alive to say so.

How about those memorable TV shows...

-Gilligan's Island
-The Beverly Hillbillies
-Mayberry R.F.D. (Barney, Floyd the Barber, Goober, Earnest TB)
-Bonanza
-The Wild Wild West
-Star Trek
-Alford Hitchcock
-The Twilight Zone
-Mash
-The Brady Bunch (Corny but we liked it)
-Happy Days (You're such a Potsy!, the Fonz)
-Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
-The Carol Burnett Show
-The Mary Tyler Moore Show
-Johnny Carson
-Candid Camera
-The Six Million Dollar Man
-Charlies Angels

Got my first homemade bow 'n arrow at age 6 in 1968... My dad taught me how to make them by soaking the wood in hot water for 30 minutes..

Spent my .25c weekly allowance on things like rat traps because they were so cool

Reading this thread for fun (taking Iran break) and I thought of a real funny one.

Am I the only one to send away for the Sea Horses from the back of a comic book?

Great thread OP

I was born in the late 40's, in a very small town int the northeast here in the states.

The corner store was a mile and three quarter bike ride
.
The ice cream truck was a delivering tractor trailer that would stop, open his trailer door and give us ice cream, before the inter state highways were put in.

We played out side all the time.
.
We raised our own beef, slaughtered a cow every two years, in between we slaughtered a pig. So we raised our own beef and pork

A good part of the summer was spent working the garden, we raised all our own vegetables and mother canned or froze it for storage.

Late in the winter and into summer we helped our father bring cord wood in from the forest. Late summer our father would run a steam engine, which ran a three foot blade to saw wood. Then we would have to split it by hand.

We would collect enough bottles on the side of the road to go a week to 4-h or later, boy scout camp.

We would soak cat-a-nine tails in kerosene and light them to make trails for snow skiing at night.

Only three channels on tv and you had to get up to change the channel. You watched what your parents was watching.

If you had nothing to play with, you made something
.
At night, when you went outside, it was dark, real dark, we had no outside lights and the town had no street lights.

If you went to play with one of your friends, you walk a mile through the woods, waded or swam the river to get there, if was five miles if you took the road.

Originally posted by Tw0Sides

Reading this thread for fun (taking Iran break) and I thought of a real funny one.

Am I the only one to send away for the Sea Horses from the back of a comic book?

We did that too at my house..

Soon after that my little brother bought a "live catch trap" from the back of some mag...

MY dad also built us an electric minibike from 5 dollar plans from same magazine

That thing really had mucho power too..

Originally posted by Tw0Sides

Reading this thread for fun (taking Iran break) and I thought of a real funny one.

Am I the only one to send away for the Sea Horses from the back of a comic book?

No I sent away for those damn things too.

I love this. I was born mid 40's

I remember walking several block to the store at night and not being afraid.

I remember we never locked our doors at night.

Our first tv was black and white and we watched a man wrestling a bear.

We had gas wars with gas about 10 cents a gallon. Cigs 25 cents in the late 50's.

Plus many things others have written about.

I also remember Kennedy and for me, the beginning of the end of innocence.

I remember we believed everything the government and president said was true.

We believed what we were taught in school.

I remember the term 'yellow journalism' which seems to be forgotten by most journalists.

There is a mixture of good and bad (relatively) in both worlds.

Would I go back? No. I prefer the chance to have knowledge readily available even though you still have to search out the truth of everything.

Great thread and ahhh the memories. They were good times.

I must admit I broke the rules by coming in here and I am not sorry I did. I was born in 72 and the OP is exactly how I grew up. Here are a few things that some of you may remember....

Fishing in a creek and no one gave you hard time about a fishing license.

Finding some plywood and making ramps for our bikes.

Walking 2 miles to school every day. It didnt matter if it rained, snowed, sleeted, or was 100 degrees out. We went anyway and we dressed appropriately for the weather. I grew in Pennsylvania and we had some brutal winters. I remember many days walking to school in 5 degree weather and it was -20 with the wind chill. The wind was blowing so hard and it was so cold it almost hurt when it hit you in the face..... so we walked to school backwards.

Anyone else remember when we were outside playing, if we got thirsty we just went into anyone's yard and took a drink from the garden hose?

I have one crummy memory of the "good ol' days"...

CASTOR OIL !!!

Mom forced it down our throats every day.
Ugh !! The worst tasting stuff in the world !

Just thinking about it makes me want to heave.

I was born in1960, grew up in a town of 250 people. It was quiet there, on weekends I would get my younger sister to beg my folks for ice-cream....at dairy queen 1/2 hour drive away....and I would clean the house spic and span, then when they got home they would be so delighted when I asked them to take me to the town where we did our shopping and stuff to go roller skating...no problem!

I got my ears pierced at 15. before that my dad would tell me if I pierced them he would make me wear a bone through my nose.

My folks were musicians so frequently we would have a number of people drop by for a jam session out on the front lawn.

I used to sleep in the back yard on nights when there were meteor showers, there was absolutely no light pollution.

I listened to
Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water
Alice Cooper
BOB SEGER!!
I remember Aerosmith's first big hit

reply to post by SpaceJockey1
oh yes the down hill rides to the DQ and A&W, snow sled racing in the street, the pretend wars with bb guns and sling shots, cap guns to make the noise and smoke, no one lost an eye or got shot , only the pop can or bottle did, and you won the day.
Try that now and the SWAT team would be called out.

reply to post by OldCurmudgeon


LIAR! If you were 48, you would have been born in 1963. The fifties blew by you.

But I get where you're coming from.

reply to post by ANNED


Good Times!

I remember making ammonium nitrate and diesel mix to blast stumps and rocks out of the field at the tender age of ten. Had my first Ruger 10/22 at 8. Still have one.

Kids think MW3 is exciting…they don’t know a thing. Life is much funner than a simulation. And less forgiving...which makes a intellegent person think, before they do.

reply to post by WeRpeons
emergency 51, Adam 12, heart to heart McMillan and wife, Rockford files wild wild west, lost in space, the platoon, Rat Patrol, and Hogans Heroes, Black Sheep, the rifle men not to for get Gun Smoke , Hay Mathew could you lend me 2 bits for a cup of coffee? Festus you old saddle bum,... oh Doc leave him alone here you go, it's on the house . why thank you Kitty.

reply to post by SpaceJockey1


Only Read this if you were born in the 1850s!!!


Even though all the shops closed at sundown and didn't open on a Sunday, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We used to pay a penny for one lick of ice cream, that the whole town used and people actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and throw them at collored people because it was fun and the police encouraged it.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter,milk from the cow,and drank alcohol, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and work or go to school, as long as we were back when the streetlighter came by it was fine.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O..K.

We did not have cars, planes , hate-crimes, women's suffrage, TV ,phones,

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them as long as they were not dying or crippled by polio!

We got TB, Polio, and lost many of out teeth. Our fathers would die in industrial accidents that could have been easily avoided and there were no Lawsuits.

Only hookers showed knees!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt because daddy would drink and hit mommy till so she could not cook.

The doctor would encourage women to smoke and drink through pregnancy.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time....

We were given guns and told to shoot colored people.

We walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or just yelled for them!

Mum couldn't to go to work to help dad make ends meet because we were poor and only hookers had to work!

Everyone made the rugby/football/cricket/netball team or you were queer. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on being AMERICAN

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and throw the blackboard rubber at us if they thought we were even looking at the colored side of the class or were not loving jesus.

We can string sentences together and spell and have proper conversations because of a good, solid one room class that housed the entire school.

Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road so long as he was not black or jewish.

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla', we had good christian names.

white men freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

---

I know that I certainly miss those good ole days in which I grew up in!